Movies NOT to Pass On

I love movies. I grew up in a house with a large collection of tapes and DVDs and enjoyed watching movies from both the current time and older movies from my parents' generation. As I've become a parent, I often think "is this movie something I want to share with my kids someday?" Today is about the movies that I've looked at and said, "...Yeah, that can disappear from living memory." These are movies that I enjoyed as a kid or teen, but they have aged very poorly.

Don't forget to adjust the tracking!

This list is far from complete, and maybe I'll expand it later. But here's the first few.

No way, no how

Revenge of the Nerds

Every once in a while, I stumble across an article reiterating why this movie should disappear. And they're right. Although it has some fun elements - the end concert is great - the overall film has just the wrong messages. It's homophobic (remember the floppy javelin toss?), misogynistic (panty raids, spycams, revenge porn, rape by deception), borderline racist (joining the all-black fraternity whose only role in the plot is to provide a bunch of big guys at the end to intimidate the jocks), and honestly kinda hates the nerds themselves in how it portrays them. Someone recently pointed me to Real Genius as an alternative. It's got its own flaws, but in general is a much better movie and doesn't make me feel dirty afterwards.

Lethal Weapon

This one is a no-brainer for me. Beyond how Mel Gibson has revealed himself as unpleasant in a lot of ways, the messages of the movies have also aged poorly. In the first film, we have the idea that the murder victim had a same-sex encounter is "disgusting", the plan to put the mentally-disturbed Riggs into sensitive situations (including actively encouraging him to shoot himself), and finally the overall theme that sometimes cops just need to be brutal. The third film opens with a "comedy" section where Riggs and Murtaugh amuse themselves by harassing a random jaywalker to the point of putting a gun against his head and threatening to kill him. It's because they don't want to fill out the paperwork for a ticket, ha ha! Lethal Weapon IV's humor comes almost exclusively from anti-Chinese slurs. Literally the last thing Riggs says to a murdered man (mob middleman, but still brutally murdered by higher-ups) is to make fun of his accent. So glorifying police brutality as the baseline with homophobia and racism as the extras? I have other action films and buddy movies I'd rather watch.

Maybe not?

Animal House

I'm more torn on this one: it's got a brilliant performance by John Belushi and in many ways likes its lead characters better. There's still a lot of "don't expect your college experience to be like this, and if it is like this then get out" in the plot, but it's easier to accept the film's problems. Maybe I'll just watch The Blues Brothers instead for my Belushi fix.

Ghostbusters

Similarly to Animal House, Ghostbusters has me torn. The movie has some iconic elements, but its biggest problem is Bill Murray's Dr. Peter Venkman. I'm not convinced that Venkman believes in ghosts until he has to bust one for the first time: he's introduced as deliberately contaminating an experiment in order to flirt with one of the test subjects. That includes ignoring actual evidence of ESP from the test subject that he's not attracted to!

Ghostbusters is one of those movies (like Top Gun) that I remember the "cool" parts (capturing Slimer, meeting Zuul, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man) but forget the really uncomfortable parts: Venkman just happens to have a potent tranquilizer on him when meeting Dana (Sigourney Weaver) for a date - again, using his research as a dating service! - or Ray (Dan Aykroyd) getting head from a ghost. Are the cool parts worth Venkman? I'm leaning towards "no".

Blazing Saddles

One of the odder movies to include on this list. I loved Blazing Saddles growing up, and it actually has an important message. For good and for bad, society has moved on in some ways: I had to ask my parents what some of the words meant, which is good that society moved on from using them (at least where I grew up). Although we're dealing with a resurgence in bigotry, I don't know if I want to show my children a movie with that many N-words being tossed around. But that's the point! Richard Pryor (one of the writers for the movie as well as a famous comedian and actor in his own right) and Cleavon Little (Bart) had to convince Mel Brooks to include that many slurs as part of the anti-racist theme of the movie. So it's tough. Maybe when the kids are old enough...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I loved the 1980s-1990s cartoon (still do!). For all that I dislike Paw Patrol (side note - watch Bluey instead), one thing it has over the cartoons I grew up with is that it's pretty non-violent. The 1987 Turtles still holds up with both its theme tune and overall humor. The problem is that I remember my parents having to deal with me and my brother beating on each other because we enjoyed the show. So the show is a maybe.

For something both scarier but with a better message, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) blew me away. The turtles act more like teenage brothers (rather than the slightly-immature adults we often see them as) and the climactic action sequence involves at least as much "we need to work together" and "we're not so different" as it does punching. Definitely not age-appropriate for my kids yet, but they'll see it someday.

Other thoughts?

Got any suggestions for movies that aged very poorly that I should reconsider? What did you love as a child but it's time for the movie to fade away?