Bored Panda
30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group

151
75
Remember watching something in a movie you wanted to repeat? Well, fiction is not only there for escapism; many writers/filmmakers want spectators to be wiser and adapt lessons characters learned to real life. They convincingly use words, directing, cinematography and music to portray emotions. Of course, not every film has a profound lesson in it. Some are pure entertainment or teach bad lessons. And that's ok.
Anime and gaming fan Micu was thinking about what an "awful message" the musical Grease delivers and asked Reddit "What's a movie that teaches a really bad lesson?" She received over 6k responses. Rom-coms and action movies got a lot of smack in the thread. Scroll down for the best ones, and an interview with Micu.

#1

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
just about every rom com that teaches men that 'no' means 'keep trying' instead of 'f&%k off'.
307points

#2

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Any movie that teaches the idea that if you're persistent, then you'll get the girl/guy.
279points

Micu herself gave some opposite examples—the good lessons. "I recently watched ‘Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop’ which was about loving yourself as well as all your flaws and accepting love from other people. Also, ‘Dead Poet Society’ teaches you to seize the day."

#3

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Grease : If He cannot "rise" to her level - She should "sink" to his.
264points

#4

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Fifty Shades of Grey.
It’s a movie about a guy who was ab$#ed perpetuating the cycle of abuse with the thin veneer of “it’s okay because he’s rich and this is how BDSM works.” The f%^k it does; almost all the characters are all sh$^ty people. Period.
259points

#5

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
13 reasons why. Not a movie, but is basically plays to the fantasy of any teenager who’s thinking of harming themselves how everyone will run around afterwards trying to piece it all together and they’ll still be a big part of peoples lives when they’re gone.
The sad reality is that this is not true and it’s a terrible message to give to kids.
253points

If Micu was making a movie with an unusual moral, she would want to communicate that good isn't always rewarded with good: sometimes the good goes to bad people instead, to give spectators expectations of "just how the world works."

#6

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Cats. It teaches impressionable Hollywood producers that it's a good idea to make a movie like Cats.
248points

#7

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
The whole Twilight series. Edward and Jacob are both controlling pricks at best, and Bella is too spineless to put them in their place.
"My love dumped me, so I'm going to engage in reckless behavior."
"My love is dead, so I'm going to commit su&%#de by cop."
"My love is in a relationship with someone else, so I'm going to try to force myself on her so she will change her mind."
If you want some professional input about how bad the relationships are in Twilight, check out Cinema Therapy on YouTube.
208points

#8

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Any romcom. You're about to get married, but you met a really cool person you had a connection with. Now your fiance seemed... Off. They aren't the right person for you. Leave them for that stranger.
193points

Talking about sending messages, movies are treated as a powerful tool for propaganda. While today's Hollywood is more influenced by the audience, award shows, and other countries' censorship, from 1934 to 1968, the industry was self-regulated by the strict Hays Code. 

#9

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Love Story. "Love means never having to say you're sorry!" What the hell were they thinking?
190points

#10

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
The Sex and the City Movie… and series. Big leaves Carrie time and time again over the years. This teaches that if you stick around your toxic relationship the man might finally change and commit to you…even after 10 years!
With that said, I love SATC! Watching it in my 20’s I saw Carrie finally get her man. Watching it in my 30’s I cringe and just wish Carrie would have stayed with Aiden.
178points

#11

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Most high school movies. There's nothing wrong with wearing glasses. Characters barely ever study etc.
163points

The Hays Code was influenced by moral panic from spectators and politicians as well, but many of the rules wouldn't fly in todays US. It prohibited things like interracial dating, French kisses, evoking empathy towards criminals, etc. In fact, in one of the movies mentioned in this list, Cinema Paradiso, a filmmaker shares memories of stealing cutout frames of kissing from a small-town cinema in Italy, where they were censored by a local priest.

