Anyone else miss grit in movies and TV shows?

I am getting sick of the lack of grit in modern Hollywood. I mean it's not just here it is in everything and it takes me right out of the story because I can't relate to these people. Not matter what the setting is or how average or poor the characters are supposed to be the leads now always have perfect teeth and hair, wear designer clothes, have a huge house, they are always in perfect shape even if the character is supposed to work 24/7 and do nothing but eat out, and their houses are always perfectly clean and there is never so much as a dirty dish to be seen anywhere. it doesn't matter if the character is shipwreck, a cop in a bad neighborhood, or from a future where the world has fallen apart all of these things hold true.

Maybe I am alone in this but I miss the 70s when movies and tv had realistic grit to them and they cast people who didn't look perfect and they had people leading realistic lifestyles, whatever happened to that. I mean what happened to our heroes being people like Jim Rockford or Marry Taylor Moore, people who had to make do and live in something that resembled the real world and we could relate to. I am sorry this turned into such a long rant but in the past decade or some I am finding it harder and harder to relate to characters or the worlds they live in when it comes to Hollywood movies and TV shows. Am I alone in this?

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Yeah I hear you I have been on a real 70s kick lately with films and METV(A network that does nothing but broadcast old TV shows over the air)has added a ton of 70s shows to their line up lately and the one thing I noticed was that even the family sitcoms looked more real and had a level of grit to them that isn't present in today's dramas.

What is more I think today's Tv shows and movies are missing a trick because when everyone is pretty and perfect they all look the same. Back in the day an actor's face could draw you in because every line on it could have a story to tell and the viewer would want to know that story.

Oh and as for aspiring to be like the people on Tv these days I think all they are doing is depressing people. At least in the old days on shows like Hill Street blues and Cheers they would show how hard it was being a single parent so if you were watching and you had those problems you wouldn't feel bad about yourself.  Now adays every parent has time for their kids, makes a huge amount of money, and has a house that is magically clean. It creates this image that if you don't have this life that there is no way to get in the real world then you are a bad person. So not only is it unrelatable but it is depressing.

Also modern clean sets call attention to the fact that they are sets, the homes and locations don't looked lived in, there are no dark patches on the walls and now piles of laundry being worked on so I don't buy the locations as places where people live and it hurts my ability to believe in the world the show takes place in.

Oh and don't even get me started on the number of shows that feature people who work at a desk all day and live off of take out and yet are in perfect shape, I don't believe these perfect looking people are who the show is telling me they are for a moment.  What ever happened to Sipowitz being our image of what a man would look like after twenty years spent mostly at a desk typing.  Oh and don't even get me started on female cast members who are getting so thin they are unatractive and look like they could give you a paper cut and then they insult as by asking us to believe that they live off of a diet of donuts and burgers. How am I supposed to believe anything in this world is real, and if I don't believe in the world why should I be invested in the outcome of the story.

I am sorry maybe I am just an old fart ranting, but I really think a lot of modern Tv shows and movies that could be good are shooting themselves in the foot by making the worlds look ultra fake and giving us interchangible casts of pretty people that we can not relate to or believe in as people.

Let's just say I miss pre-2000s filmmaking in general and leave it at that.

Was there any grit in True Grit?

Now that is lucky.  Where I live we only really get in four stations and luckily one of them is METV so I get to see all kinds of awesome shows, some that I saw a few episodes of in the past and others that are all new to me.  Plus I get a daily dose of Rockford Files and Perry Mason.  i can't ask for much more then that:)

Mrebo said:

I agree, it's not that every or even most entertainment should be dirty, gritty, dark, etc, but that there is a tendency to avoid imperfection. Where is the break-down happening? Are modern tastes simply oriented to superficially perfect fluff?

Perhaps on a related matter, the NYT had an article about the decline of quotable lines from movies. I'm not sure this is true and meaningful or not.

 Yeah exactly, it isn't darkness I am looking for it's the type of lived in detail that you see in the real world so you can relate to it.  I mean you can get whole stories out of someone having trouble paying their bills, or for instance needing to find someone to watch their kid or something like that but these types of stories are completely passed up.  You don't even have to focus on these details for stories just have them in the background of the set, or have them mentioned in passing and have your actors not be perfect pretty people and that will be enough for me.  Right now I am completely draw out of modern Tv shows and movies and have real trouble getting caught up in them because I don't believe that the world or the people in it are real.

Again it isn't dark content, The Marry Taylor Moore show isn't dark to say the least but I still believe she is a real person and I can relate to her because her life isn't perfect and she doesn't seem to have magic money that never runs out.  That is the level of real world detail I am looking for in my Tv shows and movies.  They can still be light and fluffy without taking place in magic land.

Oh and yeah the ratings system is completely messed up, I few years before I was born The Shining was an R rated movie, now it feels PG except for the one nude scene.  Patriot Games was rated R when I was a kid but now adays you will find more sexual content in an episode of The Big Bang theory and that airs in what used to be called the family hour with a TVPG rating, and as for violence well now adays the average TVPG rated episode of something like Castle or CSI is way more violent then that movie was. 

