Remember watching something in a movie you wanted to repeat? Well, fiction is not only there for escapism; many writers/filmmakers want spectators to be wiser and adapt lessons characters learned to real life. They convincingly use words, directing, cinematography and music to portray emotions. Of course, not every film has a profound lesson in it. Some are pure entertainment or teach bad lessons. And that's ok.
Anime and gaming fan Micu was thinking about what an "awful message" the musical Grease delivers and asked Reddit "What's a movie that teaches a really bad lesson?" She received over 6k responses. Rom-coms and action movies got a lot of smack in the thread. Scroll down for the best ones, and an interview with Micu.
#1
Any movie that teaches the idea that if you're persistent, then you'll get the girl/guy.
Image credits: JoMiEd
#2
just about every rom com that teaches men that 'no' means 'keep trying' instead of 'f&%k off'.
Image credits: daddyshotmess
Micu herself gave some opposite examples—the good lessons. "I recently watched ‘Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop’ which was about loving yourself as well as all your flaws and accepting love from other people. Also, ‘Dead Poet Society’ teaches you to seize the day."
#3
The whole Twilight series. Edward and Jacob are both controlling pricks at best, and Bella is too spineless to put them in their place."My love dumped me, so I'm going to engage in reckless behavior."
"My love is dead, so I'm going to commit su&%#de by cop."
"My love is in a relationship with someone else, so I'm going to try to force myself on her so she will change her mind."
If you want some professional input about how bad the relationships are in Twilight, check out Cinema Therapy on YouTube.
Image credits: DeadpanWords
#4
Grease : If He cannot "rise" to her level - She should "sink" to his.
Image credits: BlitheringEediot
#5
Any romcom. You're about to get married, but you met a really cool person you had a connection with. Now your fiance seemed... Off. They aren't the right person for you. Leave them for that stranger.
Image credits: DIDiMISSsomethin
If Micu was making a movie with an unusual moral, she would want to communicate that good isn't always rewarded with good: sometimes the good goes to bad people instead, to give spectators expectations of "just how the world works."
#6
Cats. It teaches impressionable Hollywood producers that it's a good idea to make a movie like Cats.
Image credits: flychinook
#7
The Sex and the City Movie… and series. Big leaves Carrie time and time again over the years. This teaches that if you stick around your toxic relationship the man might finally change and commit to you…even after 10 years!With that said, I love SATC! Watching it in my 20’s I saw Carrie finally get her man. Watching it in my 30’s I cringe and just wish Carrie would have stayed with Aiden.
Image credits: mizzo0o
#8
13 reasons why. Not a movie, but is basically plays to the fantasy of any teenager who’s thinking of harming themselves how everyone will run around afterwards trying to piece it all together and they’ll still be a big part of peoples lives when they’re gone.The sad reality is that this is not true and it’s a terrible message to give to kids.
Image credits: RavenBrannigan
Talking about sending messages, movies are treated as a powerful tool for propaganda. While today's Hollywood is more influenced by the audience, award shows, and other countries' censorship, from 1934 to 1968, the industry was self-regulated by the strict Hays Code.
#9
Fifty Shades of Grey.It’s a movie about a guy who was ab$#ed perpetuating the cycle of abuse with the thin veneer of “it’s okay because he’s rich and this is how BDSM works.” The f%^k it does; almost all the characters are all sh$^ty people. Period.
Image credits: Lentra888
#10
Most high school movies. There's nothing wrong with wearing glasses. Characters barely ever study etc.
Image credits: eliterule12
#11
Didn't want to let the kids see Jackass. Gave in. Ńext day, the very next day, they were sliding down a staircase in a laundry basket.
Image credits: mediaman54
The Hays Code was influenced by moral panic from spectators and politicians as well, but many of the rules wouldn't fly in todays US. It prohibited things like interracial dating, French kisses, evoking empathy towards criminals, etc. In fact, in one of the movies mentioned in this list, Cinema Paradiso, a filmmaker shares memories of stealing cutout frames of kissing from a small-town cinema in Italy, where they were censored by a local priest.
#12
My Best Friend's Wedding - Hey, I know a way to show my support for my best friend. Lets sabotage his wedding to a perfectly lovely girl.