#12

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
50 shades of gray. Creepy dude gets viewed as elegant and mysterious just because he’s rich
160points

#13

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
40 days and 40 nights. It's about a girl who's a total slot but she decides to challenge herself not to have sex for 40 days. She's doing fine until her friend makes a website about it and a being pool starts. Suddenly everyone is trying to get her in bed.
Meanwhile she meets this really great guy who teaches her that love doesn't have to involve sex, you can have a great time and even be intimate without f@#king.
Still, she's so horny, you guys. At the end of the 40 days, she literally handcuffs herself to a bed to keep from letting anyone f@#k her.
The pool is up to huge amounts of money now.
Then her ex boyfriend walks in. He sees her tied up, so he ra&#s her. He claims the prize money and literally rides off into the sunset.
The s*#^ty girl is upset because her awesome new boyfriend might not accept her now that she cheated on him by being r&#ed but it turns out he's ok with it.
Oh wait oops I accidentally reversed the genders of all those characters.
149points

#14

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Lots and lots of romantic movies. Maybe you can just walk up and kiss someone like in The Notebook if you’re Ryan Gosling. In reality, though, get consent first ffs.
Any action movie where someone disarms someone who has a knife. Don’t try that. If possible, run the fuck away.
Fifty shades of grey. Shit writing aside, that’s not how you do bdsm, relationships or anything in between. It’s not romantic. It’s creepy. Why in the fuck did anyone like that movie?
135points

In 1934-1941, as divorce rates grew, Hollywood's screwball comedies, like His Girl Friday, It Happened One Night, and Adam's Rib started incorporating the theme of remarriage, which later was recognized as a subgenre by philosopher Stanley Cavell, who dedicated a whole book to it in 1979 called Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. It's important to note that female characters in these films were independent and still chose to come back to their husbands, even though these screwball comedies show marriage as a miserable situation.

#15

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Revenge of the Nerds can’t even claim it’s satirical. The nerds are just as bad - if not worse - than the jocks. Yes the jocks started it by running a few pigs through their party. What the nerds do is far worse but really only at the expense of the easier targets - their women.
Other than the humility of losing in what is effectively a few competitions they cheat at (along with some Tigers Balm in their jockstraps), the Lambdas don’t really get revenge on the jocks, they take it out on their women.
First they spy on them in the nude. Then they distribute the nude photos to the school. Finally Lewis r*^es Betty Childs. All because like four girlfriends helped the jocks with the pigs?
And the idea that it’s okay because Lewis is good in bed is beyond disturbing. She doesn’t just accept it, she decides she’s “in love with a nerd.” That movie was written by some serious incels.
134points

#16

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Overboard - she has amnesia so he convinces her she is his wife & mother to his 3-4 kids. Then he has sex with her.
So r#^ey.
127points

#17

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
a lot of disney channel stuff aimed at teenage girls. the protagonists are bi&$hy and manipulative and use their looks to get what they want disguised as empowerment
126points

On the other side of the world, the first Commissar for Education in the Soviet Union remembered Lenin saying "that of all the arts, the most important for us is the cinema." He recognized the capabilities of cinema as a thought-shaping tool in a country with a large percentage of illiterate people. The Commisar stressed the importance of showing films in remote villages where people hadn't seen any, thus propaganda there would be even more effective.

#18

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Passengers with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. It's okay to develop Stockholm syndrome and fall in love with the guy who basically ruined your life and manipulated you.
123points

#19

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
My Best Friend's Wedding - Hey, I know a way to show my support for my best friend. Lets sabotage his wedding to a perfectly lovely girl.
121points

#20

30 Movies That Teach Terrible Lessons, As Pointed Out By People In This Online Group
Not a movie, but the kids' show "Caillou" is fucking terrible. It's made for kids at the age where they copy everything they see, and the main little fucker in the show crys and whines the whole time, so kids who watch it become insufferable.
Bad lesson for kids, good lesson for parents who will learn about "modeling."
120points

What have you learned from movies? Have you learned the Heimlich maneuver to save a choking person? Threw a similar party to Project X? Became concerned about the fabric of reality and privacy after The Matrix and The Truman Show?

151
75