Dillards 94: After Counting the Cost

[Cam]

13 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

She must be on a marketing tour, she's on Fresh Air today as well, and talked about watching The Breakfast Club with her then 10 year old daughter. Daughter is now 20.

She plays Joanne Carson (Johnny’s ex) in the new series about Truman Capote (Feud).

I’m not a fan of Maria Osmond, but I read that she was offered the role of Sandy in Grease and turned it down because she disagreed with the sexy transformation at the end. Of course, it was about Maria’s Mormonism, but at least she didn’t cave.

I didn’t hate or love Dirty Dancing or Grease. In their heydey the movies were just fun entertainment but I never obsessed over either one. My gripe is how over hyped the two films have become (I think people can pilgrimage to places where DD was shot). So many tv shows will do Grease themed episodes, and lines and dance scenes from DD are overused, too. I get bored with it. Greased Lightnin’ at a wedding reception? Odd. 

 

Edited February 13 by Cam

[fluffernutter]

@libgirl2 I never realized that was a word or even what she was saying. I had to look up the meaning. 😂 

[Jasmar]

1 hour ago, fluffernutter said:

@libgirl2 I never realized that was a word or even what she was saying. I had to look up the meaning. 😂 

Here ya go!

[FiveAcres]

29 minutes ago, Jasmar said:

Here ya go!

This is the way I feel when I check the Urban Dictionary.

[Kiki03910]

8 hours ago, FiveAcres said:

This is the way I feel when I check the Urban Dictionary.

I have to confess I love Urban Dictionary. Where else would I have learned the word "polterwang"?

[Maggie Mae]

17 hours ago, Cam said:

 didn’t hate or love Dirty Dancing or Grease. 

I loved them both, but I really just loved the music and the fantasy aspect/setting. Grease is, to me, very clearly a satire or parody of those 50s films and also plays on nostalgia. Like Happy Days, in the 70s, people liked films and shows about the 50s. In the 90s, people liked the 70s. So Grease, in the 90s, was like this weird anachronistic film about the 50s with 70s values. So kids watching it in the 90s.mostly liked the music but also it just filled that weird niche. Dirty Dancing just had a great soundtrack and Patrick Swayze at a summer retreat for Jewish people in the Catskills. It's like wish fulfillment for all of us kids whose parents dragged them to the worlds most boring vacation. Of course the main character gets to hook up with the super hot older man who is just troubled and we can fix it with love, right? And then he COMES BACK at the end and is like "no, I like her and we're going to dance!" 

Like everything in Dirty Dancing is so innocent. They meet, they dance, she helps her friend get an abortion, they fall in love, dance, jump and laugh in the woods, dad is a police playing at being a doctor, mom is Emily Gilmore, sister is annoying. And the elderly couple that goes around stealing! It's an amazing film and I love it. The music, the Swayze, Jennifer Grey before the nose job. So good. 

[viii]

I always found Dirty Dancing to be sketchy. She's 17 and he's 25. That's not okay. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

27 minutes ago, viii said:

I always found Dirty Dancing to be sketchy. She's 17 and he's 25. That's not okay. 

The contrarian in me started very young. I was born in 82 and probably didn’t watch Dirty Dancing until I was like 9 or 10 (I had no clue what the abortion plot was about). But literally all of the girls around me thought it was such a great movie. I think I just disliked it because everyone gushed over it. Plus I remember being a kid and thinking, “if this movie was supposed to take place a long time ago, why are they dancing to a new song from the 80s at the end?” 
 

I was that kid. Pointing out movie inconsistencies at age 10 😂 My friends just loved watching movies with me….

[Cam]

I could see why tween and young teen girls would like the movie. The female star, someone not much older than they are, is getting noticed by an attractive guy. Young girls have no understanding of the improprieties of a 17 yr old female with a 25 yr old male. Plus Patrick Swayze’s character is the “good” kind of 25 year old dude, with a heart, lol! Not the womanizing, manipulative kind! And Baby is tryna break free from her parents’ control on her life, which most teens are going thru. So there’s a lot for them to relate to here. 

[CarrotCake]

12 hours ago, Kiki03910 said:

I have to confess I love Urban Dictionary. Where else would I have learned the word "polterwang"?

