Murder by Death (1976) coming from Shout

[snipemonkey]

Originally Posted by classicmaterial

Agree with all of this except for "what was acceptable . . . at the time". It wasn't acceptable then either, it's just that no one in marginalized groups had enough agency to speak out and demand it not be done.

But as Luke Dodge said....we learn from our mistakes

Yup. The dominant (and/or "dominating") group always gets to set the terms of what is "acceptable" or not. This in itself is pretty much a guarantee that someone or other is going to get the short end of whatever stick that group feels like waving around. I agree we shouldn't try to erase the past but a lot of folks act like thoughtfully critiquing the past is the same thing (the all too common "You're harping on that again? Why can't you let it go?" routine). Which is just nonsense.

But anyway: I don't have an issue with something like Murder by Death because Peter Sellers' character is a walking parody/critique of the sort of ridiculous "yellow face" casting that went on in the movies it's making fun of. The fact that he's a white guy playing a pretty terrible caricature is part of the joke. But I can see how this might not land for anyone who doesn't have that meta-knowledge of old Charlie Chan movies going in. So, I dunno...