Movies from the 80s and 90s That Are Problematic Now

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:01]Look here. Look here.

[00:00:03]>> Look here. Over here.

[00:00:08]>> Does this 80s vengeance seeker belong in jail? How about this toy executive?

[00:00:13]Let's not forget the dream guy who made a pretty horrific decision. I'm Seven Mallister for 7 Entertainment. Let's take a look at seven big movies that would get cancelled today. And hey, I'm not for anything being cancelled. Art is art. put a disclaimer on it, but don't change it or censor it. But yeah, these movies would probably ruffle some major feathers if they were released today.

[00:00:36]Number one, Revenge of the Nerds.

[00:00:40]Revenge of the Nerds is remembered as the ultimate underdog comedy. Bullied geeks, overthrowing arrogant jocks, winning the girl, and proving intelligence beats muscle.

[00:00:51]Unfortunately, the movie also plays like a two-hour seminar titled Things That Would Trigger Immediate Expulsion in 2026. Now, back in the 80s, Hollywood absolutely loved that lovable pervert archetype. If a character wore glasses, got shoved in lockers, and listened to New Wave music. The movie basically gave him diplomatic immunity to commit crimes. Revenge of the Nerds takes this concept and launches it directly into orbit. The nerds spend the entire movie engaging in behavior that would get a modern university turned into a hashtag by lunchtime. The Lambda Lambda Lambda fraternity installs hidden cameras in a sorority house to spy on women changing clothes. They remotely monitor them for laughs. There's harassment, stalking, revenge, prawn energy, and enough privacy violations to keep campus lawyers employed for decades. Then there's the legendary penny raid scene.

[00:01:49]A moment the film presents like it's some glorious revolutionary uprising.

[00:01:54]Instead of a coordinated mob of screaming college students storming women's dormatory while triumphant music blasts in the background, movie treats like the nerds just liberated France.

[00:02:04]Somehow, that's not even the most insane part, as the grand romantic payoff centers around Louiswis tricking cheerleader Betty into sleeping with him by disguising himself as her boyfriend Stan during a costume carnival. Betty believes she's having an intimate moment with her boyfriend the entire time.

[00:02:24]Then, Lewis reveals who he really is afterwards, and instead of reacting with horror, Betty basically goes, "Wow, that was actually amazing." and immediately falls in love with them. Bubby treats this as a victory for nerds everywhere. Today, it would end in lawsuits, expulsion hearings, viral Tik Tok breakdowns, and Lewis having to gain his revenge from inside a jail cell.

[00:02:49]Number two, Big.

[00:02:52]Big is remembered as a heartwarming fantasy comedy about childhood wonder, giant piano keyboards and Tom Hanks weaponizing pure charm at maximum power.

[00:03:03]It's also a movie where a 12-year-old boy ends up in an intimate relationship with an adult woman and somehow everybody involved was like, "Oh, that's that's adorable." Now, in the late 80s, audiences mostly focused on the magical premise. Josh Baskin wishes he was big.

[00:03:20]Wakes up in an adult body. Gets a toy company job and stumbles through adulthood with childlike innocence.

[00:03:27]Critics loved it. Hanks earned an Oscar nomination. Movie became a beloved classic. Modern audiences, however, tend to hit the brakes. The second Elizabeth Perkins enters the equation. Cuz once Susan begins falling for Josh, the movie quietly transforms from whimsical comedy into a legal and ethical minefield.

[00:03:47]Wrapped in like a light jazz soundtrack, Josh may look like a grown man, but mentally he is still a middle school kid whose biggest life concerns were carnival rides and not getting grounded.

[00:03:59]And the movie fully commits to the romance. There's flirting, emotional intimacy, sleeping together, all presented as sincere and touching. At one point, Susan even tells Josh, "I love you." Which becomes significantly less adorable once you remember she's unknowingly dating a sixth grader. Truly wild part is the ending. Josh returns to being a child, disappearing from Susan's life forever, leaving her emotionally devastated after discovering the man she loved was literally a child the entire time. The movie frames it as bittersweet romance instead of the kind of revelation that would immediately require several therapists and possibly a police interview. Back then, audiences saw it as like a oh, just an adorable, magical wish fulfillment. Today, the internet sees it more as Mary Kay Lerno with a toy store budget. Hey, if you're enjoying this video, please hit the like button so we can hang out again sometime soon.

