Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 March 31

= March 31 =

A poet called Harry at The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream
There's a documentary on television about The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream. They mentioned a poet called Harry something, who had taken too much speed and had trouble reciting his poems. Unfortunately I missed his surname, and he doesn't seem to be mentioned in the article I linked. Who was he? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 02:14, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Harry Fainlight --Viennese Waltz 05:49, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you - they must have been talking about the International Poetry Incarnation. I have a horribly heavy cold and tend to drift off at moments. DuncanHill (talk) 12:04, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Provinces of the Yuan dynasty
I'd like to find a resource showing the differences between the ancient Yuan provinces and the present Chinese provinces. Differences in the sense of the areas they covered. For example the Henan Jiangbei province encompassed modern Henan, northern Jiangsu, and part of Anhui, but it is not specified exactly what parts of Jiangsu and Anhui were included. The ideal would be maps with both the old and new provinces superimposed. Do you have any idea? Thank you! 82.58.19.207 (talk) 10:45, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Your best bet is likely to be the National Palace Museum's library in Taipei, Taiwan (). DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 23:31, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Mussolini and Francis of Assisi
I've read that the former parish priest of Predappio (Mussolini's birthplace) said that there was "an American historian" who compared Mussolini to Francis of Assisi. Is it true? Who was he?-- Carnby (talk) 18:58, 31 March 2024 (UTC)


 * It seems that the comparison of Mussolini to Francis of Assisi may have actually been made as far back as during Mussolini's time. Not American, but the Australian historian R. J. B. Bosworth wrote in his 2014 book on Mussolini that "reverent readers learned from one priest... that Mussolini was a sort of re-born St Francis of Assisi." GalacticShoe (talk) 20:40, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * For some reason, Google Books no longer gives me the option to preview the particular page, but I do remember the main citation for the paragraph being no. 145, which upon looking further into the book, appears to be luckily freely previewable. Citation 145 states that "for Mussolini's own account of these events and those that followed, see his Storia di un anno, pp. 301-444. Not sure if this account includes any mention of St. Francis, but it might be worth checking. GalacticShoe (talk) 21:06, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Mabel Berezin, who is an American sociologist, wrote in her 1997 book that "Mussolini would charm the crowds as St Francis of Assisi charmed the birds and the animals." At the same time, that sentence comes with a footnote that explicitly cites Herbert Schneider's 1928 book Making the Fascist State as talking more about the Fascist appropriation of St Francis. It's possible that the priest may be talking about Schneider, who was an American philosophy professor and religious studies scholar, but at the same time it would seem that Schneider is talking about comparisons that the Fascists themselves created. GalacticShoe (talk) 20:49, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Was the corpse of Francis of Assisi hung by its heels in a public place? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:10, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Perceiving the G rating as meaning "kids only"
The Wikipedia article on the MPAA film rating system says that G officially means everyone is admitted. However, it also says that in practice the "G" rating limits a movie's audience as if its meaning were that the movie is just for children. Any reason?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:43, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * What's the article's source for that claim, if any? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:08, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't see such a statement in the article. However, I consider the claim to be obviously true. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 04:16, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * And I consider the claim to be not at all obvious. In fact, as noted in Motion picture content rating system, G means "General audiences - all ages admitted". There's nothing in that description that says "kids only". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:14, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * To me, it's implying that it will discourage older people from seeing it, as it will appear to be just a children's movie. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:05, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Or more likely, to encourage parents to take their kids - a "family movie". There's nothing to be gained by discouraging adults from going. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:46, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I read through Motion Picture Association film rating system and I didn't see what you've described; are you talking about a different article? I don't doubt the sentiment, but it would be good to make sure what we're trying to figure out. It's dying a very slow death, but in the West, it's commonly felt that anything that is okay for kids must be too simplistic to entertain adult audiences. The same thing bites us in reverse when "unsuitable for children" gets equated with "aimed at adults". You can see the roots of this at Hays Code, where you can see it would be... tricky to create art that would be stimulating to adults while obeying the letter of those laws. For fear of being offensive, creators instead opted to be insipid. Matt Deres (talk) 17:57, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think that last sentence is a little reductive. I don't think the Hays Code was a good thing, but I do think there was some brilliant art created under it.  That was, for one thing, the golden age of the movie musical.  There was lots of provocative stuff; it was just written between the lines. --Trovatore (talk) 20:22, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Motion Picture Association film rating system: Following the system's history illustrates things. The very first proposal for the system had just three ratings: G M R. This gives a good look at the original thinking behind it. G for "for kids to watch on their own no problem"; M for "maybe like teenagers or around thereabouts, and up"; R for everything else.


 * Spoiler what's being talked about elliptically here with talk of "potential legal problems" is nudity and sex, and potentially some really "graphic violence". And now you know where the use of "X-rated" and things like "XXX", applied to English-language pornographic works, came from. Porn theaters used to be a thing! And theater-owners wanted ways of making easily clear to the public, and governments, stuff like "we don't show any 'dirty films' here". The MPAA trademarked the ratings levels: this serves as the legal enforcement which gives the MPAA control over their ratings. The MPAA rates each work themselves and licenses its trademarks, with conditions. If someone doesn't follow their rules and displays an MPAA trademark—say, their rating—without permission, hello lawsuit. They picked "X" as the preferred thing for anyone to put on by themselves if they wanted—"X" is generic and has a long history of being used for various products, so by itself it's likely not trademarkable and in any case they just promised they wouldn't try to, so do whatever you want with it. That made it the "fallback" rating that could be used with no legal problem—but with the consequence that most "respectable" theaters would refuse to show it. (You'll need one of those MPAA ratings for that, so you'd better make sure you can at least get an "R".)


 * Anyway as to the "G" rating: initially it was envisioned to be just the "generic" rating, for stuff that should be fine for kids. Then "ratings creep" gradually happened. Excellent example of this: Star Wars (film): Star Wars in 1977, got a G rating initially from MPAA! Fox actually went and asked for a PG instead, both out of apprehension about some young kids getting scared (leading to upset parents), and, to make it sound cooler! Forbidden fruit effect. Long story short, this gradually led to "G" being abandoned for anything but the absolute most banal stuff and PG effectively being the "default" rating. You're a movie studio exec, would you rather have a publicity headache over some parents upset about a movie scaring their kids, or just play it safe and go with "PG" for most things? So someone slaps someone or uses "upset tones" boom PG. Scary background music? Yep. This has been discussed for some time, how the system is largely meaningless today apart from conveying "has Mature Content or doesn't". This was helped along by the addition of the PG-13 rating. And some movies that aim to be considered "smart mature movies for adults" intentionally go for the "R" by adding something guaranteed to get it (cough Oppenheimer (2023 film)), more of that "going for the grown-up rating" that Star Wars did. --Slowking Man (talk) 21:31, 8 April 2024 (UTC)