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I'm guessing you mean comedies then. There are movies like the old "Fu Manchu" movies or "Birth of a Nation" that would not be made now and for good reason.
Several of the "classic" romantic comedies you'd have to change a good deal. The pattern we have of "one is smart and patronizing, the other is stupid if well-meaning" is still done, but nowadays it seems the woman almost always has to be the "smart and patronizing" one. The man pretty much always has to be "Gracie", for lack of a better word, in romantic duos. Oddly I've seen some actresses that seem to complain about that. On TV "The Office" seems to be going back a bit as Erin is definitely the "stupid but well-meaning" person in any relationship she's in.
Moving on "Heathers" isn't that old, but it might be hard to do in our age. Even then it was seen as a bit controversial, but after several school-shootings and terrorism a comedy about a teenage murder spree that ends in a character blowing himself up in front of a public building might be a bit too much.
I've not seen "Breakfast at Tiffany's" but I've heard that Mickey Rooney plays a stereotypical Japanese-American that makes some modern audiences cringe. And "Short Circuit" has a white-guy in "Asian-Indian-face" which offended some people even then. (It kind of does me too, if I think about it, but I still like the movie)
My pick is the Mel Brooks classic "Blazing Saddles". Richard Pryor contributed to the writing of this movie.
I agree with ThomasR's post, especially Fu Manchu and Birth of a Nation.
As well-intended as it may have been, Song of the South (in its 1946 mode) would probably not be made again.
I am not so sure that a movie with the tone of Blazing Saddles would not be made today. It was a trail-blazing (poor pun intended) film, so maybe it does not need to be made.
Same with Airplane. And The Producers (Springtime for Hitler.) It's been done, so why do it again?
Team America: World Police was hysterically funny and is only 6 years old.
To me it took a politically incorrect theme and *broadened* it as offensively as possible, covering all sorts of sensitive subjects.
Good one.
I actually liked that movie; I thought it was pretty darned good in its way.
But yeah, the people in the suits would probably not finance it.
My pick is the Mel Brooks classic "Blazing Saddles". Richard Pryor contributed to the writing of this movie.
ROFL, no, they couldn't, could they? "Hey! Where's the white women at?"
My teenaged daughter watched that for the first time a couple of years ago and laughed her ass off. She also realized why I said some of the things I did all her life (quotes from the movie, like "Mongo love candy" or speaking like Lili Von Schtupp).
I think it may just be the era. Blazing Saddles was made at a time when All In The Family was groundbreaking with saying a lot of things that nobody had dared to say before, and like Blazing Saddles, laughed at the ridiculousness of government and social issues like prejudice. It wouldn't be made now because society has changed.
There's a guy who sits on the corner across the street from the building where I work. He wears ratty clothes, has a gray beard, and shouts gibberish at passersby. I call him Gabby Johnson.
I think Blazing Saddles could be made today if they just stuck to the racial jokes. Its not too far from what Dave Chappele was doing. But the gay jokes? Nope. And the rape jokes ("You said rape twice!" "I like rape".) THAT would never fly.
Something like Birth of A Nation, now I agree that could never, ever get made today.
I also think movies like Lolita could never be remade (didn't they try a few years ago?). I don't think they could even remake Kids, and that was relatively recent.
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