Someone is kind of caught up with penises. I wonder what would happen if some strange cloud fell over the city made everyone’s clothes disintegrate all at once. What would liberal Puritans do? Get on Tinder? Never leave their homes again? Find some way to commit suicide as do not to see someone else’s genitalia? I can’t help but wonder-

Churchill has a long list of things that made him a great person, and a long one of things that made him a horrible person. The bathtub scene (also in "The Crown") is definitely in the latter.

So historical films should exclude scenes of historical people doing bad things they are known to have done - even infamous for doing?

We should watch Churchill rousing the British people to oppose Hitler - but omit his blemishes and paint him a flawless?

Talk about political correctness run amok

@2) Some smart fella you are, musing intellectual about everyones' penises. Heavy lifting day for you?

@) I mean what a visionary thought - WHAT IF PEOPLE DID NOT HAVE CLOTHES??? OH MY GOD STOP ALL THE PRESSES MY MIND IS EXPLODING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you see the workplace sexual harassment scene in The Shape of Water? Chilling - and a film worthy of several awards.

Oh, you mean improper actions by clay-footed humans who otherwise are worthy of admiration, not the grotesque advances of a film's vile antagonist? I see.

Yes, we are a messy, flawed species - I thought The Darkest Hour did a fairly good (overly verbose) job on Churchill, and including that bathroom scene actually was critical to knowing that particular historic figure.

@2 - Oh I dunno, I would go find some fig leaves --or oak leaves, to keep it local-- and cover up again (assuming this "strange cloud" [radiation? magic?] didn't also disintegrate trees). Actually, I would probably find about 5 dogs and try to get warm again, because naked = cold and that just ain't no fun!

Anyway, boring thought experiment.

Meanwhile, Skarsgard won and award for his portrayal of one of the worst abusive husbands I've ever seen in any form of entertainment...and Dakota Johnson (Fifty Shades) presented along with Fifty Shades ads being shown throughout the broadcast - somehow I think both those instances are a little more topical to point out than your argument with this piece.

The point isn't that you cover up history but how you present it. If a powerful person forces someone less powerful to be uncomfortable, especially sexually uncomfortable, it shouldn't just be, 'Oh, what a scamp!'

You can have abusive characters, but it should be regarded as abuse. You can have racist characters, but their racism shouldn't be treated as just another character flaw like being irritable, especially if they're in a position to abuse people regularly.

People who do great things can also be shitty, and it's important when portraying that not to lose sight of or excuse or diminish those shitty things.

Say it with me:
"Depiction is not endorsement. Depiction is not endorsement. Depiction is not endorsement. Depiction is not endorsement. Depiction is not endorsement."

See saying it until you understand it.

#11, please read #10 again. And again. And again. And again. Until you understand it.

The problem is not that the harassment was depicted, but that it was framed as a cute comic relief moment rather than a straightforward depiction of a great man's disrespect of a woman working with him.

I remember 50 years ago when film first started to loosen up a little on nudity. For a young fella that was very liberating, also very titillating, so to speak.
But it wasn't long before we heard "where are the dicks?".
So now we know why we never see the dicks. They are just too vile, too disgusting, too...'disturbing'.

@12 You don't want art. You want propaganda.

You don't get both.

If your world view requires constant reinforcement from your stories, art, media, music, theater and film then it's weak shit and will not stand to challenge where it counts.

@14: There are many strains of criticism. Something with perfect lighting but a boom mic always in view will be criticized for that. Something without any plot holes but whose message is, 'And this is why we must eradicate another group of people from our nation' will be criticized for its message, not its plot cohesion.

'The first thing that we demand of a wall is that it shall stand up. If it stands up, it is a good wall, and the question of what purpose it serves is separable from that. And yet even the best wall in the world deserves to be pulled down if it surrounds a concentration camp.'

If you're constructing well-built things for a purpose that is unconscionable, the quality of the thing does not rescue it from being torn down.

