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Post by shirleymurphy on Apr 12, 2019 18:28:05 GMT -5
For the purposes of your liked Rascal, Is being a girly girl better than being a tomboy or vice versa for the adventures in Our Gang?
I have to say though that TV Tropes Dot Org is right: at points, especially with Darla, they seem to forget that the female children are just children and all that provocative wiggling and vamping in the musical numbers can make your mouth drop to the floor in the post-Toddlers and Tiaras world.
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Post by mtw12055 on Apr 12, 2019 19:07:46 GMT -5
Tomboy, absolutely. The "girly girls" led to some amusing story lines, but their flirtatious nature doesn't really came off as something a young kid would do. Playful, childlike teasing, I could see. I could also see the sort of reaction Mary Ann had when Jackie insisted she was his "woman." That whole scene is one of the reasons why Mary Ann is my favorite of the Gang ladies.
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Post by malaria on Apr 12, 2019 19:43:39 GMT -5
I was always a face man, hence my preference for Olga Therkow (never mind that she was on screen for a millisecond) and Mary Kornman, who was simply... cute.
By the time the later-era Rascals got into the cutesy musical-numbers stage, in which the little gals could mug and wiggle, I was already getting impatient for the older shorts.
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Post by shirleymurphy on Apr 12, 2019 22:22:56 GMT -5
Darla would be written a lot differently today, for a start.
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Post by mtw12055 on Apr 13, 2019 3:18:34 GMT -5
Little known fact - during the '90s, there was discussion of a sequel to the Little Rascals feature that Universal put out. A deal for some new girl-themed Darla merchandise was discussed and (believe me, I wish this was a joke) the idea was to rebrand her as a "skater chick."
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Post by malaria on Apr 13, 2019 7:30:01 GMT -5
I would have had to go off the grid if such things were allowed to take place. *checks Montana unimproved land listings*
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Post by myhomeo on Apr 13, 2019 15:44:18 GMT -5
Thing y'gotta remember, these shorts were written almost entirely by men and the time period wasn't exactly progressive. So the girls were generally used as props to motivate the boys' actions.
I, myself, feel Mary Ann Jackson was probably the most well-developed girl character in the Gang. She did stuff herself and was rarely just something the boys fought over.
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Post by mtw12055 on Apr 13, 2019 15:56:19 GMT -5
Thing y'gotta remember, these shorts were written almost entirely by men and the time period wasn't exactly progressive. So the girls were generally used as props to motivate the boys' actions. Absolutely. I was just talking about that earlier today. Interestingly, CURLEY was cowritten by McGowan and a couple of female writers. That may explain why the schoolteacher is a bit tougher than Miss Crabtree. That and changing times. |
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Post by malaria on Apr 13, 2019 16:48:04 GMT -5
Never saw CURLEY, or even *knew* about it. I learn such great stuff here.  |
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Post by mtw12055 on Apr 13, 2019 17:41:19 GMT -5
Never saw CURLEY, or even *knew* about it. I learn such great stuff here. Yep, it was one of Roach's attempts at bringing Our Gang back. Bob McGowan agreed to produce and co-write it, but decided not to direct. Those duties were instead put in the hands of Bernard (Barney) Carr, who had previously been an assistant director on the Gordon Douglas Gang comedies. The new cast included Larry Olsen (Cindy Brady's brother), Rene Beard (Stymie's brother), and Billy Gray (Kitten's brother [on "Father Knows Best," that is]), among others. CURLEY was unfortunately banned in Memphis by the Tennessee Censor Board for its portrayal of interracial friendships. It led to a court case between Roach and the Board, but I don't recall the results. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjHroGEi3SoWHO KILLED DOC ROBBIN followed the next year with much of the same cast. Both films only performed mildly at the box office. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rszSvpYxtJsAfter Roach's attempts at reviving his movie career didn't really catch on, he moved to TV. Among the various pilots he produced was yet another Gang-inspired project, THE PUDDLE PATCH CLUB. Word of advice, you may want to watch this last one during an insomnia spell - it'll put you right to sleep. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iT54i5ylMU |
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Post by mtw12055 on Apr 13, 2019 17:41:52 GMT -5
Going back to the girl discussion - I always liked Mary Kornman and Dorothy DeBorba, too. Mary would sometimes fall into Darla territory, but she proved herself to be just as capable as the boys in films like THE BUCCANEERS and OFFICIAL OFFICERS. She's also great in MARY, QUEEN OF TOTS, of course, and even saves the day in BURIED TREASURE.
Dorothy was terribly underused. She even lamented in her later years, "They always gave the boys the best lines."
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Post by malaria on Apr 13, 2019 20:59:17 GMT -5
Hey, she got "I will stick my nose in the mud" as a parody of Chubby's maunderings to Miss Crabtree. THAT was good... But as times go on, plus ca change; the women on SNL complained that guys got all the good lines. Women got lines if they developed their own own characters, a la Roseann Roseannadanna (RIP Gilda) describing Lee Radziwill as "that very skinny lady that nobody knows where she's the princess of."  |
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Post by mtw12055 on Apr 13, 2019 22:43:17 GMT -5
Have you seen the LOVE, GILDA documentary yet? I loved it! Great film by Lisa D'Apolito, who previously had a small role in GOODFELLAS.
Oh yes, the women struggled on SNL for years. The Dick Ebersol era was especially said to have been pretty sexist behind the scenes.
The likes of Dunn, Hooks, Sweeney, Cleghorne, Gasteyer, and Oteri managed to push through, and finally Tina Fey made history as the show's first female head writer. I remember one of the writer-performers (maybe Seth Meyers?) once said that everyone was specifically told to make sure the women had enough to do each week by the time he arrived.
I doubt it's as much of an issue now. Granted, I haven't watched SNL in quite some time. But I haven't heard any complaints about the women being underutilized in a long time.
Going back to Our Gang, it is interesting that the girls never acted as the leaders of the group. There was an Our Gang copycat in Mexico during the '50s called La Pandilla (literal translation: The Gang). The group leader was a young Angélica María who went onto become quite a successful actress and singer.
Walt Kelly would also sometimes put Janet Burston in the role of leader in the Dell Our Gang Comics. Other times, he'd have her getting pushed aside by the boys, only for her to come out on top in the end. Kelly was definitely progressive.
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Post by malaria on Apr 14, 2019 6:45:24 GMT -5
LOL, I generally preferred SCTV, but same deal there, with only Andrea Martin moving (occasionally) to the forefront with her memorable Edith Prickley.
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Post by shirleymurphy on Apr 14, 2019 7:04:26 GMT -5
If the 1994 Little Rascals film had spun off a new tv series, I would have happily auditioned.
As it was, i sold a lot of cheese at Christmas:
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