MovieChat Forums > Genius (2016) Discussion > Wearing A Hat Indoors

Wearing A Hat Indoors

posted 8 years ago by gonzo_don
17 replies | jump to latest

Has anybody found anything historical about Max Perkins never taking off his hat?
Even today, leaving your hat on inside a building is considered by cultured folks to be ridiculous and laughable--this film takes place in the 1920's and 1930's when leaving your hat on inside would have been cause for a fist fight!
I mean, seriously, the guy's wearing a fedora in his office, in a restaurant, IN HIS OWN HOUSE.
Manners?
His employer would have fired him.
We're not talking about some idiot raised by rednecks who thinks it's okay to wear his ballcap backwards in O'Charley's because he's too stupid to know better--we're talking about educated men with good jobs in New York City.
Did Max Perkins have head lice? Was he raised by wolves?
This is a great movie--and this is the only thing I can think of when I watch it.
Max--didn't your mother teach you any manners???

[–] intrepidami 8 years ago

I've seen this a lot lately in movies. Directors/Writer magnifying a quirk, or creating one out of thin air. I was watching Tutankhamen and they turned Flinders Petrie into a very eccentric character. Then they put two real people 26 years apart into a romance that did not exist. And showed them as almost the same age as each other. Wasn't Berstein about 20 years older than Wolfe? Same crap going on here, to "spice" things up.

I guess it's a kind of "Sheldon Coopering" characters in an attempt to make them more interesting?

He wears the hat to dinner, to evening relaxing, and even after he's changed into his pajamas. He also allows his daughter to speak back to him.

These are all failures of writers to covert to the actual period, and instead superimpose their limited life experiance upon historical characters.

One wonders if these same writers were doing an ancient roman piece, would they have their character using a phone, or driving up on their chariot to a Mcdonald's drive thru? Texting a concubine?

[–] avamac 8 years ago

Newsmen (literary types) habitually wore their hats indoors. Including the females. See Hedda Hopper. Or MY GAL FRIDAY.... https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dHVvnEWez1M/hqdefault.jpg

[–] rwh1348 8 years ago

My observation was everyone in movie the men in the 20's wore a hat except Wolfe and f Scott Fitzgerald. Perkins only removed hat at end. Strange?