Friendly Persuasion
Friendly Persuasioni is some of the lulziest shit yet.
One particular angle into the lulz is "omfg I can't believe how little of the quakerist bullshit these retards have managed to rid themselves of in the intervening two centuries". Because seriously & fo realz, "contemporary" America, if that provincial shithole can thusly be appelated, is definitely a helluva lot more comprehensible to the 1862 Quaker than to the 2018 anythinger. "Revolutionary" Marxism, are you fucking kidding me ? The obnoxious "independent" female's not changed one iota since before lambchops went out of fashion! What "revolutionary", what "liberation", what "culture wars" bla bla ?! Get a hold of yourselves, Old Ma' Birdwell's still runnin' da farm. Very contemporary, just -- as it happens -- not contemporary with anyone who's still alive.
Another particular angle into the lulz is... well...
Thaaaat's right, barefoot missy kissy-kissy. 'Cuz that's how it went, back then : as a 30-something office drone / military man you had your pick of the crop : either the sexually activeii 13 year olds or else the well-worn around the edges 26 yo widows. What's your pleasure ?
Probably the most obvious angle into the lulz, however, is the magical security bubble supporting this cast! This is a selection of men who get shot on barricades, under cannon fire, and die there -- momentarily. They have the common decency to lie dead on the ground for the two minutes the "war" lasts, after which they're back from the dead, shambling about the farm, one arm more or less fastened around their necks...
But wait, there's more! These are women who get caught alone on the farm by marauding troops an' nobody's getting pregnant, not to mention one single stich looser down there! Even the pet goose escapes molestation, because the burnin' an' pillaging confederate revvers burn nothing, pillage some chickens and by next week life "returns to normal", at least as far as Ma' Bidwell's idea of normalcy goes.
But possibly the best part is that this pile of inane nonsense counts as a western. It even has Gary Cooper in it! How the dude managed his usual constipated delivery with a straight face is anyone's guess, but perhaps alcohol ? (Yes, yes, I know, I know, he was only there to fuck the co-starlet, sure, you got me.)
Worth seeing, but preferably in the same circumstances as the male lead. Otherwise...
———- 1956, by William Wyler, with Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Phyllis Love (contrary to what you might think -- 31 years old at the time). [↩]
- And it's well rendered, too. For one instance among many, after the guy kisses her a little she goes by herself in her room and stretches out exactly like a girl that'd fuck if only she knew how. These people evidently knew all about sexually active early teens! [↩]
