It's A Film About Boron?

September 18, 2011 9:44 PM

The Periodic Table of Exploitation organizes all the directors and actors you need to see to be well-versed in exploitation cinema. It's created by the indispensable Teleport City (previously).
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn (11 comments total)

I wish people would stop using the periodic table as a trope for organizing any old list they want. In chemistry that structure has a beauty... in other applications, not so much.
posted by rube goldberg at 10:11 PM on September 18, 2011 [4 favorites]

Does this come in a size that's actually...you know...readable? Unless I'm missing something, the biggest version we get puts the names (I assume those are names) around a size 6 font.
posted by phunniemee at 10:24 PM on September 18, 2011

Just click on it.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:28 PM on September 18, 2011

The sad part about this use of the periodic table is that they could have put these people into periods based on the kinds of movies they were in, the kinds of roles they played, whether they were actors or directors... Even if you didn't know jack about 90% of these people, you could look at that and get more information than you came in with.

As it is, what Rube Goldberg said.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:29 PM on September 18, 2011

Just click on it.

That's what I'm talking about. Still tiny. Marginally bigger, but still tiny. I can't read it at all, can barely even see the pictures. :(
posted by phunniemee at 10:30 PM on September 18, 2011

It isn't a periodic table, unless info in the columns progress from less to more of some quality, and the info in the rows does also. I've seen periodic tables of things (not elements) but most are, like this, just a bunch of stuff. Why is it cool?
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 10:33 PM on September 18, 2011

The <MAP> tag is somehow missing.
posted by benzenedream at 10:38 PM on September 18, 2011

If I made a fpp just linking to the wiki on exploitation films it would have a lot more information organized in a useful way but it would also get deleted instantly.
posted by munchingzombie at 10:56 PM on September 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Periodic Table Jokes. Been There. Seen Them All. Bought the Shirt. (Not recommended for anyone who gets sensitive about people staring at their chests. BTW, when is that Treaty of Westphalia shirt coming out?)
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:56 PM on September 18, 2011

Still tiny. Marginally bigger, but still tiny.

Here's the full-sized image from the comments on the post. Way less eyestrain-inducing.

Still, this really only represents a pretty narrow slice of exploitation film, almost all action-movie stuff from the '70s through the '90s. It'd be great to see a chronologically broader version of this, with way more Reefer Madness and Val Lewton and Ed Wood, Nazisploitation and drugsploitation, and so on and so on. And yeah, it'd be nice if the table's organization represented something on both axes and/or if it had real categories (which could be arranged according to what's being exploited, from race to drug to sex-based groupings). This is a pretty half-assed execution of a potentially neat idea.
posted by RogerB at 10:59 PM on September 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Why is Danny Trejo on this list? Why is The Bad (from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) on this list? Hell, even Dolph Lungdren. I know Dolph has made a lot of cheesy flims, but I don't think any of them were exploitation films. Seems like the author of the list is using the word exploitation extremely gratuitously. Just because it's a b-movie doesn't make it an exploitation flim.
posted by BurnChao at 11:16 PM on September 18, 2011 [1 favorite]