The awkward and inappropriate rape discussion...

We were just watching PIAS again last night, and my husband and I both thought that this rape joke scene would not fly with modern audiences. In the early '70s, though, it was considered OK and typical.

Where are da white women at ?

(Sorry, just an example. And, this was AFTER PIAS.)

The only time rape is funny... a gay friend and I were watching something about Timothy McVeigh years ago. My friend said, "I'd love to go to prison... just so I could rape his ass... evil as he is, he's still hot... and deserves to be raped."

A moment of politically incorrect zen...

You are remembering a feature film called "The Knack, and How to Get It" (1965). It is British, but not a sketch show. I agree that it is shocking to hear today, but either it was not seen in the same light back then, or perhaps they were making a social comment? Perhaps I am reaching, but I think that the film makers intended it for a reason...what do your think? Did they include this as a parody or social comment or what? Perhaps it was not thought out? Just thrown in for shock value? Talk among yourselves.

Well put. I remember a professor, whom I liked and otherwise respected, using this portion of the script as an object lesson about artistic insensitivity, shifting social mores, or some such. I don't think more than a handful of us had been previously exposed to the movie, and I felt genuinely sorry for the unfornate majority.

I hate to be the guy to mention this film to one of these folks in subsequent years.

"Isn't that the one that tries to joke about rape?" Oy. Might as well spray paint "Culture Ignoramus" on your forehead, if you can make it fit.

"I was nowhere near Oakland!"

>>Don't forget the highly inappropriate joke about suicide in the museum.<<

The joke wasn't about suicide, it was about the fact that Allan was so desperate.

That conversation made me feel a bit uncomfortable but as someone said good friends could easily have a humourous conversation on such a subject.

However there is no way that a odern mainstream movie would include such a discussion.

You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill

Well said. I think the conversation also just reveals, in a funny way, Allan's fear about doing something wrong ("I was nowhere near Oakland!"), as if it were on the same level as rape, and Linda's general goofiness while drinking champagne. Anyway, I think Woody writes women well in some ways, but sometimes their lines sound more like Woody talking through them (I mean, come on, what woman would say the thing about possibly enjoying rape?). This also works well in a way, because all of his movies have that quality of taking place in the Woody persona's head. We're not really getting reality, just his perception of reality.

One thing to remember about these 70s movies is that they came after a period -- decades -- of censorship at the movies (roughly 1934 to 1968, "the Hays Code") and there seemed to be a DESIRE to SHOW forbidden things(sex, nudity, ultra-violence, rape with "all of the above") and to SAY forbidden things (profanity ,but also "politically incorrect" jokes about things like rape and race). Gay characters had not been allowed to be portrayed on screen, nor gay practices shown. Now they could be.

One by one, taboos were discussed and/or shown. Male-on-male rape(Deliverance.) Incest (Chinatown.)

This made for a heady time, and a lot of movies that were not particularly "holiday entertainment for the entire family." Some of these R-rated movies were hits (MASH, Dirty Harry, Straw Dogs) , but a lot weren't. They were just kind of sickening, and audiences didn't go, and money was lost and -- soon the 80's arrived with much more teenage friendly fare.

The rape joke in Play It Again Sam is perhaps a more mild example of this "new freedom of the screen," but with its release being in 1972, it was right there in the heart of the era.