This seems totally backwards to me. They could have edited out that scene and contributed to the “Saint Churchill” story. Or they could show the worst of his character, so it’s clear that good men are capable of doing very bad things. How does it help the cause to rewrite history?

@16: Based on Charles Mudede's description (I haven't seen the movie yet), the scene as intended is to contribute to the 'Saint Churchill' story. That is, he was such a focused person he had to save the world & couldn't be bothered not to force his naked body on a young woman without her consent, and him doing this is no big deal. Your sympathies are meant to lie with him, not the person being subjected to that.

As a filmmaking decision, that's what's being criticized, not really the actual historical figure, which is a much larger issue.

History is /always/ being re-written, especially when it's for works of fiction designed to have a concise story with a tight narrative. What you choose to include and leave out are editorial decisions based on what you think is important for the story you're telling and the audience you have in mind. A Kenyan, Bengali, or Australian is going to have a much different view on what's important about Churchill's life than a British person. And a British audience in 1968 is going to be different with different concerns than a British audience in 2018.

A film might show Churchill saying, 'I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.' But if it chooses to treat that statement as a minor detail or another example of him being a 'straight shooter', that's completely different than regarding it as an abhorrent admission of his complicity in starving to death millions of people.

I haven't seen the movie yet

Priceless.

Wait, didn't we already have this discussion?

My Problem with Darkest Hour Involves a Bathrub, a Man, and his Penis by Charles Mudede, Dec 20, 2017
https://www.thestranger.com/film/2017/12…

Plus, as this commenter points out, Churchill gave the poor woman some notice, and she ducked into the stairwell. One can argue that this wasn't good enough, but one can't argue that he just walked out naked.

https://www.thestranger.com/film/2017/12…

Wait, didn't we already have this discussion?

Charles is always willing to flog a dead horse -- if you know what I mean (and think you do!).

This time, at least he has a sad, alkie propagandist to give him a hand for the job.

(Disclaimer for all of Charles' movie reviews: any similarity to any actual movie ever made is purely coincidental.)

@18: Yeah, that is what everyone in the thread was doing & what everyone commenting on a news story or advice column does when they talk about a situation they weren't directly connected to.

Charles Mudede's characterization of the scene may be an inaccurate one as it pertains to this movie; as I said, I haven't seen it and can't find the clip, but that doesn't really change the previous comments or the conversation beyond Mudede's column itself.

But I don't think the comparison to Harvey Weinstein and Charlie Rose are inappropriate, even given the other commenter's recollection from the previous article. LBJ used to force subordinates to have meetings in the bathroom while he took a shit or drop trou in his office to tuck his shirt in. His was not entirely directed at women, but that's the sort of power dynamic and behavior at play in what the Emmys were criticizing.

'No that's not how it was presented in the film, and here's why it's actually respectful for an older, powerful man to treat a young woman subordinate the way the movie actually showed' is a tough gap to cross.

@22: Your comments @10 and @17 were predicated on the movie scene being exactly as Mudede described it. If it differs from his description, then your comments lack foundation. Simple as that, really.

Yeah, that is what everyone in the thread was doing & what everyone commenting on a news story or advice column does when they talk about a situation they weren't directly connected to.

There’s a difference between commenting on a necessarily partial description of an entity (advice column, news story, movie review) and commenting upon the entity itself. For the advice column and news report, there’s no way for the reader or viewer to experience the primary event firsthand. In the case of movie review, the reader just watches the movie. Simple as that, really.

Should you ever actually watch the movie, please recall what Dr. Zaius said: depiction does not equal endorsement.

You don't really care whether anyone watched the movie,

That you hadn't watched the movie was actually the entire point of my first comment.

...will be different depending on the fucking music cues, for godlike.

Exactly. When interpreting a work of art, there's no substitute for having experienced the art.

Taking your argument to the logical extreme leads exactly to what Dr. Zaius was saying: demanding that all art be agit-prop for whatever point of view is "acceptable" at the time the art is made. That would be bad enough for fictional artworks, but forcing well-documented history into whatever today's "acceptable" bed might be is Procrustean censorship.