Gone With the Wind - Is Gone ("Temporarily" from Some Streaming/Broadcast Services)

[stillafool]

I'm so sad about this I don't know what to do.  The first Black person to win an Oscar was the late, great Hattie McDaniel for her betrayal of Mammie in this beautiful movie.

I've seen this movie at least 10 times and I always cry at the part when Mellie (Olivia de Havilland) arrives and Mammie explains the pain that exists in the mansion after the death of Bonnie Blue, Rhett and Scarlet's only child.  She was brilliant in that role.  Hattie McDaniel played maids in a lot of movies during that time but her real life was quite different.  She had her own maid and used to love to throw big parties where Clark Cable, Carole Lombard and many other actors would attend.  I think it is sad that they are taking this movie away and a lot of little black children as well as white, will never get to see the performance that earned Hattie her much deserved award.   I imagine she would be severely hurt if she knew this film is being thrown away because of her good work.  We cannot rewrite history but learn from it and do better.  I wonder how many other classic films will be shelved or abolished.

[Paul]

Greetings,

Adding context to prevent confusion from those who may take the thread title and above post to suggest the film has been destroyed or will no longer be distributed.

Per reporting on major news sites, the film has been temporarily withdrawn from rotation on streaming services and subscription channels pending the addition of a discussion on the portrayals of culture and the historical context of the depictions that exist in the film. The intention, as reported by various services, is to show the film unedited and as originally presented, with the addition of a preface, similar to what we commonly see on animated films and shorts of the era.

BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52990714

New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/movies/gone-with-the-wind-controversy.html

Best,
Paul

[eleanorrigby]

IMO the "left" are the not the people asking for meaningless and pointless actions like taking Cops and Gone With the Wind off the air.

We get movies and statues removed instead of meaningful, impactful reform of institutions. I think things like this  are proposed and enacted so swiftly merely to create more division,  hijack narratives and dilute our focused energy.

[schlumpy]

That's a interesting thought Eleanor. I will have to mull it over.

[stillafool]

Temporary could mean sometime in the next 20 to 30 years.  I went to buy a copy of GWTW eBay and the bidding is high for the DVDs.  People are rushing to buy this film and have it on hand to show future generations. 

[schlumpy]

Can you imagine how many other movies could be shelved under this type of review?

Any movie depicting the civil war might fall under this shadow. Will civil re-enactments be allowed to happen? What about any movie where an African American actor plays a servant? Should they be busting out some cement blocks on the Hollywood walk of fame for acting in racist movies?

I'm sure people that are for this type of activity are thinking this is extreme. It would never go that far. It certainly has before. 

Why do people today believe that they are different from people in the past when the evidence is to the contrary? Is it our technology that allows us feel so superior?

[stillafool]

8 minutes ago, schlumpy said:

Can you imagine how many other movies could be shelved under this type of review?

i know. Hundreds if not more.  I think Betty Davis's "Jezebel" was far worse as far as depicting slaves than "Gone With the Wind".  I wonder why they didn't chose that one.  I'm wondering if Plantations will no longer be allowed to stand since statues are coming down.

[Emilie Jolie]

1 hour ago, eleanorrigby said:

IMO the "left" are the not the people asking for meaningless and pointless actions like taking Cops and Gone With the Wind off the air.

We get movies and statues removed instead of meaningful, impactful reform of institutions. I think things like this  are proposed and enacted so swiftly merely to create more division,  hijack narratives and dilute our focused energy.

That's true, partly. I was just replying on another thread saying just that - in the UK, the former Opposition Leader (very much left) made it a pledge to give  UK's colonial past a bigger part in the school curriculum and that idea was ridiculed across the board for wanting to 'rewrite history'. When nothing works, you need a symbolic gesture. Not all of them are good ideas, but it's a start.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Emilie Jolie

[Miss Spider]

I fcking lost it when I heard PAW PATROL could be banned because it is "inaccurately positive depiction of police force" LOL it's a bunch of talking puppies who are rescue personnel and thats the biggest "inaccuracy" you can see here. xD

Edited June 12, 2020 by Cookiesandough

[Ellener]

They can take off Carousel for my liking too, and any other light-hearted look at domestic violence which is apparently heightened for the pandemic world-wide, though I doubt we'll ever stop singing 'You'll never walk alone' at Anfield. 

[mark clemson]

2 hours ago, Cookiesandough said:

I fcking lost it when I heard PAW PATROL could be banned because it is "inaccurately positive depiction of police force" LOL it's a bunch of talking puppies who are rescue personnel and thats the biggest "inaccuracy" you can see here. xD

Right - like there are NO good cops who pull people out of burning cars and perform acts of kindness (and sometimes make the ultimate self-sacrifice) for people in dire need?? What baloney.

