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Originally Posted by latepaul
Romcoms have been showing stalker-ish behaviour as romantic grand displays forever and whilst people having been calling it out for a while I would say that it's only really in the last few years that they've stopped putting it in movies. So whilst it is problematic Mikey and Steve's relationship is very much a gay version of an existing trope.
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Fair enough. Certainly Fry didn't intend it to be creepy (although my point about surveillance remains!). There was an article in the
NY Times in the past couple of months about the issues of staging classic musicals, naming several current or in the works productions.
Carousel is the most problematic; modern audiences just can't accept spousal abuse as romantic. Another one they mentioned is
Kiss Me, Kate which seems innocent enough to me. That reminds me of a production I saw long ago of
The Taming of the Shrew with Meryl Streep and Raul Julia, which they managed to subvert sufficiently while hewing to the text to make it fun. Not that there should be issues with Shakespeare, which would be going off the end, but there is also some point where a work is sufficiently offensive/not good enough on its merits that it's best served by being retired.
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I've got Funny Girl listed in my Goodreads 'alternate history' shelf. It concerns the rise of a "British Lucille Ball" character.
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I couldn't resist quoting this bit also as a case in point. Several episodes of
I Love Lucy featured Ricky spanking Lucy as the resolution to the antics. As funny as those shows still are, it's hard at least for me to laugh at that.