There are lots of things that contribute to my liberal tendencies - level of education, family, personal experiences, natural empathy, etc. I don't know that it was a forgone conclusion based on my upbringing that I would have been so. My father was a pretty conservative guy, and I was a weekly Catholic church goer until I was 16, including CCD, first communion, confirmation, etc, though the overwhelming influences of my life were unabashedly liberal. Not exactly tree hugging, granola eating liberal, but liberal.
Occasionally a movie that I remember from my 'childhood' pops into my head, and often they end up on my Netflix queue. The most recent one is a Dustin Hoffman movie Little Big Man. My recollections of it were mostly of its humor, though watching it last night I was reminded how strongly it spoke out against the idea of Manifest Destiny and our country's western expansion. About how horrible we treated the indigenous people of the plains. For 1970 it clearly presaged Dances with Wolves and although not as epic in scope, it hit on lots of the same things, and even portrays life in that era somewhat realistically, even behind the guise of humor.
Having only remembered the funny nature of the movie, I wonder how watching a movie like this on TBS (or wherever) in the early 80's affected my consciousness.
No matter what, I recommend checking it out. It's from an era of Dustin Hoffman that also includes Papillon, a great movie retelling the true story of a French penal colony. He plays a principal but secondary character to Steve McQueen's main character.
8 comments:
I have seen both movies long ago and remember them as being very good films.
Your post strikes me as more of a general musing, rather than specifically making a point.
Are you suggesting that movies you watched as a kid subtly influenced your later political leanings?
For me, I think the amount of awful TV I was exposed to growing up influenced me in many negative ways, and only maybe a couple of positive one. Becoming the eventual liberal that I am, I don't think, was one of them. I don't think I watched too many of those movies in my youth. The closest I would get would be a "Mr. Belvedere" episode on tolerance or something like that.
I think my current political views are almost without any logical explanation. Perhaps it is, as my brother suggests, simply that going away to college gave me "wild ideas."
Definitely a general musing. And some advocacy for Little Big Man.
I got to a fairly liberal state not in undergraduate school, but after living overseas, coming back to work for a non-profit agency for the developmentally disabled, and eventually going to graduate school. I can't say that was wasn't an influence.
I will say that my dad, a huge techie from the 70s, brought home a VCR in 1977 and the first pre-recorded movie for home use I ever saw: Robert Altman's MASH. Had I actually understood the film at that time, its subversiveness may have had an impact. As it was, I remember a woman getting naked in it, and that was about it.
Of all the movies I watched just for the possibility of nudity, generally farther into the 80's and on late-night cable, MASH would not be included.
The television version is hands down a better M.A.S.H. than that of the movie. My wife and I recently watched the movie and we were very let down. Not really much nudity in the movie other than Margret H. dropping to the floor of the shower as the flaps were raised up quickly. You could not see much of anything. Just some skin.
The movie was a much more serious commentary on the absurdity of war. The TV show was, at least initially, mostly a comedy, with few lessons.
As a child of the seventies, any nudity on television was a revelation. We didn't have cable yet, after all.
MASH, the movie, is not family-oriented in the slightest. It's mean, vicious, and sometimes funny. And it played well during the Vietnam years. And, unfortunately, it plays well now for the same reasons.
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