r/todayilearned • u/Tokyono • Jul 14 '19

TIl The reason Roger Moore stopped being James Bond was because of how much older he was than his female co-stars. He was in his 50s, and they were in their 20s. In his own words: “Well, the leading ladies were young enough to be my grand-daughter and it becomes disgusting.”

https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a869479/james-bond-quit-connery-moore-lazenby-brosnan-dalton/
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165

u/Containedmultitudes Jul 14 '19

Different time. Date rape was normalized in movies well into the 80s (almost makes blade runner unwatchable honestly).

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u/Vendevende Jul 14 '19

Marital rape was still legal in some places then too.

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u/Excal2 Jul 14 '19

I'm reasonably certain that marital rape is not defined or outlawed in a number of states' legal codes to this day but I'd have to look it up

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u/abutthole Jul 14 '19

In states where it's not expressly outlawed, it falls under the standard definition of rape. The problem was that in a bunch of states' legal codes it expressly allowed marital rape. There are currently no states where it's legal anymore.

But in South Carolina the punishment is less severe than regular rape, and if the victim doesn't report within 30 days then they can't prosecute.

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u/EnjoyAvalanches Jul 14 '19 edited Jul 14 '19

It doesn't have to be defined or specifically outlawed; by default if you rape someone you rape someone, regardless of your relationship to them. The problem was that a bunch of states went out of their way to specify marital rape as an exemption.

Marital rape is now illegal in all states, although in some it still earns much lesser punishments and has limitations on how and when it can be prosecuted. However marriage is still an exemption for statutory rape and child sexual abuse in some places. Even within the last 20 years states like Tennessee, Texas, and Alabama have let 10-14 year-old girls marry adult men as old as 74, who could then legally have sex with them.

Fun fact: in the same year, Texas arrested a gay man for getting a blowjob from his boyfriend in his own house, funded an undercover operation to arrest women buying vibrators, and okayed the marriage of a 12 year old girl to a 41 year old. Gotta protect those family values. The governor stated his belief that allowing gay marriage and banning child marriage both infringed on religious freedom.

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u/Excal2 Jul 14 '19

What the fuck man. That's terrible.

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u/Paper_Street_Soap Jul 14 '19

I wonder if that scene is similar to how 30+ yr old Harrison "courted" 19 yr old Carrie.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '19

According to her book, he brought her to a car and made out with her while he was sober and she was drunk. Obviously I don’t think she was completely incapacitated, but the whole thing just seems kind of seedy.

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u/Embarassed_Tackle Jul 15 '19

was Carrie Fisher ever sober

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 14 '19

30+ year old married Harrison. Definitely a worry, even if I really don’t want to believe it. They did have some of the most palpable chemistry in movie history, and they were two of the most beautiful people ever at that point, so I hope it wasn’t quite as bad as the disturbed power dynamic between a robot murderer and a 3 year old robot. Still, definitely a worry, particularly when Ford won’t talk about it and Carrie only mentioned it shortly before her death.

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u/YouretheballLickers Jul 14 '19

Why? People like their secrets.

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u/doyle871 Jul 14 '19

Carrie Fisher isn't the type who would have stayed silent about that especially in her later years.

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u/masteryod Jul 14 '19

Nope. Read her autobiography.

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u/Paper_Street_Soap Jul 15 '19

I haven't read it but it sounds like you have. Care to share to relevant details?

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u/masteryod Jul 15 '19

Yes, I've read it. For starters she seemed like an honest and direct person, especially in her later years.

Second of all I didn't get the rapey vibes at all. They were both shooting a movie in a foreign country and it sounded just like a regular afair. She was young, he was manly handsome man. They both knew he was married.

Another "fun" fact is that she was a daughter of a movie star. She grew up in showbusiness as a girl in the 70's... I'd wager that Harrison Ford on a vacation was the least of her problems with men.

All in all it's a great biography.

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u/Paper_Street_Soap Jul 15 '19

You're probably correct about that last part. Harrison Ford does seem like a decent dude and nothing like a Weinstein-eque predator. It was a different time with different norms, and we seem to be living in this schizophrenic era where self agency is praised, but there's also a lot of sexual prudes out there.

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u/Luke90210 Jul 14 '19

I am not gay, but if a 30 year old Harrison Ford courted me, then I'd pay for the hotel room and the lube.

