10 Movies That Aged Badly For Surprising Reasons

6. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

American Beauty Kevin Spacey
20th Century Fox

We've already talked about child sexual assault, date rape, transphobia, and terrorism and on the fifth entry in the list we've got Robin Williams. It's kind of like the bonfire in a Dark Souls game - come in, sit down, and rest for a bit. If you've lived under a rock since 1993 and have somehow never heard of Mrs. Doubtfire here's the summary: Robin Williams plays an irresponsible, but loving father, who deceives his wife by dressing up like an elderly Scottish woman to be with his kids.

So we've got a two-parter here. First of all - its a wee bit cringey that a guy would deceive his ex-wife and children. All he had to do was wait three months and he would have gotten his wish of partial custody. Instead he did something that in real life would have gotten a restraining order against him and possibly some jail time.

At the same time a number of people have cited the fact that, though Daniel isn't the most responsible of parents, he is still legally Miranda's husband. You can argue that the court was right for restricting his custody, but he was an unemployed husband married to a successful businesswoman.

In California law he had a legal right to half of the marital assets and likely could have argued for Miranda to pay him alimony. Between his mistreatment by the court and his deception, it just puts a sour taste in some viewer's mouths. Of course, moments in the movie when Daniel is sad hits pretty hard ever since Robin Williams' 2014 suicide, as well.

Contributor
Contributor

Author of Escort (Eternal Press, 2015), co-founder of Nic3Ntertainment, and developer behind The Sickle Upon Sekigahara (2020). Currently freelancing as a game developer and history consultant. Also tends to travel the eastern U.S. doing courses on History, Writing, and Japanese Poetry. You can find his portfolio at www.richardcshaffer.com.