Image credits: AgreeableShirt1338
#13
Love Story. "Love means never having to say you're sorry!" What the hell were they thinking?
Image credits: NutsAndOrBerries
#14
The intern - teaches if your boyfriend cheats on you because he can't stand how successful you are, it's your fault and you should forgive him
Image credits: misskitten1313
In 1934-1941, as divorce rates grew, Hollywood's screwball comedies, like His Girl Friday, It Happened One Night, and Adam's Rib started incorporating the theme of remarriage, which later was recognized as a subgenre by philosopher Stanley Cavell, who dedicated a whole book to it in 1979 called Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. It's important to note that female characters in these films were independent and still chose to come back to their husbands, even though these screwball comedies show marriage as a miserable situation.
#15
Lots and lots of romantic movies. Maybe you can just walk up and kiss someone like in The Notebook if you’re Ryan Gosling. In reality, though, get consent first ffs.Any action movie where someone disarms someone who has a knife. Don’t try that. If possible, run the fuck away.
Fifty shades of grey. Shit writing aside, that’s not how you do bdsm, relationships or anything in between. It’s not romantic. It’s creepy. Why in the fuck did anyone like that movie?
Image credits: Zeelthor
#16
Oft cited, but for good reason - Revenge of the Nerds. R@#ey stalkers are the heroes here.
Image credits: Old_Year9015
#17
50 shades of gray. Creepy dude gets viewed as elegant and mysterious just because he’s rich
Image credits: CaydeWick
On the other side of the world, the first Commissar for Education in the Soviet Union remembered Lenin saying "that of all the arts, the most important for us is the cinema." He recognized the capabilities of cinema as a thought-shaping tool in a country with a large percentage of illiterate people. The Commisar stressed the importance of showing films in remote villages where people hadn't seen any, thus propaganda there would be even more effective.
#18
Chicken Little oh my GOD that freaking chicken’s father did not give an f about his son until he was the big star of the town
Image credits: itsskylerprobably
#19
40 days and 40 nights. It's about a girl who's a total slot but she decides to challenge herself not to have sex for 40 days. She's doing fine until her friend makes a website about it and a being pool starts. Suddenly everyone is trying to get her in bed.Meanwhile she meets this really great guy who teaches her that love doesn't have to involve sex, you can have a great time and even be intimate without f@#king.
Still, she's so horny, you guys. At the end of the 40 days, she literally handcuffs herself to a bed to keep from letting anyone f@#k her.
The pool is up to huge amounts of money now.
Then her ex boyfriend walks in. He sees her tied up, so he ra&#s her. He claims the prize money and literally rides off into the sunset.
The s*#^ty girl is upset because her awesome new boyfriend might not accept her now that she cheated on him by being r&#ed but it turns out he's ok with it.
Oh wait oops I accidentally reversed the genders of all those characters.
Image credits: Ray_LAC
#20
Passengers with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. It's okay to develop Stockholm syndrome and fall in love with the guy who basically ruined your life and manipulated you.
Image credits: misslemon9
What have you learned from movies? Have you learned the Heimlich maneuver to save a choking person? Threw a similar party to Project X? Became concerned about the fabric of reality and privacy after The Matrix and The Truman Show?
#21
a lot of disney channel stuff aimed at teenage girls. the protagonists are bi&$hy and manipulative and use their looks to get what they want disguised as empowerment
Image credits: Virtual_Smile
#22
Not a movie, but the kids' show "Caillou" is fucking terrible. It's made for kids at the age where they copy everything they see, and the main little fucker in the show crys and whines the whole time, so kids who watch it become insufferable.Bad lesson for kids, good lesson for parents who will learn about "modeling."
Image credits: Bananagrahama
#23
Pretty mild example but Justice League.The moral of the story is basically that a team is nothing without their strongest member. Basically it’s contradicting the moral of what teamwork even stands for in the first place.
Image credits: hmansloth
#24
Hocus Pocus, Max gets relentlessly harassed and bullied almost the entire movie for being a virgin#25
Shrek teaches it's okay to inflate innocent animals into balloons and let them float away to their probable death
Image credits: RekNepZ
#26
Any movie in the 90s with a stepdad. They are always the antagonist and gave a horrible expectation for separated households.