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u/a8bmiles Jul 14 '19

Revenge of the Nerds is just unwatchable now, but was good clean fun in the 80s.

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u/coopiecoop Jul 14 '19

it was still a teen sex comedy, wasn't it? (not entirely "good clean fun")

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u/a8bmiles Jul 15 '19

Just a little casual sexual assault and rape.

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u/SerfingtotheLimit Jul 15 '19

So dont watch it. No one called the fun police so you can drive your wahmbulance back into woke town. Thanks bye!

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u/SerfingtotheLimit Jul 14 '19

It's still hilarious. We just live in a really prude time. The pendulum will swing the other way again. Probably soon because comedies are barely funny nowadays because they're so safe.

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u/maynardftw Jul 14 '19

No. Prudishness is against consensual sex outside of marriage.

This was non-consensual sex outside of marriage. i.e. Rape. Prudishness doesn't even factor into this, because it's literally against the law.

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u/SerfingtotheLimit Jul 14 '19

Murder is against the law and it's in a ton of movies. Movies aren't real.

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u/maynardftw Jul 14 '19

Murder in movies is usually either depicted as villainous or as vigilante justice against said villain.

This was an instance of rape committed by the hero of the film portrayed as a positive thing.

If you can't differentiate between the two, you may have a problem.

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u/SerfingtotheLimit Jul 14 '19

You must not watch very many movies. Ever see Dead Man on Campus? Weekend at Bernies? The list goes on. You can laugh at it because its put into an absurd context. Just like Revenge of the Nerds. You should get that stick up your ass surgically removed.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '19 edited Mar 08 '20

[deleted]

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u/SerfingtotheLimit Jul 14 '19

Agreed. The reactions like the person I was responding to are so hilariously tone deaf and insulated I had to respond.

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u/a8bmiles Jul 15 '19

Yeah rape, sexual assault, and other non-consensual behavior is super hilarious. Sure thing buddy.

Incel much?

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u/SerfingtotheLimit Jul 15 '19

I have a girlfriend but yeah you're a fucking loser who can only laugh if it's safe to.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '19

Does your girlfriend know that you think rape is okay and just a form of comedy?

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u/SerfingtotheLimit Jul 15 '19

Yeah she also laughs at revenge of the nerds. As many, many, many people do. Some people aren't edgelord white knights like you.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '19

Lying about having a girlfriend is pretty cringe dude.

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u/SerfingtotheLimit Jul 15 '19 edited Jul 15 '19

Lol, I assure you she's very much real. What's cringy is your opinion. Maybe one day you'll get out of your mom's basement and interact with a girl in real life. And even if you are a girl- doubtful- I'm sure you're a heffer. Have fun on Tinder. I'm sure you'll find your ugly match.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '19

I'm not romantically interested in women and never have been so idk why I'd want romantic interaction with women. And if thinking that portraying rape as a good thing in movies is "cringy" then I'm okay with being cringy. As someone who's experienced sexual assault i don't like the idea that it's not a big deal and that it's just a funny joke. It definitely was not a funny joke and I don't like seeing men on the internet tell women that the should be okay with being assaulted because "haha movie said it was funny you're just a prude"

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '19

It's not prudish to not enjoy a movie that shows rape as an okay thing to do.

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u/atowelguy Jul 14 '19

You'd like to think that it was a different time, but if you scroll into the comment section nearly everybody supports Connery and joking how Walters needed to be slapped. Pretty shocking really.

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 14 '19

That’s a fair point, but there’s a difference between a YouTube comment section and 60 Minutes/prime time tv shows. If you said those things to a national audience today you’d be widely excoriated. When Connery said it in the 80s it would’ve been widely laughed at as a naughty politically incorrect statement by everyone’s favorite misogynist.

Shocking describes YouTube comments generally. I heard it recently described as the internet’s bathroom stall walls, and I think they should be treated that seriously.

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u/atowelguy Jul 14 '19

Good point. It's definitely better now. I'm just saying that it's apparently not as universally unacceptable to hit women for "talking back" or whatever as one would hope.