I love it as well because it is a safe space to look up the meaning of a word. Lots of words I don't dare to just Google 😅

[Maggie Mae]

5 hours ago, viii said:

I always found Dirty Dancing to be sketchy. She's 17 and he's 25. That's not okay. 

It was just wish fulfilment for me.  Hot older dude picks the girl that everyone underestimates, the dumbass with the Ayn Rand novel gets outed as a creep by Jerry Orbach. Lots of teenage girls crush on their dance instructor/teacher/professor/piano teacher/hot man with a pulse. 

I also liked that abortion wasn't really addressed as good or bad, it exists, it solved a problem, and showed why we need legal safe abortions for women. 

[Smee]

On 2/11/2024 at 11:30 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

I remember someone recommending Love Actually to me and I was extremely disappointed. I hated it. I thought the guy with the poster board message was so inappropriate. I was like, dude fucking stop. Move on and find someone else. 

There's a youtube channel called Cinema Therapy where a filmmaker and a therapist talk about the relationships in different movies, and they did an episode ranking all the relationships in Love Actually. The therapist's pick for the healthiest/best romantic relationship (actual #1 was the stepdad/stepson relationship) was the porn movie stand ins 🤣. Because they're the most respectful towards each other and actually care about talking to each other. He did not have nice things to say about Andrew Lincoln's character holding up the signs to his best friend's wife played by 17yo Keira Knightley.

On 2/12/2024 at 9:40 AM, Travelfan said:

I don’t understand why people can’t still appreciate a show/movie while realizing times have changed. I have no problem watching the old stuff and at the same time knowing the mentalities on some subjects have changed. There’s an episode of golden girls where Blanche’s daughter comes to visit and is overweight. The entire episode is based around making fun of her weight. It’s actually fascinating to me as a study of how popular opinion changes over time. I don’t expect characters from 40 years ago to have expressed the opinions of people today. Now as far the actors themselves, if 40 years go by and they personally still have those same opinions and haven’t changed with the times then I may think poorly of them, but I’m not going to think poorly of their character for having the same opinions that were popular at the time they existed. My favorite show of all time remains Cheers, it’s actually on in the background right now as I type. The character of Sam Malone would never fly today, but I still enjoy his character knowing he’s set in the 80s. If there was a character like that in a current show/movie I’d consider him a total jerk.  If Ted Danson hadn’t changed over the years, I’d have an issue with him, but I have no trouble continuing to enjoy Sam. 

I realise times have changed and I don't expect old characters to live up to modern standards. But if I'm nostalgia-watching something like Glee or How I Met Your Mother or Gilmore Girls then I don't really want my kids in the room because I feel like I'd have to pause every couple of minutes to explain why a particular thing is wrong and shouldn't be normalised. And a lot of this stuff (particularly the fat shaming) is still everywhere and insidious, we didn't leave it behind in the 80s and 90s and 00s.

I mentioned The Notebook because I know way, way too many women here in 2024 who are either in abusive relationships or recently struggled to leave them, the data on coercive control is staggering, and a movie that is supposed to be entertaining because it's "romantic" (no one watches it for jokes or action scenes) is there using hot Hollywood actors to sell abuse as romance. It's not a matter of still enjoying aspects while brushing over a few bad one-liners, the relationship is literally the point of the entire movie. And it's an awful relationship that begins with a guy threatening suicide if the girl doesn't agree to go out with him.

[Kiki03910]

7 hours ago, CarrotCake said:

I love it as well because it is a safe space to look up the meaning of a word. Lots of words I don't dare to just Google 😅

I don't even want to think about my Google search history. I use DuckDuckGo these days lol.

[Father Son Holy Goat]

I’m rewatching Scrubs right now and some of it doesn’t age well at all. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, Smee said:

There's a youtube channel called Cinema Therapy where a filmmaker and a therapist talk about the relationships in different movies, and they did an episode ranking all the relationships in Love Actually. The therapist's pick for the healthiest/best romantic relationship (actual #1 was the stepdad/stepson relationship) was the porn movie stand ins 🤣. Because they're the most respectful towards each other and actually care about talking to each other. He did not have nice things to say about Andrew Lincoln's character holding up the signs to his best friend's wife played by 17yo Keira Knightley.