[00:04:55]Number three, Short Circuit 2. Short Circuit 2 is a perfect example of how the 1980s could produce a genuinely charming family movie while simultaneously making a casting decision so baffling that modern audiences spent half the runtime wondering if they accidentally opened a parody. Cuz underneath all the lovable robot hy jinks u [music] inspirational speeches and Johnny 5 screaming no disassemble lies one gigantic problem. The movie's Indian co-lead Ben Jabatuya is played by Fiser Stevens, a white actor buried under dark makeup, an exaggerated accent, and enough stereotype heavy mannerisms to make modern HR department spontaneously combust. The wildest part, nobody in Hollywood seemed to think this was strange at the time. Stevens later admitted that he regretted playing the role, saying, "I played an Indian man.

[00:05:50]I'm not Indian. It was wrong." At the time though, audiences mostly rolled with it because the movie itself is so aggressively wholesome. Johnny 5 is adorable. The villains are cartoonishly evil and Ben is written as a kind, intelligent, and lovable guy. The the film clearly thinks it's being heartfelt, but watching it today feels like discovering your childhood teddy bear occasionally shouts outdated cultural caricatures. performance leans heavily into a broad accent kind of comedy and exaggerated cultural quirks that modern viewers would absolutely drag across social media within minutes.

[00:06:29]And unlike some controversial movies that hide their weirdness deep in the plot, Short Circuit 2 places the issue directly at the center of the film for nearly 2 hours. You cannot escape it.

[00:06:40]Movie basically walks in the room yelling, "Hey, we made a terrible casting decision." Ironically, the robot aged better than the human performance.

[00:06:49]Johnny 5 still feels lovable. The casting still feels like a studio dare that nobody decided to stop. Number four, 16 Candles.

[00:07:02]16 Candles is one of the defining teen comedies of the 1980s. You've got awkward crushes, high school humiliation, bratty siblings, John Hughes turning suburban teen anxiety into a cinematic empire. It's also a movie where nearly every major plot point would cause modern audiences to pause the film, stare into the middle distance, and just whisper, "Wait, what?

[00:07:26]What?" For starters, there's Long Duck Dong, a foreign exchange student portrayed like a live-action cartoon powered entirely by racial stereotypes and gong sound effects. Every time he appears, the movie basically kicks down the door, yelling, "Hey, come on. It was 1984, baby." Modern social media would reduce that character to ashes before the opening weekend ended. But somehow that still is not the most controversial part. Real nuclear bomb arrives with Jake Ryan and his unbelievably drunk girlfriend Caroline. After Caroline passes out at a party, Jake casually hands her over to Ted, the school nerd with the immortal line, "She's so blitzed, she won't know the difference."

[00:08:10]that the movie treats this entire situation just like a goofy teenage adventure. Instead of what modern viewers immediately recognize as several future court appearances stacked on top of each other while wearing sunglasses, Carolyn is so intoxicated she can barely function. Yet, the film minds the situation for comedy. While Ted proudly drives her around like he just won a carnival prize. Somehow the movie still ends with soft music, birthday cake, and romantic triumph like none of this happened 30 minutes earlier. That's the magic of8s teen comedies. Absolute social catastrophe wrapped in warm lighting and synth music. Back then, audiences just saw charming rebellion.

[00:08:53]Today, 16 Candles feels like a time capsule for an era where Hollywood confused boys being boys with evidence.

[00:09:02]Number five, blank check.

[00:09:06]Blank check is finally remembered as every kid's ultimate fantasy. You've got unlimited money, a mansion full of gadgets, a private limo driver, water slides in the house, and the ability to eat enough junk food to medically concern a pediatrician. What what I wouldn't give for that young person metabolism back. Unfortunately, modern audiences mostly remember for one deeply uncomfortable subplot that lands like a record scratch in the middle of a family comedy. For most of the movie, 12-year-old Preston Waters develops a crush on FBI agent Sheay Stanley, played by Karen Duffy, which I get. At first, it's framed like harmless puppy love.

[00:09:46]Shay treats Preston warmly, encourages him, and acts like the cool adult who understands him better than his family does. Then the uh then the movie decides to make things profoundly weird. Near the end, Shay kisses Preston directly on the lips and tells him, "Maybe when you're older."

[00:10:03]Yeah. Yeah. The film presents this as sweet, romantic, even soft music plays.

[00:10:09]Preston beams like he just won the Super Bowl of Puberty. Movie genuinely expected audiences to go, "Aw."

[00:10:16]Modern viewers instead react like someone just activated an emergency alarm in the Disney vault. Now, now if you flip the genders, if an adult male FBI agent kissed a 12year-old girl and whispered about reconnecting when she got older, the movie would not be remembered as a charming children's comedy. It would be discussed exclusively on True Crime Podcast with ominous music playing underneath. That's the part that makes Blank Check such a fascinating time capsule. The movie never treats the moment as dangerous or inappropriate cuz Hollywood historically viewed older women, younger boy dynamics as cute instead of deeply questionable.

