I think this is my favorite joke in the whole franchise. I love that Austin's first assumption is that obviously socialism (the "good guys") won in the end.
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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I mean, that's one interpretation. The other one is the reality that the Soviet Union didn't always treat political prisoners particularly well, and being a former/current western spy, he was pretty smart to err on the side of caution in case they were the ones in charge.
It's honestly a great joke just because it can be so multi-layered given the character of Austin Powers being a free-love, hippy-ish, world-class spy. He genuinely could have both genuinely hoped that communism won, but also a smart tactic to potentially avoid being sent to a gulag, knowing that if he was wrong, the potential repercussions would probably be less severe.
It's been years since I've seen them movie but I recall having a third interpretation of the joke.
I thought Austin has assumed the communists won because prior to being frozen he felt that USSR had a stronger standing in the cold war and would be the more likely victor, regardless of Austin's personal opinions on communism and capitalism.
To expand on this, you could also imply that Austin assumed the capitalists lost because he was frozen. He knows he's a great spy, what chance did capitalism stand without him fighting for it?.
I don't intend to rewatch the movie because my life experiences since then have made it impossible to enjoy media that uses homophobia and transphobia as common punch lines, but I can still agree that it's a great joke, a great movie for it's time, and cleverly written.
What we swingers were rebelling against were uptight squares like you, whose bag was money and world domination. We were innocent, man! If we'd known the consequences of our sexual liberation, we would have done things differently. But the spirit would have remained the same!
just a really smart tactic. Knowing that only one of the victors would tolerate him saying something so anti-the-system, it's better to err on the side of bowing to the authoritarian regime when you've just woken up naked and afraid somewhere inside a secret government facility. So hilarious, and a brilliant move. Well done, Austin.
"Everybody votes for a dictator." -Number 2, The Prisoner
This was my thought, while also being a funny bit.
Ah good ole Pascal's Wager.
The thing that weirds me out is that Austin Powers was frozen for 30 years and when he woke up, society had changed so much between the 60s and the 90s that he was hilariously out of place.
If the movie were made today, he'd be frozen for 30 years to go back to... the 90s. Obviously a lot has changed with technology since then, but the societal differences aren't as visible.
It seems like it'd be a movie where Austin barely understands the Internet and cell phones - and does stuff against social norms like trying to smoke in a restaurant.
The attitude towards LGBTQ+ folks is a lot different compared to the 90s. Back then "gay" was an insult I heard at school all the time, and it was a huge deal when Ellen came out.
Now that I think of it, it'd be almost impossible to make the movie funny and instead it would sound like a conservative ranting about how they got cancelled on the Internet for calling someone gay.
Depends on how it's handled. While I think your version is the most likely outcome, especially considering the creative team are a bunch of aging Gen Xrs, the reason the original escaped the pitfalls we are talking about here is that Austin's 60s sensibilities are the butt of the joke, not the advancement of societal norms so often decoratively labeled as "political correctness". The movie is about the character learning to adapt to the times, and not the character demanding the times return to the 60s status quo.
Really though, I think they already sort of made the movie we are talking about here, and it turned out fantastic. The 21 Jump Street movies were basically what we are describing, just without time travel shenanigans. Channing Tatum's character, who was hot shit at his high school in the 90s, returns to high school 20 years later and finds that the things that made him popular are no longer cool and he has to learn to adapt to changed circumstances. Obviously that one is specifically satirizing the change in school culture post-90s, but it works on a general level too I think.
Little Demon also does this bit. Chrissy (the Antichrist) is hanging out with the cool girls at high school. Who, this being the 2020s, are wiccan social justice warriors. Chrissy's dad Satan (played by Danny DeVito) is very mad about this, and decides to help her friend Bennigan become popular at school so he can talk her out of being cool. First he tries telling everyone that Bennigan slept with a hot teacher, but this just leads to the teacher getting arrested and everyone feeling sorry for Bennigan. Then he tries getting Bennigan to prank the skater hooligans, but Bennigan refuses and gets them to open up about their feelings instead, which is what actually makes him popular.
Maybe if he has a new partner who's your standard straight-laced FBI guy, and Austin sees him kissing a man and thinks it might compromise the mission only to find out that's his partner's husband. Maybe have Austin meet the guy's kids first, too. I think it could be done, since not everybody from the 90s had that hard a time with it.
True. And just last week Faze Clan, in a very unexpected turn, came out in support of Sketch when he was outted. In general, there have been quite a few people speaking for the LGBTQ+ community that I would have never expected to do so.
It’s kinda nice.
