Topic- Critically review the film The Flintstones

Submitted to- Prof. R. Mahalakshmi

Submitted by- Jitendra raj M.A 1st year Ancient history

Cave man often depict our early human ancestor with longish and unkempt hair. Cave men seems utterly
familiar. He has never seen in the the flesh. We instantly recognize him in illustrations art, film; and
museum display. His place in human evolutionary time is signaled by several attribute most of which
appear concurrently : he is found in or infront of caves or in a wild setting conforting savage beast. There
are many movie were made on the life of cave men. They try to define the life of cave men by their own
study and research. The cave man life is product of centuries of debate about the origin of human and
human nature and primitive human and comprises discourses about human evolution. There are many
movie made on this topic and Flintstone is one of them.The movie Flintstone is about the modern stone-
age family. Movie released in 1994. This movie is basically animated film. Flintstone is comedy movie.
The name ‘Flintstone’ is the combination of word Flint and stone. The film is set in the stone-age town of
Bedrock in the fantasy version of the past dinosaurs and other animal. In this movie people live in there
stone house and use to go to the restaurant. Technology in this film is made entirely from preindustrial
material and primarily through use of animal. Like the car are made of stone and wood and animal skin
people use their feet to drive the car. People use to work in their office so you can see there is corporate
culture in this film. Main character of this film is Fred and Barney. They are best friend. They live in
same house with their family. Fred work in quarry with his friend. He got found guilty in scam which is
done by his boss. So he was fired from his job.
One special thing about this movie is that people live in stone house with their lawn in front of their
house. But they use all modern thin like grass-cutter and other thing. But also they use Dianosaurs and
mammoth. This type of animal were used to do heavy work. Many other animal were used to do diiferent-
different work like for shaving. The society in this movie is totally modern like they use to go to
reasturant and enjoy their life. People work to sustain there life. There is exam system to get the job. So
we can say that there society is modern. There are many modern equipment were used as an animal. For
example whn a character takes photographes with an camera inside the camera box a bird carves the
picture on stone tablet. Many other animal were also used to do house work like a baby mammoth were
used as vaccum cleaner to clean the house. The bird were use as car sound and electric razor made from a
clam shell. The image of prehistoric people in furs and wielding bone jewellery. They were seen dirty and
always concerned mainly with their subsistence. But after watching Flintsones there are manty thing were
change. Judith C. Berman argued about this movie that this movie has an essential purpose. This flim is
try to reconstruct a Paleolitthic society that is similar to our time. People use all modern thing they use to
go to their job and try to enjoy in restaurant. But these people live in the stone houses with lawn attached
to there house and use all type of present day equipment. But this thing did not happen in the history. This
is an imaginary film with many type of similarity. Flintstones is released in 1990. This movie is of
comedy genere. The theme of this movie is set around in the stone-age. This movie has many thing
common like there is bad boss. Actor mother always target his son in law because he is not earning good
money. There is secretary who try to seduce his boss in this film. There is pet in this film who is generally
behave like the dog. Corrupt boss in this film who always try to get so much money. So he try to do many
fraud in his working place.
You can watch this movie in other interesting fact like the actor in this film have dirty hair and dirty cloth.
Whereas as female character were seen so fashionable in this film they have stylist cloth and use makeup
on thier faces. Now we can say that Paleolithic people have stylist life style. There are scene in this film
where women used to go to the shop to purchase the cloth. There are many stereotype in this film like
women are doing there house work where as men were doing job. We can say that there is many thing
stereotype in this film. There is scene which depict that hierarchy in this society. Like boss in working
place male person in the house.
This movie has another angle like economic and natural. So we can review this movie this thing. In this
film people were used a currency which is made of stone. There is scene where ladies were using the
ATM type machine to withdraw his money. This can not be possible in that time. People were using
credit card to withdraw his money. This can not be possible at that time. So these scene were basically
imaginary scene. They were in the film because these scene make movie more entertaining. You can not
say these thing were used in stone-age. The value animal were highlighted in this film because in this film
most work is done by animal and house hold work is also done by animal. Animal work as lawn
mowers(crustacean) cleaner(mammoth) cameras(bird). The bird were used in car for the horns. So animal
were used many purpose as a worker in working place.
In this movie there is concept of society. People were in the mutual relationship. There is monogamy in
this film. People have single wife. Society is patriarchal because male were dominating and female were
only doing house work. There are scene where mother telling a bedtime story. If you see the structure of
house. House is totally modern different type of shower in bathroom were used. A different type of alarm
were used to get up in the morning. Marriage is legalized institution. In one scene Wilma mother says
here to marry again but she refused here purposal. We see in the morning a person is throwing newspaper
which are made up of stone. So there is literacy in society. There is aptitude test to get the job. They were
writing on the stone slab. But if you study the stone age then there is no evidence of writing system.
There is justice provide by police. Police were in the scene who arrest the actor for doing wrong thing. If
you see the town. The town is well planned and made of stone there are street lamp were used in the
night. House were made in certain pattern. They have television set in there house. They used to go out
and play game. There are scene which show eating habit of the people. They eat different – different type
of thing. There were scene in this film where people were eating like lizard and Dinosaur egg and cereal
etc. They drink a lava juice.
This film is special because it show the stone- age society in modern age. In this film there are many thing
used that certainly found in stone-age. So this movie has certain discourse. This film has many thing like
mostly modern thing were used in that time. Like television were used in this film. So if you compare this
to stone-age there are no evidence of these latest equipment were found. Stephanie Moser and Sam Smile
says that the rationale behind choosing certain kind of images is not random. Image were contribute to
and were themselves shaped by particular system. If you see this film in this context then Flintstone is
amazing film because in this film there are two time period were used. In one side society is totally from
stone age but many equipment were used of modern age and lifestyle of the people were to modern. This
film is not apporipate in historical purpose because there are many scene who have no relation with
history.

Reference :
1- Berman, Judith C ‘Bad Hair in the Paleolithic; Modern Construction of ‘Cave Men’ American
Anthropologist 1999
2- Mann Alan E., ‘Imaging Prehistory: Pictorial Reconstructions of the way we were`, American
Anthropologist 2003
3- Moser, Stephanie and Sam Smiles, ‘Introduction: The Image in Question` in Sam Smiles and Stephanie
Moser(eds), Envisioning the Past : Archaeology and The Image , Blackwell Publishing Malden USA,
2005.
4- Solometo Julie and Joshua Moss, ‘Picturing the past: Gender in National Geographic Reconstuctions of
Prehistoric life’, American Antiquity, 2013,
5- Szpir ,Michael ‘Nasty British and Short?, American Scientist 1993, 81:4