I realise times have changed and I don't expect old characters to live up to modern standards. But if I'm nostalgia-watching something like Glee or How I Met Your Mother or Gilmore Girls then I don't really want my kids in the room because I feel like I'd have to pause every couple of minutes to explain why a particular thing is wrong and shouldn't be normalised. And a lot of this stuff (particularly the fat shaming) is still everywhere and insidious, we didn't leave it behind in the 80s and 90s and 00s.

I mentioned The Notebook because I know way, way too many women here in 2024 who are either in abusive relationships or recently struggled to leave them, the data on coercive control is staggering, and a movie that is supposed to be entertaining because it's "romantic" (no one watches it for jokes or action scenes) is there using hot Hollywood actors to sell abuse as romance. It's not a matter of still enjoying aspects while brushing over a few bad one-liners, the relationship is literally the point of the entire movie. And it's an awful relationship that begins with a guy threatening suicide if the girl doesn't agree to go out with him.

Haha! I’m the mom pausing tv shows or movies so I can tell my kids what’s wrong with it! I’m such a turd in the punch bowl. 

[Travelfan]

2 hours ago, Smee said:

 

I realise times have changed and I don't expect old characters to live up to modern standards. But if I'm nostalgia-watching something like Glee or How I Met Your Mother or Gilmore Girls then I don't really want my kids in the room because I feel like I'd have to pause every couple of minutes to explain why a particular thing is wrong and shouldn't be normalised. And a lot of this stuff (particularly the fat shaming) is still everywhere and insidious, we didn't leave it behind in the 80s and 90s and 00s.

Wow I’m feeling ancient reading this…I still consider all of those “new shows” 🤣 I’m only 46, but for me time seemed to stop right around the year 2000, maybe because I had my kids in 02 & 03 and I was too busy to keep up with TV/movies. Old shows to me are from my childhood in the 80s and some 70s. Even 90s stuff like fresh prince seems newer, but hey I still consider the family ties episodes with the 4th kid Andy to be new ones.  I see a huge difference from the 80s to now, but everything from 2000 on to me seems exactly the same. I actually started to rewatch House again recently and was shocked to realize it is 20 years old!!  2004 seems like yesterday. I think a large part is the fashion. I can watch an episode of House from 2004 and it doesn’t “look” old. But in the 90s if I was watching an episode of Mary Tyler Moore from the 70s the clothes were so outdated!  Fashion used to change much more quickly. Look at any 80s show that lasted 6+ years and you’ll see a drastic difference in dress/appearance in the early vs later episodes. 

[Maggie Mae]

5 hours ago, Smee said:

I realise times have changed and I don't expect old characters to live up to modern standards. But if I'm nostalgia-watching something like Glee or How I Met Your Mother or Gilmore Girls 

Um, excuse you. How I Met Your Mother and Glee are not "old" shows. 

[Smee]

Haha fair, I suppose 10 years ago is not that old. Still, ask a Gen Z kid how they feel about Barney Stinson. And Glee... well, Glee aged badly as it was airing! It may have just been a terrible show all along. But I love it.

[Sullie06]

I'm re-watching Dawson's Creek. It's so bad. For 1, the series just jumped right into the student/teacher relationship episode 1. And not in a blatantly "this is wrong kind of way." Also nobody talked like they did. Dawson is the worst and Joey is a whiny brat. I'm still enjoying this nostalgia though. Just for record, I'm 41 so this was prime teenage years for me. 

As for a movie that is a perfect capsule of it's time period. The Fast and the Furious is it for me. I mean they were stealing DVD players for their "big haul" and barely anyone had cell phones. God I love that movie.  I also saw a Instagram Reel yesterday that said Dom and Letty are the longest running TV or Movie couple in history. I didn't fact check that but at 23 years playing the same characters, it's gotta be close. 

[OHFL2009]

5 hours ago, Smee said:

Haha fair, I suppose 10 years ago is not that old. Still, ask a Gen Z kid how they feel about Barney Stinson. And Glee... well, Glee aged badly as it was airing! It may have just been a terrible show all along. But I love it.

My husband and I did a binge rewatch of Glee during lockdown and we were constantly saying things like, "Did they really say that?" or "Who thought this was a good plot line for teenagers?"

