Never mind the misogynistic dysfunction in the relationship that goes on between Fred and Wilma. And to a lesser extent Barney and Betty. How about the blatant cruelty to animals?
Animals that can clearly talk and are intelligent enough to crack jokes and be witty. I especially feel bad for the way poor turtles are abused in this show. :(
So why don't you beg Chairman ObaMao to issue an executive order that the show be banned and burned?
shareThank god political correctness didn't exist back then, or we'd have been deprived of this excellent show.
This also begs the question, how many other wonderful things have been denied existence by those who preach 'political correctness' (or more appropriately *censorship*)
I love the Flintstones and grew up with it. I agree if made in this day and age, it would not be the same, if at all!
There's a reason for that. The Flintstones reflected the times the cartoon was created in. They were struggling middle-class probably in a stone age suburb.
Bowling was popular then. So much of their lifestyle reminds me of my Aunt and Uncle. My uncle wasn't loud like Fred but he loved his bowling and I think he worked for some concrete place.
They were the cartoon version of The Honeymooners.
The modern appliances reflected so much of the typical modern appliances of the day in everyone's kitchen, with the exception that pre-historic animals were used instead of motors. lol. Oh, that's where you're having a problem.
I always loved the creativity of their creature slaves.
The only cartoon that ever bothered me and did since I was a young child and a cat-lover, was Tom & Jerry. I wanted to like it because of the cat but I hated how he was treated.
And just once I would have liked to see Sylvester swallow Tweety.
Road-Runner eventually got on my nerves too. He was an instigating little bastard who at least should have been run over by a truck at least once.
Meh, all I see on either side is people that need to learn the phrase "personal responsibility".
Given that art is also a business for most artists, the two are always going to overlap. Yet most of the time people seem to go on attack one side and hypocritically forget the other.
"You should be as offensive as you want! Oh but don't let it worry you it's going to mean you art isn't going to sell well, you are expressing yourself."
or
"How dare your art offends me, I want to make sure people don't buy your product and you suffer who cares if it's how you imagined it!"
Anyone in that line of model should have the freedom to make what they want, and to take the personal responsibility of where it leads them. if you want to make something that's going to offend most people, don't be surprised when that movie is being sold out of small vendors and not a hollywood blockbuster.
And on the flip side, "being fair" is not be all fake rosy. How about being real. There are bad apples in every batch, yes there are bad people, stereotypes and offensive role models in real life, why can't artists be able to represent them in fiction if they want to? If we be fair shouldn't that mean we show all the examples there are to be found, both good and bad?
As an artist they take the personal responsibility that everyone is not going to like it and roll with the punches. You as a mature human being (which you should be) should be able to voice your opinion if you don't like it, but anyone who takes it higher than that really needs to get some better morals. The blame game does not make you cool, it makes you look juvenile.
But I suppose the kicker on the end of this being that while people on the other hand want politics of business out of art, yet how rarely does anyone ever suggest the way to fix that? If we all got set for life and were free to make whatever we wanted, it just be a big popularity contest with everything having equal distribution, but of course no one ever wants that to happen....
The Flintstones is a product of it's times. And by that I do mean to incorporate that things changed as the franchise continued. Could it have offended people in different times, of course. But it should have it's chance and it still does.
Hell politics of not just the social justice reason has put a hurt on the show's presence on cable today, but with home media we are able to buy the show and watch it and judge it for ourselves. Which is what true and mature people should do.
And if i suppose someone out there gets offended about the TC's more satirical post, then they get to speak out just as much as those that like it, but then we agree to disagree and move on with out lives. But I suppose others aren't that mature for some rock hard reason.
Communities left for being out of touch: Gamefaqs, Home Theater Forum
Also left a group on Flickr
I miss TV shows from those days, before the angsty, oversensitive, PC, touchy-feely emo nonsense of the contemporary era.
shareMisogynistic and cruel to animals? Welcome to the 1960s, when most of the women depicted on TV were blissfully happy housewives, and a wife had to be a witch (Bewitched) or a genie (I Dream of Jeannie) to have any mind of her
own at all. As for animal cruelty, zoos back then were small enclosures, circuses
featured bears in muzzles riding bicycles, and a popular attraction on TV and children's school assemblies were chimpanzees who were dressed in little tuxedoes
who performed tricks for audiences of screaming children. The Flintstones
was a product of its time; at least it was a cartoon that was allowed to be a caricature. A lot of live-action shows portrayed similar political incorrectness, too.
I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!
Hewwo.
Good post.
shareIt's a cartoon for Christ sake! Get a life Dragon. If you don't like things such as this, then you have a right... That right is to change the channel.
shareWow no kidding, this is not only a cartoon, it is my all-time favorite cartoon. You don't recognize tongue-in-cheek humor when you see it, apparently!
lol. Interesting though how it struck a few chords.
If one were to dissect it intellectually, it can be looked at as a commentary of the times it was created in. Well, I don't know really how intellectual that is.
Yet, the cartoon definitely earned it's place, if there should ever be a pop time capsule depicting the norm of the current generation.
We have been learning since the days of silent films the power of filmed media. HA! Just look at the first response you got to this thread. What is it that keeps that poor bastard so perpetually angry that the mere mention of that liberal socialist dirty phrase "Politically Incorrect" sets him off into a political spout.
Your fault. The phrase "politically incorrect" contains the word "politically" which at the root is "politics". That is an opening for the media programmed perpetually politically peed-off to jump in. Even though perhaps that person was just innocently checking out the IMDB Flintstones thread because he loves the cartoon.
OR ... his radar for detecting a 60's show (which would be one in thousands) that he knew he could find an opening for his political peed-off personality would get an outlet. He was perhaps too tired to go to the imdb board for the rock opera "Tommy" or the movie "Easy Rider" and be far too outnumbered by those liberals.
What do you think, besides The Flintstones, does this person watch on his TV?
Wonder if Fred and Barney shared the same political beliefs. I always seen Barney as liberal, as well as Wilma and Betty. Fred, well, he'd go with who ever benefitted him the most. He'd like to be a conservative, but Wilma won't have it. So I'd say Fred is a closet conservative.
Media. It's this Brave New World's soma.
Finally, why did I travel over to The Flintstones IMDB board. I don't remember.
The term "intellectual" there implies more elitist thinking. You should be using the term "critically". As in by looking at it, forming an opinion, and making a critical argument to back it up. Such things are not the mark of being intellectual or not. You shouldn't need to be that smart to make one, but the smarter one is the stronger an argument may very well be.
This is a vaster problem than anything politically really. Just the fault of years of faulty education systems and people too busy trying to the poison the well of certain things whether they know it or not.
Anything can be looked at formally or contextually. That's how that school of thought works. While some may have better uses, that somehow doesn't diminish the possibility you could try. And it shouldn't. That was kind of the point of ever having book reports in school, where you could pick whatever you want regardless of what the curriculum writers thought and give it a whirl. Why that's no longer important to a lot of education systems is beyond me.
Communities left for being out of touch: Gamefaqs, Home Theater Forum
Also left a group on Flickr
Humor can be a bit hard to detect in plain text on a message board. Perhaps a winky smiley would have been useful.
shareWhat kind of response did you expect?
shareWhats misogynistic about Fred and Wilma's relationship? Do you think her character would've been better served working as a broker on Wall Street rather than making sandwiches for Fred? Or perhaps, they could've written her in as a fireman.
And not being cruel to animals is not because of political correctedness.
It's just a fun show to watch.
PROFILE PIC:Courtney Thorne-Smith.