“That’s so overrated!” “He’s/She’s so overrated!” “They’re overrated!”
If I had a penny for every time I read or heard the word “overrated” as it relates to classic film, I’d be the world’s wealthiest--and therefore best--blogger.
Overrated: To overestimate the merits of; rate too highly.
I don’t know how this term came to such heavy usage. I associate it with people under thirty who happen to see a classic film and come away from it less than impressed. “Yeah, I saw [classic movie title here] and it was okay, but it’s so overrated. Cary Grant is so overrated. John Wayne is overrated. Katharine Hepburn is overrated. Audrey Hepburn is overrated. Bette Davis is overrated.”
This scene from Woody Allen’s Manhattan illustrates so much that is wrong with the term “Overrated”:
Yale: “LeWitt is overrated. In fact,
he may be a candidate for the academy.”
Yale: “Mary and I have invented the Academy
of the Overrated for such notables as
- Gustav Mahler,
- Isak Dinesen and Carl Jung.”
Yale: “ Scott Fitzgerald.”
Mary: “ Lenny Bruce. Can't forget him, can we?”
Yale: “How about Norman Mailer?”
Isaac: “I think those people are all terrific.”
Isaac: “Gee, what about Mozart?
You guys don't wanna leave out Mozart.”
Isaac: “Get her away from me. I don't think
I can take too much more of her.”
What exactly does this “Overrated” stuff actually mean? “That it’s unworthy of its praise”, said a workmate of mine one day last year. He’s a Twentysomething, so you knew that was coming.
There are several reasons why people—mostly young people, but also older people who are unfamiliar with something but when they finally see it they don’t think much of it anyway. Let’s see if I can nail down some of the reasons why something earns the Overrated tag:
1. The Arrogance of Youth. “Unworthy of its praise”, as my colleague said. That’s a hugely arrogant viewpoint, one I take to mean: “My opinion negates all that has come before it! I have spoken!” It’s perhaps an unfair criticism, but it’s natural for the next generation to knock what came before it. However, it’s largely a knee jerk reaction to something but it’s a viewpoint that mellows with time and experience.
2. Overexposure. Take for example Star Wars. A movie which was once considered a towering achievement. It was a box office smash and ushered in new special effects technology, revitalized the Golden Age-style film score, and otherwise entered the popular vernacular. Star Wars profoundly influenced the marketing of movies (for better or worse) and has become a folk tale to people who weren’t born when the movie was released in 1977. However, endless regurgitations of how great it is, with the dialogue endlessly plastered all over pop culture, and its influence over subsequent (lesser) cinematic efforts have made Star Wars into something we take for granted because its presence is so pervasive. The media culture devours and spits out everything new and popular, so all films get this treatment. By the way, I’m of the age group (I’m shoving forty) that grew up worshipping Star Wars, but now I can’t stand it. LOL
Most kids despise their elders’ stories. Imagine having to sit through one’s grandfather reminisce over the Great Depression and how he walked uphill both ways to school every morning, or how about some Baby Boomer’s drug-addled ramblings over how great Woodstock was: “There’s nothing worse than a Baby Boomer reminiscing”, I always say. Isn’t this the same group who said “If you remember the Sixties, you weren’t there.” Those Boomers sure remember a lot about something they’re supposed to forget. However, there is something to be said about the reputation of a film diminishing its impact, but that’s more the fault of media overexposure than anything wrong with the movie itself. I can sympathize with a young person’s point of view.
3. People Only Relate to Their Own Time. People tend to ridicule anything that came before their birth, so the entirety of the world as it once was is closed off to them. Many of them don’t have the ability to view something in the context in which it was made. Any movie, no matter how “timeless” it’s supposed to be, is of the era in which it’s made. Most young people today won’t notice the importance of the scene in Casablanca when the Nazis are drowned out by the French singing La Marseillaise. They merely see it as some silly singing contest. A little research into World War II may help one understand the scene’s original context and imagine what it would’ve meant to the audiences of 1943 (besides being a propaganda tool, of course). I often tell young skeptics to wait a few years until their beloved and revered pop movies and music get skewered by the generation after theirs; it’ll happen, just you wait…
4. Special Effects. According to that same workmate, the shark in Jaws “looked so fake.” I asked him if he thought that CGI effects looked more realistic. He said yes. I then asked if he failed to notice how “fake” and unrealistic the movement was of a CGI animal that was supposed to be running. The thing looked huge, but leapt around as though it had no weight to it. It moved like an object much lighter and smaller than it was supposed to be. It also resembled a video game graphic rather than a living, furry beast. His beloved CGI was already dated and horrendously phony looking and it wasn’t even five years old.
My first reaction to people proclaiming something as overrated is to believe that not much thought has gone into that statement and that they’re dismissing all that was before them because they have the notion that something old is already out of date and useless, like a three-month-old gallon of milk. It’s just not so. We tend to believe that anything of the here and now is somehow superior to what came before it. It’s the assumption that newer automatically means better, when in fact there are things from the now and the then that are worth keeping, while both eras also have elements that can be jettisoned.