centrally-unplanned said: I think its funny how, surely prison has always sucked, but the “genre” became this cool outsider story from the 70’s onward for a while as a new twist on the classic man-on-the-fringe tale. And then we kind of…stopped, as I think everyone just knows it sucks now. It is too pedestrian to be sexy. (Pure id thought here ofc)
and beyond trope evolution there’s also the spirit of the times, like in The Glass House there is a black lifer played by Billy Dee Williams (!) who is a political activist trying to change the system from the inside, the idealistic new guard served in Vietnam and has aspirations to reform the system, and the old warden bitterly enumerates all the ways in which the different political factions critique the system but offer no money to improve it, such that the best option is maintaining the status quo.
the ‘60s and '70s were self-consciously a time of change, but of course the drug war continued for fifty years afterwards, racial integration ultimate led to a black president but didn’t usher in the dreams of a radical new society, the '80s brought unprecedented mass incarceration, and of course the crime rate went into a steep decline, something that people still struggle to remember.
what is the political context for a prison movie made today? what are people looking forward to, or in despair over? probably some AI shit.
(also, would the prison movies of the '60s and '70s share any history with the prisoner of war stories of the same era, like The Great Escape or even Hogan’s Heroes? it doesn’t seem like getting captured and imprisoned was a big part of the American experience in WWII like it was for the Russians or indeed the Germans)
I don’t wanna see pretty much any movies made today, honestly, and especially prison movies made today
… but I do hyperfixate a LOT on a particular couple that I headcanon as doing lots of stuff together during their imprisonment, in a certain 1980’s movie
“probably some AI shit” is …an apt description?