I noticed use of an outdated racial slur for Asians in Crash. Does anyone actually say that anymore?? Perhaps pull it down as well for review and historical contextualization?

Edited June 12, 2020 by mark clemson

[simpycurious]

2 hours ago, mark clemson said:

Right - like there are NO good cops who pull people out of burning cars and perform acts of kindness (and sometimes make the ultimate self-sacrifice) for people in dire need?? What baloney.

I noticed use of an outdated racial slur for Asians in Crash. Does anyone actually say that anymore?? Perhaps pull it down as well for review and historical contextualization?

It's CRAZY to vilify an ENTIRE group due to a FEW.  We LEARN from historic events both good and bad. Going to far LEFT or RIGHT leaves A LOT OF QUALITY room in the middle. 

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

I’m “a leftist” (or am called one, anyway) and I can tell you this concerns me. It’s very Fahrenheit 451. What about books? Mark Twain’s works? To Kill a Mockingbird? Laura Ingalls Wilder has also been called into question for her portrayal of indigenous nations before she learned better (something she also portrays in her books - that evolution). There are also so many books and movies and even art that portray women as lesser, per the times. Thousands and thousands.

Some of these works make us cringe but literature, art and movies are parts of history. I’m wary of this most recent development. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

Paw Patrol has not been canceled. Why do people use Facebook as their news source?

Also, the extreme right has been more implicated by far historically with riot destructiveness.

Also this. https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/06/06/as-trump-blames-antifa-protest-records-show-scant-evidence/

Enough already of listening to Tweets as news.

[basil67]

"Woke" daughter says that it should still be screened.   But she says that if too many people are going to complain, then perhaps a disclaimer about how it was a product of it's time and reflected harmful and inaccurate parts of history could be used.

[CaliforniaGirl]

1 minute ago, basil67 said:

"Woke" daughter says that it should still be screened.   But she says that if too many people are going to complain, then perhaps a disclaimer about how it was a product of it's time and reflected harmful and inaccurate parts of history could be used.

I don't see how this can happen unless literally thousands of books and movies get the same, at which time it becomes meaningless. TBH.

BTW, is the book GwtW also getting a warning?

[CaliforniaGirl]

On 6/12/2020 at 7:47 AM, Cookiesandough said:

I fcking lost it when I heard PAW PATROL could be banned because it is "inaccurately positive depiction of police force" LOL it's a bunch of talking puppies who are rescue personnel and thats the biggest "inaccuracy" you can see here. xD

This was a silly hoax. No, Paw Patrol is not canceled.

[Emilie Jolie]

Gone with the Wind is not gone either, or cancelled, or altered in any way except for adding some context to it.

I love the film, I loved the book, I don't want the film to be modified in any way but at the same time, I don't understand why adding some preface to it is such an issue? It's a bit like adding an educational plaque to a statue, it adds historical value to it.

What am I missing?

[CaliforniaGirl]

6 minutes ago, enigma32 said:

I don't blame ALL of the left. I don't see any group of people as a monolith, whether they be one race, gender, or political party. However, I think you will really struggle to find a Trump supporter out there agreeing with protests that burn down cities, or tearing down statues, or banning Gone With the Wind. I think that those acts are almost exclusively done by factions on the Left, and they seem to quickly be taking over the Democratic party. 

Far right extremists take disorganization and emotions as their calling card to spread politically motivated violence, including murder, and tend to be larger, more dangerous and more organized in their "cause" than the far left. 

Links are held up so Google this for the full piece, but this is not the only place to get these stats, if you dislike the Post:

The real threat of violence comes from the right. The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism reports that right-wingers and white supremacists were responsible for 74 percent of the murders committed by political extremists in the United States over the past decade. Only 2 percent were committed by left-wing radicals. Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, has calculated that “terrorists inspired by Nationalist and Right Wing ideology have killed about 10 times as many people as Left Wing terrorists since 1992.”

[basil67]

11 minutes ago, enigma32 said:

I don't blame ALL of the left. I don't see any group of people as a monolith, whether they be one race, gender, or political party. However, I think you will really struggle to find a Trump supporter out there agreeing with protests that burn down cities, or tearing down statues, or banning Gone With the Wind. I think that those acts are almost exclusively done by factions on the Left, and they seem to quickly be taking over the Democratic party. 

Are you pretending that the riots are exclusively left and haven't been infiltrated by ratbags who just want to create havoc?    

[basil67]

39 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

I don't see how this can happen unless literally thousands of books and movies get the same, at which time it becomes meaningless. TBH.

BTW, is the book GwtW also getting a warning?