The PG13 rating is a joke, as long as it's an action movie you can get away with dropping the FBomb, having sex scenes, and showing people getting their heads hacked off complete with blood gushing everywhere.  This sort of thing was limited to R rated slasher films when I was kid, but now adays if it's an action movie that makes it fine for kids to watch.  However if a drama like the King's Speech doesn't have any sex or violence and all it does is drop the FBomb a few times, that movie gets hit with an R rating because we can't have kids exposed to that. Unless it Judi Dench saying it right after James Bond has killed a bunch of people then it is fine.

Do I want censorship?  Far from it I am just saying that the rating system is clearly broken and gamed to make sure all action movies are huge hits now regardless of content so I have lost all respect for the rating system and no longer pay attention to it.  The last straw for me was in fact The King's Speech, I bought it on Bluray based on the good reviews but then because of family maters I waited two weeks to watch it because I wasn't about to watch an R Rated movie while keeping an Eye on my little brother and sister and then I put it in and saw that apart from two scenes where the FBomb appears it was the sort of drama film that would have been made in the 40s, and yet somehow it was given an R????  My little brother and sister know not to say that word, so I could have watched it any time in the passed two weeks if I had known.  Then two years later I saw Skyfall in theaters and they were allowed to drop that same bomb and only got hit with a PG13, that was it for me and I have not paid attention to the ratings of films since then.  The whole system is broken and stupid and I just preview films now and then decide if I can watch them with my little brother and sister up.  It used to be that even though I didn't agree with some ratings the MPAA handed out I could at least use them as something of a guideline that would give me some idea of a movie's content before I saw it, those days are gone so I don't pay attention to the ratings any more.

Oh and since then I have watched The King's Speech at least half a dozen times with my little brother and sister up and they have never used the F word in their lives.  Talk about a useless system.

I'm with Ryan. Is there plenty of grit out there, if you know where to look. 

I initially thought this was about the decline of content shot on film. If it was, I might have agreed.

But this just seems like typical "it was better in the old days" malarky. 

How is complaining that things are no longer shot on film(Something that was extremely bulky and expensive)not you complaining that things were better in the old days? The way the sets are set up, how they are lit, and the look of the actors effects what the movie looks like just as much as if it is shot on film or not. How is my complaint any different then your's?  We are both complaining about how the look of modern films and Tv shows takes us out of the story and calls attention to the fakeness of the setting. 

Yes you can find some grit in Rated level stuff my complaint is more about overall tone and the fact that outside of a few gritty cable dramas there is no attempt to place the characters in anything that looks like the real world and that draws me out of everything else.  It use to be that most shows and movies tried to have some form off realism and I just don't see that any more, in the way things are shot or the type of casting that is done.

If I can say one thing in favor of Marvel it's that Agent Caulson and Agent Carter look more like real people then anyone I have seen in non cable series in a long time. I can believe they could duck into a crowd and hide, so they did a good job there.

DominicCobb said:

But this just seems like typical "it was better in the old days" malarky. 

 Agreed.  Well, except for the part where you misspelled malarkey. ;-)

moviefreakedmind said:

TV's Frink said:

Was there any grit in True Grit?

 It was pretty good for a PG-13 rating. It was one of the grittier PG-13 films I've seen that came out after around the mid 2000's, assuming you're referring to the remake of course

 I was referring to a joke.

DrCrowTStarwars said:

How is complaining that things are no longer shot on film(Something that was extremely bulky and expensive)not you complaining that things were better in the old days? The way the sets are set up, how they are lit, and the look of the actors effects what the movie looks like just as much as if it is shot on film or not. How is my complaint any different then your's?  We are both complaining about how the look of modern films and Tv shows takes us out of the story and calls attention to the fakeness of the setting. 

I'm not saying film is better, though I tend to prefer it. I don't have a problem with digital. Film is a tool that less and less filmmakers have the ability to use nowadays. It is a different aesthetic. The fact that it is older doesn't make it better.

And Hayley Atwell is hotter than any woman I've ever met.

I said they were doing a better job.  She isn't that stick figure unrealistic thin that you see 99% of the time these days and I can at least suspend my disbelief with her.

Also when it comes to grit I am stating what I personally prefer and like so yes for me the look of film and having sets and people that look more real world does make something better because I am more invested so I do tend to like old movies and tv shows better.  if that makes me a bad person and an idiot who needs to have a knife put in his throat so he is removed from the gene pool then so be it. I am the most evil thing that has ever existed and I need to kill myself to cleanse the human race of my filth, I can't be anything other then what I am.

That's certainly a reasonable response to what I said.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Let's just say I miss pre-2000s filmmaking in general and leave it at that.

 You and me both.

I like older films better, if that makes me a bad person then I am a bad person.

I hereby dub thee The King Of Defending Against Things No One Said.