[JermajestyDuggar]

20 minutes ago, Sullie06 said:

I'm re-watching Dawson's Creek. It's so bad. For 1, the series just jumped right into the student/teacher relationship episode 1. And not in a blatantly "this is wrong kind of way." Also nobody talked like they did. Dawson is the worst and Joey is a whiny brat. I'm still enjoying this nostalgia though. Just for record, I'm 41 so this was prime teenage years for me. 

As for a movie that is a perfect capsule of it's time period. The Fast and the Furious is it for me. I mean they were stealing DVD players for their "big haul" and barely anyone had cell phones. God I love that movie.  I also saw a Instagram Reel yesterday that said Dom and Letty are the longest running TV or Movie couple in history. I didn't fact check that but at 23 years playing the same characters, it's gotta be close. 

For some reason, our cable didn’t come with the WB. I think that’s what it was called in the late 90s. So I missed some shows like Dawson’s Creek when it first aired. I remember really wanting to watch it. Even back then, people were commenting on how the dialogue was ridiculous. They knew back then that teens never talk like that. And the student teacher relationship was supposed to be racy and edgy. Not gross and inappropriate. I remember all the talk of Dawson’s Creek because that’s all I could watch. Shows like Entertainment Tonight talking about the plot lines. Since I could not watch it. I did watch reruns later. And remembering criticizing it for a lot of things. 

[Sullie06]

I remember even as a teenager being creeped out by the Pacey/Teacher relationship. Now as a parent, I would cut a bitch. For real. I don't know what studio exec thought that was a good idea to glamorize for teenagers. 

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

17 minutes ago, Sullie06 said:

I remember even as a teenager being creeped out by the Pacey/Teacher relationship. Now as a parent, I would cut a bitch. For real. I don't know what studio exec thought that was a good idea to glamorize for teenagers. 

 

They did it again years later with a show called Pretty Little Liars. I never watched it. But it’s a lot newer than Dawson’s Creek and there was a teacher/student relationship. And I swear they ended up getting married. WTF?!

[HeartsAFundie]

In the late 70s a show called "James At 15" aired on NBC.  It was about a young man who moved from Oregon to Boston with his family, and how he was adjusting to life in a major East Coast city.  The show was actually an inspiration for "Dawson's Creek" per Dawson's creator, Kevin Williamson.

I recently rewatched the show on YouTube after its star, Lance Kerwin, passed away.  One episode that particularly stood out to me as not aging well was when James' shy, bespectacled friend, 15-year-old Marlene, falls in love with a 20-something handsome guitar-playing street busker who lives in an apartment with multiple fellow street musicians on the other side of Boston.  James and his pals are taking the "T" (Boston subway) at all hours of the night to see these folks and crashing at the apartment all night with these much older people.  Marlene sort of begins a relationship with the busker-mostly kissing and making out-and then proceeds to transform herself a la Sandy in Grease.  Of course, the busker has older women hanging around him and Marlene is jealous.  The high point of the episode is when 15-year-old Marlene, professing her love to the 20-something handsome busker, offers her virginity to him.   Thankfully the busker has some moral code because he politely declines, causing Marlene to storm out in anger. 

As I was 12-13 when this show actually aired in primetime, I know firsthand there was more freedom to be had in the 70s.  But watching it through a 21st century lens put a completely icky perspective on the entire episode.   

 

[viii]

2 hours ago, Sullie06 said:

I'm re-watching Dawson's Creek. It's so bad. For 1, the series just jumped right into the student/teacher relationship episode 1. And not in a blatantly "this is wrong kind of way." Also nobody talked like they did. Dawson is the worst and Joey is a whiny brat. I'm still enjoying this nostalgia though. Just for record, I'm 41 so this was prime teenage years for me. 

I never watched Dawson's Creek when it was originally on TV. I tried to watch it for the first time during lockdown but I just couldn't get behind any of the characters. I feel like there are some shows you have to watch in the moment, and Dawson's Creek is one of them. 

2 hours ago, OHFL2009 said:

My husband and I did a binge rewatch of Glee during lockdown and we were constantly saying things like, "Did they really say that?" or "Who thought this was a good plot line for teenagers?"

OMG. Re-watching Glee is such a wild ride, especially now that I work in a school. Mr. Shue be daaaaaaaaangerous LOL.