What happened when Gen Z watched classic British films: 20-somethings give their verdict on movies with sex scenes, trans characters and body shaming that would never make it on to screens today

Daily Mail​

16-05-2025

While the Carry On film franchise provided box office hits for more than 30 years, the sexist plots and sexualised depictions of women would certainly never make it on to screens today.
But according to Caroline Frost, the author of Carry On Regardless: Getting to the Bottom of Britain's Favourite Comedy Films, the films - made between 1958 and 1992 - were not sexist at all because it was the female stars who were forced to 'save the day'.
And while the stars of the franchise, including the late Dame Barbara Windsor, Hattie Jacques and Joan Sims, reportedly didn't feel their characters were outdated, Carry On belongs to the same canon as Benny Hill, which was the subject of a recent documentary questioning if it should stay cancelled.
In the show, Gen Z viewers were introduced to his slapstick and risqué sketches for the first time to gague their reactions - prompting the question: What would the same viewers think of movies from the past five decades that they're too young to remember?
The 1970s sex comedy Come Play With Me offered similarly sexualised depictions of women while Monty Python's sex-focused gags left newer viewers squirming.
In the 1992 crime thriller The Crying Game in which IRA volunteer Fergus falls in love with Dil, the girlfriend of a British soldier, was critically acclaimed and nominated for mutiple awards, winning an Oscar for Best Screenplay.
However, the 'twist' that revealed Dil to be transgender - and Fergus' horrified reaction - would be highly unlikely to meet today's standards of sensitive handling of trans issues.
To find out what the modern audience thinks of films that have raised at least a few eyebrows, Gen Z viewers Emily Cooper, 23, Poppy Gibson, 25, Kirsten Murray, 25, and Martha Mccraken, 23, sat down to see if they really deserve the criticism levelled at them.
Carry On Cruising - 1962
The sixth comedy in the 31-strong Carry On film series, Carry on Cruising was a money maker at the box office when it was released in 1962.
With a stellar cast full of classic British comedians including Sid James, Barbara Windsor and Kenneth Williams, the film follows a truculent cruise ship captain dealing with an incompetent crew and a series of bizarre guests.
In a clip watched by the Gen Z viewers, the ship's doctor falls in love with his unconscious patient and finds himself in a sticky situation when she inadvertently embraces him.
As they roll around on the floor in confusion, Sid James, as the cruise ship's captain, enters and demands to know what's going on.
And while the viewers thought the scene, which saw Dilys Laye lying on a bed in an exposing bikini, was hyper-sexualised, the innuendos and jokes generally landed positively.
The four agreed that the humour wasn't too dissimilar to comedies now and that they didn't find anything shocking in the scene.
Emily said: 'I actually did find that quite funny. I think it seemed like it wasn't from as far back as it was - a similar thing could probably still be done.'
And Kirsten agreed, saying that thirty years later similar gags were still being used including in cult favourite sitcoms such as Friends.
She said: 'I've seen similar things like that in Friends, the whole having to explain themselves in a situation thing. That's pretty classic humour.'
Come Play With Me - 1977
The British softcore pornography film from the 1970s was regarded as one of the most successful from the genre and ran at the Moulin Cinema in Great Windmill Street, Soho, London for 201 weeks, from April 1977 to March 1981.
It was the most successful sex comedy of the '70s and holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running screening in Britain.
The film follows two elderly fraudsters, printing fake banknotes while on the run from their gangster boss.
Holed up in a manor in the Highlands, their secretive operation is brought down when the owner of the manor's dance troupe arrive and open up the mainly disused house as a brothel.
With full frontal nude scenes, topless women in nurses costumes and sex jokes galore, the trailer for the film left the Gen Z viewers lost for words.
The group wondered whether the film was satirical and said it would never be made today or would need an 18 plus rating at the very least.
Emily said: 'Oh! Oh my God. Full frontal nudity. It's just a bit of a jump scare', while Kirsten said, 'Is this a satire? It's just soft porn. Oh, my. Oh, my God, this something. This would be an 18 now, there is no way this would be made now.'
Poppy added: 'I thought it was just really bizarre. It could take me a while to recover from that. That was not what I expected and I've never seen so much whipped cream in places I wouldn't want.'
The Gen Z Goggleboxers also said they weren't sure they could watch it with their parents and were shocked by the plot with Emily adding: 'I think it was a programme that maybe I don't want to watch with my parents.'
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - 1983
The musical comedy starring John Cleese, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle followed on from the success of the troupe's previous films Holy Grail and Life of Brian and was a collection of sketches.
The film grossed almost $43 million against a $9 million budget and in the decades since has become a cult classic.
In one sketch entitled Growth in Learning, a class of school boys take part in a sex education lesson which sees them observe their teacher, John Cleese, have sex with his wife while quizzing them on the correct procedures and the scientific terms for their genitalia.
Emily said she enjoyed the sketch and thought it was funny because it was asking interesting questions around sex education and forcing viewers to confront the absurdity of it.
But she did admit that she'd grown up watching re-runs of Monty Python and therefore knew the show's style.
