Films we wouldn’ t be scene dead in now

It’s two decades since the release of American Pie. But the box office hit would’ve had no chance of being made today, says ANNA BURNSIDE

HIGH-SCHOOL sex comedy American Pie proved a big blockbuster in 1999 – but there’s no chance it would have been made today.

Everyone still enjoys a laugh and teenagers are still obsessed with sex. But a tone-deaf film about four white lads desperate to lose their virginity before prom would look very different today.

Now, when women can be Ghostbusters and Marvel heroes, it’s not acceptable for the girls to be nothing but plot devices.

But American Pie is far from the only movie that would be deemed unacceptable in 2019.

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S

Audrey Hepburn’s iconic turn as Holly Golightly was undermined by the inexplicable casting of Mickey Rooney as her Japanese neighbour Mr Yunioshi. The plot – teenage runaway marries a much older man who is kind to her, then lives the high life in New York by sponging off men – might also raise eyebrows.

STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE

Clumsy comedy character Jar Jar Binks has long dreadlock-like ears and a cartoonish Jamaican accent. Watto, a Tatooine junk dealer, has a hook nose, Yiddish accent and makes gags about money. The greedy, corrupt Neimoidians speak with East Asian accents. Surely none of these would fly today.

HEATHERS

Teen suicide, school shootings, suicide bombers and gay shaming are just some of the themes that mean this outrageous high-school black comedy would not make it past the first meeting in 2019.

PRETTY BABY

It might still be possible to make a film about a 12-yearold prostitute in New Orleans’ red-light district now but it would not look like Louis Malle’s sympathetic 1978 drama, starring a 12-year-old Brooke Shields.

LOVE ACTUALLY

This Christmas standard, made in 2003, has aged spectacularly badly in many ways. Hugh Grant’s prime minister and his secretary discuss whether or not the tea lady, played by Martine McCutcheon, is “fat”. Keira Knightley’s stalker is portrayed as a tragic romantic figure. Colin Firth negotiates with a woman’s father to marry his daughter. So much wrong.

TAXI DRIVER

Like Pretty Baby, this Martin Scorcese thriller stars a 12-year-old playing a child prostitute. This time it’s Jodie Foster in her first film role, befriending a weirdo, played by Robert de Niro, on the mean streets of 70s New York. It regularly appears on lists of the greatest films of all time but still would not make the cut in 2019.

BLAZING SADDLES

Director Mel Brooks was astonished that his spoof western about the black mayor of a wild west town got made in 1974, never mind 2019. Brooks, who is white, plays a Yiddishspeaking Native American chief. The N-word features regularly. There is also a scene where a horse is punched.