Sunday, January 10, 2010

Now and Then

The title of this post is actually a movie which happened to be on late-night TV the other day. The movie opens by panning across dozens of classic bicycles, which presumably belong to the group of kids playing 'red rover'. The film focuses on four 12-year-old girls in a small town, in 1970. The girls ride their bicycles everywhere together, even to the next town. The image of childhood is freedom. Even if it is fictional, and set in the past, it still makes me wish that children today could have that degree of freedom. Here's a still from the trailer.

Here's the trailer itself, chock full of bicycling kids. On the downside, all of the grownups drive cars, except for some "crazy" old man who is not in the trailer.


What have other movies taught us about bicycles, cars, and community? What kind of images are today's movies sending?

I have noticed, by the way, that TV commercials almost always feature walkable, bicycle-friendly streetscapes, unless they are advertising a car or car-related product (insurance, drive-through service). Pay attention to this some time - apparently livable communities sell!
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3 comments:

  1. Dottie10 January, 2010 22:09

    Interesting point about livable communities - I've noticed lately that even many car commercials feature such scenery.

    Love Now and Then! I remember Christina Ricci especially :)

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  2. Kyle11 January, 2010 10:44

    I love Regions Bank and Kaiser Permanente solely for the fact that they use bicycles in their ads; Audi, however, is dead to me, for portraying bicycling as difficult and demeaning.

    I came a while ago across an apparently now-defunct blog, Bicycles and Popular Culture. It catalogues in critical narrative the way in which bicycles are always associated in television and films with losers or perverts.

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  3. Christa12 January, 2010 22:01

    Oh I loved this movie! Thanks for sharing. :)

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