No, only if they feel the need due to advertisers or boycotts.   If they don't care or aren't feeling a push, they can do whatever they want.   Or they can do whatever they want anyway.

[lana-banana]

1) "Gone with the Wind" isn't "gone" anywhere. A SINGLE PLATFORM (out of how many?) decided to temporarily stop offering it on streaming. We have got to stop being so melodramatic.

2) The movie was profoundly offensive to a lot of Black Americans when it came out and it continues to be problematic today. It is directly responsible for a lot of very confused understanding of the Civil War and grossly inappropriate romanticization of the South and the "lost cause" myth. Adding more context is the least we can do.

3) Hattie McDaniel's treatment is nothing to celebrate. She had to sit at a segregated table and wasn't even allowed at the party for the cast. Some victory.

4) The Paw Patrol thing was a joke/meme. Good lord. 

5) Also a joke: "antifa", which as far as anyone can tell is not really a thing in any meaningful way. There's even a great Washington Post article you can read, titled "Scant evidence of antifa shows how sweeping the protests for racial justice have become". Quoted for emphasis:

"But the group the Trump administration has labeled a menace has mostly been nonexistent, experts and law enforcement officials say, and certainly has not been orchestrating what have been largely peaceful protests. Despite warnings of antifa incursions in scores of cities, there is no evidence linking outbursts of violence to an organized left-wing effort. And those associated with the autonomous groups that went up against far-right figureheads four years ago — and whose roots go back to earlier left-wing causes — say there is no such centralized organization.

Federal and local arrest records in dozens of cities make virtually no mention of antifa. Law enforcement officials who had braced for the purported invasion of antifa militants in cities large and small now mostly acknowledge the threat has not appeared."

Edited June 14, 2020 by lana-banana

[Libby1]

Streaming companies have removed Little Britain (a popular UK comedy show from a few years back) over concerns about blackface skits.

 

The explanation leaves me no clearer as to why they removed it.  The process for making these decisions seems to be "we've angsted and bitten our nails over the conflict here. It's really difficult.  We're taking it off the air."  There's a bit in the middle that seems to be missing.  Namely, what factors prevailed over others in reaching this decision - and why?  No way did comedians not realise 10 or 20 years ago that blackface was offensive.  Edgy humour was popular.  People were laughing because jokes or visual gags were offensive, not despite them being offensive.  That "funny because it's offensive" humour got wearing pretty quickly, in the same way that politically correct humour get tedious pretty quickly.  Now they're all wanting to jump off that edgy bandwagon and a lot of them are probably very happy for their old shows to be shunted away into archives for a while in the hope that they can reinvent themselves for a  more moralistic audience. 

I don't see this almost Cromwellian phase lasting though.  Politically correct humour isn't usually a very side splitting affair, and most people probably enjoy a belly laugh far too much to settle for it in the longer term.  In the UK, we have crap weather, an immensely embarrassing Royal Family, Piers Morgan and the rest of the world doesn't seem able to make up its mind whether it wants to mock us for losing/giving away an empire or berate us for having had it in the first place.  We deal with it because we laugh a lot.  Take away the right to laugh about whatever we please, and that's probably about the time the guillotines are going to be rolled out into the public squares.  

As far as Gone With The Wind, which is obviously not a comedy, goes...they'll probably re-release the revised (ie with an accompanying discussion and analysis) version to a lot of fanfare and make a ton of money out of it.  I think it'll be interesting to watch the accompanying discussion, as long as it's done well - in a genuinely thoughtful, interesting way and isn't just a lot of handwringing and apologising.  Although this is a  difficult time, I think it's also a time where discussion between black and white commentators can start to have a  level of thoughtfulness, respect, analysis and honesty about cultural issues that has been sorely missing in the past.  I'm not a fan of censorship, but if GWTW is going to be briefly taken out of circulation and then re-released with the intention of provoking that sort of discussion, that could be a very positive move.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Libby1

[jspice]

Right, nobody’s talking about the fact that she wasn’t even allowed in the front door when she won that Oscar. 
 

Just as with the bringing down of statues, it’s an empty gesture anyway. Window dressing. its just another bandwagon to jump on instead of  spearheading real change. 
 

[Emilie Jolie]

20 minutes ago, jspice said:

Just as with the bringing down of statues, it’s an empty gesture anyway. Window dressing. its just another bandwagon to jump on instead of  spearheading real change. 

I agree with this, if nothing else gets done but this, it's an empty gesture. However, my personal experience with the film (and the book, more to the point) was a curiosity to know more about that time. This is why I love Gone with the Wind, aside from the unrequited love story aspect - it spurred me to want to know more.