[00:10:56]Double Standard is impossible to ignore once you see it. The rest of movie is so aggressively familyfriendly that the scene hits even harder. One minute it's water slides and cartoon gangsters, the next a federal agent is planting the seeds for future therapy sessions. Back then, the audience saw harmless wish fulfillment. today. That ending alone would generate 40 think pieces before the credits started rolling.

[00:11:21]Number six, Soulman.

[00:11:26]I'm sorry. Uh Soulman is one of those movies that modern audiences discover the same way archaeologists uncover cursed tombs slowly, nervously, and with the growing realization that somebody absolutely should have sealed this away decades ago. The premise alone sounds like a fake movie invented for a parody sketch. See, Thomas Howell plays Mark Watson, a wealthy college student who can't afford Harvard Law School after his parents cut him off financially so naturally instead of, you know, getting loans, a job, or literally any other rational solution available to a functional human being, he decides to darken his skin with tanning pills and pose as African-Amean to receive a minority scholarship. Yeah, this this movie is a this movie is a comedy. Even in 1986, people were sounding the alarm.

[00:12:15]Civil rights groups protested the film before release, and critics were stunned. The concept made it past the brainstorming phase. Robert Eert famously described it as offensive and insulting, which honestly feels restrained considering the movie central gimmick is basically what if blackface, but for like 90 minutes. And to put this in perspective, I was 10 10 years old back in 1986. I remember seeing an ad for this and thinking, "What the fuck?"

[00:12:43]The truly bizarre part is that Soulman genuinely believes it has an uplifting message. The film tries to transform Mark's experience into a lesson about racism and privilege, as though a rich white guy temporarily pretending to be African-Amean is the emotional equivalent of actually living through discrimination. And watching it today feels more like witnessing Hollywood accidentally drive through every possible warning sign full speed. The movie just piles on stereotypes, awkward racial humor, and cringe inducing misunderstandings while expecting audiences to applaud Mark's personal [music] growth. It's the cinematic version of setting your own kitchen on fire and demanding praise for learning that smoke is bad. Because it's an 80s comedy, the film somehow ends with an inspirational speech and emotional redemption instead of universal public humiliation. Back then, Hollywood saw edgy social satire. Today, Soulman feels like the kind of movie executives would deny approving, even if shown signed paperwork and security footage.

[00:13:48]Number seven, Never Been Kissed.

[00:13:52]Never Been Kiss was marketed as a sweet romantic comedy about second chances, awkward adolescence, and Drew Barrymore getting to relive high school while wearing an alarming number of '90s outfits looks stolen from the Gap. At the time, audiences mostly saw his charming wish fulfillment. Josie Geller is a painfully awkward newspaper copy editor sent undercover as a high school student to research modern teens. Along the way, she reconnects with her confidence, makes some friends, and falls for her English teacher, Sam Coulson. And that's where modern audiences collectively spit out their drinks. Cuz for most of the movie, Sam fully believes that Josie is a teenager, not younglooking adult, not college student, a literal high school student sitting in his classroom turning in homework assignments. And despite this, he develops obvious romantic feelings for her. Anyway, movie frames this as soulful forbidden attraction instead of the exact subplot that would get a real teacher escorted out of school by security before lunch. The film desperately wants audiences to focus on the emotional connection. Sam quotes poetry, stares longingly [music] across classrooms and delivers lines like, "I can't stop thinking about you." While viewers at home slowly realize they're watching a Disney HR nightmare unfold in real time. Yes, the movie eventually reveals Josie is actually an adult, but that doesn't erase the fact that Sam spent most of the runtime emotionally investing in someone he thought was underage. Modern audiences don't just shrug that off cuz a twist arrived during the third act. Because this is a late '90s romantic comedy, the movie still races towards a triumphant baseball field kiss set to swelling music like none of the previous ethical concerns existed. Back then, audiences probably saw heartfelt romance. Today, Never Been Kissed feels like a movie one deleted email away from triggering a district-wide investigation. It's basically what if To Catch a Predator had a soundtrack by Six Pencer.

[00:15:56]Well, there's our list. And I'll leave out any other big 80s and 90s movies that would get cancelled today. If so, please let us know in the comments section below. Also, if you enjoyed this video, please hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, and nudge that notification bell. We would love to hang out again. The next time, I'm your old pal, 7 Mallister for 7 Entertainment, saying bye-bye.

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