Splendor in the Grass

Unsurprisingly for something set in rural Kansas cca 1928, Splendor in the Grassⁱ debuts with the immortal line "No Bud, no." Some teenager in a car refusing to give it up, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I suppose that's where things like the zero no tolerance policy get started.

Seriously, so the girl won't fuck because she figures you don't value her if she does ? Great! Kick her out of the car like the worthless tramp that she is, let her walk home and explain to everyone that can be bothered to ask why exactly is it that she's a failure that has to walk home. All it takes is five determined people per village to fix the nonsense for good, and I guess the continued existence of said nonsense over numerous centuries up until recently clearly proves what worthless, spineless faggots passed for men before 1980. Sad, if you think about it : your dad was a worthless, spineless faggot, and his dad before him. Heck, they probably didn't even get head with any sort of regularity. Puts things in perspective, doesn't it.

I suppose if we were all mentally retarded a la United States / Some Other Backwards Arab Country cca 1960 this'd be a great film, vitriolic to the sixteen year olds, a great rallying point for a certain side at a certain point in a certain debate and so forth. As it happens all that's moot, ridiculous and laughable today. Who'd seriously argue for luminiferous aether ? Consequently, who'd have any use for obsolete, fragile, expensive and awkward instruments created for the very purpose of disproving the existence of something that clearly, obviously and boringly doesn't exist ? Even if they did have the (dubious) distinction of having actually been used to - at least in part - disprove the existence of something that doesn't exist back when "sensible people" held otherwise, they're still what they are : awkward and obsolete.

Here's a naked Natalie Wood instead.

It's fake, which makes it even better than the original.

1. 1961, by Elia Kazan, with Natalie Wood and a very young Warren Beatty. [↩]