3 ms·
The woman isn't in the room with the men so you are saying he's being polite to film footage. This is an unintuitive argument. If you want to test your theory
by staticman2 10mo ago
The woman isn't in the room with the men so you are saying he's being polite to film footage. This is an unintuitive argument.
If you want to test your theory bring up a game show from that era and see if the male host says "You are attractive" to every young female contestant.
If you don't think that's the same thing the dialogue is too idiosyncratic to be explainable in reference to normal social mores.
- b112 10mo ago[flagged]
- staticman2 10mo agoYes I read your post where you claimed "Back in the day, women expected such complements" Either you meant women expected such compliments broadly (as in a game show) or you meant women expected such compliments if featured in the intro of an IBM OCR documentary where a man shows confusion about a woman on screen. The latter interpretation is ridiculous, yet here we are.
- b112 10mo agoYou seem to have missed the context in the post you replied to, and the original. I've said it several times, he said effectively "why am I looking at this woman", but countered with a complement to ensure his statement was not taken incorrectly. EG, he had no issue with the woman in film visually. You should not be confused, for politeness is not a thing easily turned on and off. It is often automatic. Further, a film is shown to contemporary audiences, and those viewing, audiences of less sophisticated times with media, may find his comment rude otherwise. Viewing another culture is difficult at best, but I find it more so when it's your culture yet shifted by time or location. An example being British vs US culture. The statements are the same, but sometimes subtly the meaning not. This chart is a good example: https://tommccallum.medium.com/british-business-language-translation-85441a4462b5 https://tommccallum.medium.com/british-business-language-tra... Peering into the past is much the same. The language seems the same, but what is conveyed is sometimes different. I think you're really missing my point, and not really attempting to view this 60 year old film as I suggest culturally. Regardless, the main point is... viewing the past needs to be taken without finger pointing. I don't think there is much value responding beyond what I've said. You appear to be slicing concepts out of the whole, and responding to only those portions. Regardless, have a good one.
- staticman2 10mo agoIt's okay that we disagree. However I don't believe I misunderstand your point. The dialogue is almost certainly scripted, presumably by an advertisement professional. You believe you know why the advertisement person wrote it that way. You think the man was scripted to be "polite" to the woman he was watching in the context of the scene and that particular line. You think your understanding of the society of the time explains the line. I offered an alternative interpretation. The advertisement professional wanted to begin with something winkingly sexy so had a bunch of guys say a woman was attractive. I don't even know what to make of the statement that "for politeness is not a thing easily turned on and off." A stock character in an IBM ad doesn't have an internal life so does not struggle to be polite or impolite. This whole framing would make more sense to me if we were talking about a male game show host (a real living breathing person) trying to be polite to a real life female contestant in an old game show.