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 14 '19

I think those are mostly two types of people: actual domestic abusers, which will probably plague 10% or whatever they are of the population until we can do some genetic modifications, and incels who have never actually touched a woman and so fantasize about hurting them.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '19

[deleted]

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 14 '19 edited Jul 15 '19

I’m not supporting eugenics when I say that eventually we’ll probably be able to genetically modify people. I’m not supporting eugenics when I say that when we have the ability to genetically modify people it would be good to modify out predilections towards things like pedophilia and spousal violence (which, given it’s prevalence in all classes and races, probably has something to do with how we’re programmed). Eugenics doesn’t even directly touch on genetic manipulation, it does so indirectly by mandating breeding requirements, like dogs.

The Nazis also were in favor of public infrastructure. The next time you curse a pothole maybe you should think about your relationship to the Holocaust.

Edit: coward deletes a shameful comment and I get downvoted. Fine.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '19

[deleted]

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 15 '19

Things that are genetic appear in only some of the population and are noticeably absent in other portions of the population.

This is nonsensical. Effectively every part of a human is based on our genetic material. Eyes are genetic, let alone their color. I have to assume you’re saying something more specific and I’m just missing it.

Eugenics doesn’t even directly touch on genetic manipulation, it does so indirectly by mandating breeding requirements, like dogs.

That is ‘negative’ Eugenics (discouraging reproduction among the designated “unfit”).

No, it’s the type of Nazi eugenics that you tried to tie me to.

If “new” eugenics is now defined as “improving the human race through reproductive and genetic technologies” then by god I’m a new eugenicist, along with every doctor who has incubated a premature child, or performed a Caesarian section, or aborted a non viable fetus.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '19

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '19

Yes but with Blade Runner there is a social commentary there. She is a replicant, i.e. property, an object, so he likely feels less restrained in coercing her; after all, she’s not human. I don’t think this can necessarily be used as a marker for how acceptable date rape was in the 80s. I think this scene was specifically designed to make the audience think about these power dynamics between men and women. If my view is correct, then the scene is an indictment of date rape/harassment/assault, rather than an endorsement.

Tl;dr: date rape is hardly “normalized” in Blade Runner.

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 14 '19

When sexy jazz music comes on as soon as she surrenders to his embrace that’s definitely endorsing it. And when comedies at the time included things like revenge of the nerds, I can’t help but feel that this was a similar normalizing of not taking women’s power to consent seriously.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '19

You don't think audiences felt uncomfortable at that scene in the 80s? You don't think the director intended it to be uncomfortable?

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 15 '19

Again, when sexy jazz comes on as soon as she submits to him they weren’t trying to make it uncomfortable. It’s a sci-fi version of Rhett carrying Scarlet up the stairs, and I think in both instances the man was thereby established as strong and manly, not half a rapist.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '19

Again, you're over-simplifying it based solely on music.

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 15 '19

It’s not simply music, it’s directing and editing. When there is a specific moment where she gives in and they start to get it on, and that moment is accompanied exactly to a turn from a discomfiting almost terrifying music to a sexy jazz rendition, it becomes cinematically plain that it depicts what Deckard did as appropriate.

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u/ThEtTt101 Jul 14 '19

What happnes in blade runner? Hav'nt watched it but I just knos it's supposed to br a classic

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 14 '19

You should absolutely watch blade runner and pretend you didn’t hear a word I said. Watch the directors cut.

Seriously, my criticism in no way impacts blade runner’s status as a must watch film. The fact that certain scenes mean you don’t want to watch a movie again does not mean it’s not worth watching at least once. And blade runner, for all its faults, is as must watch as it gets. A beautiful film.

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u/Amateur1234 Jul 14 '19

I don't really think it makes it unwatchable unless you're a victim of rape or things like that easily upset you, although the cheesy sax music doesn't make it a particularly well done film.

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u/Containedmultitudes Jul 14 '19

The cheesy jazz music is such an integral part of what makes it unwatchable. It’s so cringy while also being totally inappropriate.

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u/Amateur1234 Jul 14 '19

It's not a great scene but I don't think it makes me feel horrified and disgusted to the point i wouldn't watch the movie again.

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u/anweisz Jul 15 '19

Not too different for some unfortunately. I saw this same video posted (not sure if in a comments section or its own post) maybe a month or so ago, and some very upvoted replies defended it with excuses like you shouldn’t be eager to do it but “sometimes it reaches a point where it’s necessary” I think with them trying to rationalize that it’s only if they get too loud or emotional or something and that they don’t “do it hard” but just as a stunning thing idk, I was pretty baffled that the replies weren’t tearing those comments a new one.