Image credits: Kiljlik
#27
Sierra Burgess is a LoserIt’s ok to catfish a guy because you’re not cool and he seems to really like you anyway. He’ll fall for your true self so it’s all good.
Image credits: JackieWithTheO
#28
Revenge of the Nerds can’t even claim it’s satirical. The nerds are just as bad - if not worse - than the jocks. Yes the jocks started it by running a few pigs through their party. What the nerds do is far worse but really only at the expense of the easier targets - their women.Other than the humility of losing in what is effectively a few competitions they cheat at (along with some Tigers Balm in their jockstraps), the Lambdas don’t really get revenge on the jocks, they take it out on their women.
First they spy on them in the nude. Then they distribute the nude photos to the school. Finally Lewis r*^es Betty Childs. All because like four girlfriends helped the jocks with the pigs?
And the idea that it’s okay because Lewis is good in bed is beyond disturbing. She doesn’t just accept it, she decides she’s “in love with a nerd.” That movie was written by some serious incels.
Image credits: AtomicPunk
#29
Christmas with the Kranks teaches us that adults should not be allowed to spend Christmas however they like, and they must bow to peer pressure and do what other people want them to do.
Image credits: QuietlySmirking
#30
Overboard - she has amnesia so he convinces her she is his wife & mother to his 3-4 kids. Then he has sex with her.So r#^ey.
Image credits: Sparkle__M0tion
#31
Any movie where a couch or car door is used as cover in a firefight.That's concealment really...
A .22 will go through a car door or a couch.
A car isn't even cover like in Jon Wick or anything. Rifle rounds will zip right through unless it's a solid engine block hit.
Image credits: Kunkyskunts
#32
Limitless basically ends with the protagonist winning and succeeding in everything he ever pursued in life while getting back together with the woman who previously wanted nothing to do with him because he did enough super Adderall to be high all the time.
Image credits: zlide
#33
Annie. You'll be fine, as long as a rich old man wants you.#34
I watched Cinema Paridiso recently and a part went like this.Girl breaks up with guy.
Guy wants girl back
Guy decides way to get girl back is to stand outside her house and stare up at her bedroom window
He fully does this for what seems like months in the montage
Eventually she realises what an amazing beautiful and romantic gesture is and takes him back and loves him more than ever
Only bit about that film I didn’t like.
Image credits: fannyfox
#35
Not a movie, but Paw Patrol. All the adults are incompetent and require a kid with 5 dogs to deal with their every problem.
Image credits: 7c518c130a4c
#36
Another movie I think about is Blank Check. Kids can't have fun without money; you can steal a million dollars and splurge for a few days with no consequences; and a grown adult woman can kiss a young boy on the lips and that is not weird or creepy because she's attractive and he's into her.
Image credits: CarefulCoderX
#37
Cheaper by the Dozen teaches that as a parent you can make a selfish decission and it won't matter because your kids will feel guilty if they call you out for that.#38
Reality Bites - Being a miserable, lazy, pretentious asshole who treats women like s#&t gets you chicks while the generous, nerdy, hard worker who does everything to help a girls career gets dumped.#39
Diary of a Wimpy Kid. All 3 (There was never a 4th) films (and the books by extension) teaches readers that You can be an a-hole and get away with it (mostly).
Image credits: Kingofthekaiju1954
#40
Raya and the Last Dragon made no sense!The story "teaches" that you should learn to trust people. Literally everyone they meet gives them a reason not to trust them. Makes absolutely no sense.
#41
Wonder Woman II: Give up on your dreams, you selfish jerk!#42
Mean girls 2
Image credits: Ok-Daikon-728
#43
Something always bothered about Creed 2.The moral of the story was that fighting is not as important as family and health, like Rocky and Apollo experienced, then fighting again becomes a huge risk to everything he loves.. and what does he do... fights anyway.
I always felt the studio demanded a fight so the movie had a climax.. but it made no sense.
#44
Empire Strikes Back- crippled war veteran tries to have a relationship with his son but cuts off his hand. Admittedly not the best strategyfrom Bored Panda https://bit.ly/3EuOcOD
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