She said: 'I've watched Monty Python, so I guess I have a bit more of the context, but it's just emphasizing how awkward the sex education lessons can be.
'And obviously that didn't happen at school, but the reaction of the boys is exactly what would happen in school.'
Poppy revealed she didn't find particularly funny but she didn't find the humour outrageous either and said she could see how it would be a product of its time, commenting: 'I don't think I found it crazily funny. I didn't find it shocking.'
Kirsten added that she thought it was the uncomfortable nature of the jokes that was funny and compared it to The Inbetweeners, a Channel 4 teenage comedy about a group of four school friends, but noted that the joke went on longer than she had expected.
'Making you uncomfortable, that was part of what made it funny,' she said.
'But yeah, I do I do think that if it was going to happen nowadays, the wife would walk in, they'd start taking off their clothes off and then the scene would cut.
'With all the school boys it is like The Inbetweeners.'
Emily agreed that the scene went on for far too long, saying: 'The joke's done, right. Cut it off there. But it just kept going.'
Martha added that it might have seemed 'normal' in the 80s, but today it would have been 'such a short scene'.
The Crying Game - 1992
The 1992 crime thriller stared Stephen Rea as IRA volunteer Fergus, who kidnapped a British soldier.
The Irishman and his victim bond and the soldier asks his captor to find his girlfriend Dil in London if he doesn't make it out alive to which he dutifully does.
The pair fall in love but Fergus rejects Dil after discovering they are transgender and he reveals his role in the killing of Dil's partner - a crime he serves time in prison for.
In the scene watched by the four Gen Z viewers, Dil and Fergus are kissing and undressing before Dil reveals their body in a full-frontal nude shot and Fergus shoves Dil before running to the toilet to be sick.
The Goggleboxers were shocked at the reaction with Poppy saying she though Fergus's vomiting was too much.
She said: 'I feel like that was such an extreme reaction or a misunderstanding. I feel like it's playing on the idea that, like, being gay or being attracted to man or anything is really horrible and shocking. And there's this idea that he's being tricked in some way.'
Emily agreed and added that she thought such an early representation of a transgender person had been handled poorly and wouldn't be treated like that now.
She said: 'I can imagine people at the time probably thinking, "oh my gosh". But we've got trans actors in loads of films, it's far more represented. So I can imagine maybe in the context of the time, that being really quite shocking but for me I wasn't really.'
Martha said that she felt the film was trying to send a message that 'people need to be careful' of situations like this, adding: 'Really, it's not a "thing". There would be more sensitivity towards the trans person than just towards the other person.'
Fat Slags - 2004
The gross out comedy was based on a hugely popular comic strip of the same name and starred Fiona Allen and Sophie Thompson as two friends who enjoy drinking and eating kebabs in a little northern town.
After leaving their humdrum lives for the lights of London, the duo are picked up by an American businessman who falls in love with them and gives them starring roles in his London fashion show leading to fame and fortune until jealousy drives the friends apart and back to their ordinary lives.
In the scene shown to the Gen Z viewers, the two friends are presented to the French designer in charge of the catwalk who is horrified by their plus-size bodies and elaborately scolds the businessman for ruining his artistic vision.
The four viewers were surprised by the representations and noted they all adhered to stereotypes: the stupid American, the camp gay fashion designer and the country bumpkin Northerner.
Poppy said: 'I think this is very stereotypical. There's this silly American man, the two larger women have these northern accents, and they are country bumpkins. And there's the flamboyant camp French fashion designer.'
Emily also noted that there was less sexualisation and that all the characters were fully clothed and it was interesting to see how humour had changed since the film from the 1960s.
She said: 'I don't think it would be made in the same way today. It's interesting that the jokes weren't sexualized, everybody was fully clothed but it was still outrageous. '
They didn't enjoy the film but weren't shocked either other than by the title which they thought was offensive.
The group said they thought it was interesting to see how the films had changed over the decades and said the focus had shifted away from hypersexualised depictions of women but there was still a focus on their bodies.
Emily said: 'The first clip we saw of the 60s it was sexualized but it was funny and the premise was of a scene that you weren't expecting and you have to get yourself out of that.
'And then in the 70s and 80s, then the humour was based on the nudity and I can see why in the context of the time, it was funny'
She added that while the films raised a few eyebrows she could see links to the types of films made today, explaining: 'I can see echoes of that today in skits and movies but it is really interesting to see how it has changed over time.
Poppy said she would happily watch Carry On Cruising because it was 'lighthearted and silly', although she admitted it probably wouldn't be made now.
Kirsten and Poppy both agreed that the 1970s film made them uncomfortable and were shocked at the level of nudity and they felt The Crying Game could have handled the controversial topic of transgender romance more sensitively.
Kirsten added: 'It's interesting the way the film industry broaches more sensitive topics and, and how their approach to that has changed.'
Emily revealed it had ignited a spark and she wanted to explore older films revealing: 'I think it's made me want to watch more films. I'm going to ask my parents for recommendations because I feel like there are some gems out there.'