A few different issues here:Lost Highway wrote:The way things are going in the US I’m not as optimistic as you are that Get Out won’t still be relevant in the future. Apart from that, where is the rule that a film has to be a timeless classic ? A film that speaks to our times intelligently may be needed more than now one than one whose issues and values are timeless. The canon of film history will reward those films, but awards can be about now.
I wouldn’t argue that The Stepford Wives is in any way as good a film as Get Out, but it’s the closest comparison I can think of. Don’t we still recongnise the issues it dealt with in terms of feminism and the patriarchy controlling women ?
I agree that Get Out isn’t especially artful in its direction and there were more admireable films out in that regard in 2017. But I love what it does politically, how it does it and how it managed to reach a large audience.
1) "The way things are going" could make Get Out less relevant, and not more. Contrary to what you imply here (and mfunk implies in his post immediately preceeding yours), I don't think the film is about the breakdown of or lack of progress with race relations. Just the opposite, it's a satire of the way that black people and white people are integrating, and more precisely, the anxieties that black people have about that. Race relations were even worse in the 1960s, but a film with Get Out's point of view would have seemed utterly ludicrous then, when white culture and black culture were much more wholly segregated. In a way, this movie is in itself a sign of progress.
To be clear, what I'm saying isn't so simple-minded as 'this film will cease to be relevant as soon as this country has its racial kumbaya moment.' That would be stupid. But even within the context of race relations, the conversations change and new perspectives emerge.
2) Certainly I never said that there's a rule that a film has to be a timeless classic. I was just arguing with the assertion that this one obviously is.
3) Your point about The Stepford Wives is interesting, because in my experience that's actually not a film that's widely discussed and seems almost entirely forgotten by anyone younger than me (I'm 39). I still hear the term "Stepford wife" from time to time, but as far as I can remember it's exclusively as a slur against a certain kind of woman (typically politicians' wives). So to answer your question, no, I think we largely don't "recognise the issues it dealt with," but others' experiences may vary on this point.
Maybe! But it's simply impossible for you to know this with any certainty stronger than a coin flip. And like a coin flip, you're just guessing.mfunk9786 wrote:Re: Get Out - the issues it explores are going to continue to change and evolve, but it will remain prescient for this time period, and when this (by any measure difficult) time period is being discussed, that film will likely be part of the discussion. And considering that race relations never seem to be progressing as far as we all like to think they are in any given era, unfortunately something like this will probably have real-time legs longer than we'd like it to, as well.