21 Jump Street already went down this joke path in 2012:
https://youtu.be/zuQiTE20nkQ?si=2GbiPQ41tFoTo7hE
And that's basically the half way point between today and the first Austin Powers movie.
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If the movie were made today, he'd be frozen for 30 years to go back to... the 90s. Obviously a lot has changed with technology since then, but the societal differences aren't as visible.
nothing changed after 9/11
Could probably squeeze a couple minutes of comedy about him taking his shoes off at the airport and bombing Iraq.
Culturally we are as different today from the 90s as the 90s was to the 60s. Political Polarization, social media and 24 hour news cycles making things that wouldn't even have been B stories back in the 90s suddenly known across the nation if not the globe, changes on Abortion rights in the last 10 years someone waking up from the 90s would wonder if society had somehow backslid. Technology has definitely changed how society operates now as much as it did from the 60s to the 90s. And as another commenter said, 9/11 and the emotional scarring it did throughout the 2000s and how radically it made a more security conscious and tilting an entire country towards xenophobia.
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It would however be hilarious if the opening number was Austin dressed in JNCO jeans and an oversized T-shirt dancing through the streets of London to grunge music.
grunge music
Ska music. He is groovy.
While that's more accurate to the character, and I love the idea of a 90s Austin Powers with white man dreads and a rastacap... You know what, nevermind. I was going to say grunge is funnier but I'd happily watch either one.
PICK IT UP
Wait, what? Were you alive in the 90s? It was radically different. We were in a world we didn't want but we still respected the government. We fought for our individualism. We wanted to be judged on our merit rather than our piercings or tattoos or baggy clothes. It mirrors the 60s in so many ways.
The biggest societal difference was the Internet. Our connection was through the people and events. We took pictures here and there and we could share them. But it's not like it is now. You would trust the local doctor if you had a big lump on your neck if they had a diagnosis. Rather than going on to the Internet and finding some obscure disease to seem cool.
It's such a big shift it's hard to encapsulate in just one statement. It's a big discussion.
Our attitude on homosexuality is wildly different.
The question "Homosexuals should have the right to Marry (agree/disagree) was asked in the GSS in 1988, 2004, 2021, and 2022.
People who answered "Agree" or "Strongly Agree"
2022: 67% 2021: 64% 2004: 30% 1988: 11%
The movie came out in 1997. In 1996 and 1998 (and many other years), the GSS asked people's opinion on the morality of gay sex. Nearly 70% found gay sex to be immoral.
Can only speak to the UK, but in the 90s women drinking pints of beer was so radical that they got their own name - ladettes, which also tied into the Girl Power movement (might have been third-wave feminism adjacent? Idk)
These days if a woman drinks a beer nobody would even bat an eyelid, it's just such an unusual thing to think that was ever considered not normal. This is just one case, but it's indicative of one way that society has progressed. There are many more examples of such societal changes.
Your statement prompted me to think back to when the BBC used to run stories on the dangers of uppity Ladettes and what that might mean for the establishment.
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Idk some dude dressed like Cobain eating Pizza Hut and using homophobic slurs? Wait, only the Pizza Hut is anachronistic…
I really would love an Austin Powers 4. I'm a sucker for his sometimes absurd jokes.
The pentaverate has a lot of similar humor, you might enjoy it.
+1 The Pentaverate. It's not "golden age" Mike Myers, but it shows he's still got what it takes.
My hope is that it was a test run, just trying a few different things, and in a few years he'll be ready for Austin Powers 4.
Whenever someone says “in a few years”, I just think “yeah, I hope we live to see a few years from now too…”
not me I wanna see the afterlife
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Thanks for the suggestion! I'm going to look it up!
Fair warning: it's...odd.
I've thought about this joke a lot in the past 8 years or so. Hits differently now than it did in 1997.
One first reaction is riskier than the other. I wonder if his decision was made consciously.
Won? You mean stalemate.
Nah, the capitalists won. The USSR is gone, China is only communist in name, Vietnam is rapidly adopting the blueprint of the new Chinese economy, NK has never become anything, Laos is still more in line, but is also moving the direction of it's neighbors.
Communism can't really grow with the current order of the world
Yes, the capitalists won big time.
We're playing on much larger time scales than generations. The last couple hundred years are a single play in this game.
I don't buy that time will make it so that socialism becomes the norm. I can see us destroying ourselves first, or turning, even an absolute, post scarcity world, into one with only artificial scarcity, to continue making a profit, and solidifying class boundaries. Just because something is easily possible, better, and more productive, doesn't mean it will happen. We will need to work to change how the world thinks to make the future sustainable.
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