35 Pop-Culture Happenings of Yesteryear That Weren’t Cool Then and Aren’t Cool Now

Problematic pieces of pop culture (man, we wish the word ‘culture’ started with a P)
35 Pop-Culture Happenings of Yesteryear That Weren’t Cool Then and Aren’t Cool Now

People like to say that everyone got so sensitive all of a sudden, but wild concepts like acceptance, gender equality and consent have actually been around for a long time. So you can say that these pop-culture staples were cool back then all you want, but we assure you, they were garnering some serious head shakes and eye rolls decades ago. 

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35 Pop-Culture Happenings of Yesteryear That Weren’t Cool Then and Aren’t Cool Now

Elliot Page

ELLIOT PAGE REGRETS A SCENE IN JUNO. There's a line in the film where his character rejects the name Madison for the baby because it's a little gay. Page has regretted that line since, and even omitted it during a table read years later. It wasn't something I totally registered at the time, but, of course, now that I'm older I do. So many movies I loved as a kid are just rampant with homophobia and transphobia and biphobia, and I'm not excusing it by any means. CRACKED.COM

Alison Brie

Alison Brie regrets voicing a Vietnamese-American on Bojack Horseman. In hindsight, I wish that I didn't voice the character of Diane Nguyen, she said. Her thinking at the time was that the world of animation is different. CRACKED.COM

Viola Davis

VIOLA DAVIS REGRETS HER ROLE IN THE HELP. The actress said that her part in the 2011 film feels like she betrayed herself and her people because the film was created in the filter and the cesspool of systemic racism. She said that the movie was catering to a white audience only, and didn't show them who Black people really were. CRACKED COM

Rudy Giuliani

PD NFD When Rudy Giuliani made a cameo in the Adam Sandler movie Anger Management, he was a fairly beloved figure thanks to his actions following 9/11. Now, though, he's the lunatic with the spray-on hair who did a press conference outside a dildo store. CRACKED

Lance Armstrong

The message of Lance Armstrong's cameo in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was more than slightly undermined when it was revealed that, rather than the heroic champion the world thought he was, he was on industrial amounts of performance-enhancing drugs. CRACKED

Disney Remakes

Disney Remakes Then vs. Now From problematic themes to glossing over the problems Since hindsight's 2020, we can say the whole Princess trope is icky, while still acknowledging the films as classics. Moreover, non-canon films like Moana, Tangled, or Frozen feature complex and badass female characters, while the canon itself only gets a shallow layer of girlbossy pandering, which just makes the original issues stand out even more. CRACKED.COM

Source: Collider
Image Credit: Walt Disney Pictures

Fresh Prince Lyrics

Cringey lyrics from the '80s DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince Parents Just Don't Understand And this girl's hand was steadily moving up my thigh. She had opened up three buttons on her shirt so far. I almost had a heart attack that day. Come to find out the girl was a twelve-year-old runaway. Will Smith was 20 when this was released, and even if the song was about his younger self, he picks up this girl while driving his car. Do we need to keep listing reasons this is problematic?! CRACKED

Source

Dr. Dolittle

Hugh Lofting THE VOYAGES OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE HUCH LOFTINC The original Doctor Dolittle story included a subplot about Prince Bumpo, an African noble whom the good Doctor graciously bleaches white SO he can marry a princess.

The Triumph of Civic Virtue

NEWYORK'S TRIUMPH OF CIVIC VIRTUE IS PROBLEMATIC, AT BEST. Even in 1922, Triumph of Civic Virtue was seen as sexist, and sparked protests at its City

Peter Pan

DISNEY'S CLASSIC PETER PAN (1953) Not only did the What Made the Red Man Red song represent Native Americans as dumb dancing fools, but it actually

Old People Jokes

Old people are bumbling idiots who can't stop sh*tting themselves and breaking their hips after climbing a set Of stairs. Hilarious! Hollywood activ

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