Films/DVD Asylum

Umm the fuller story is this is "temporary"

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In Reply to: RE: HBO pulls GWTW . . . posted by Billy Wonka on June 10, 2020 at 10:29:26

A spokesperson for HBO Max, which like CNN is owned by WarnerMedia, told CNN Business that "Gone with the Wind" is "a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society."

"These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that when the film returns to HBO Max, it "will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions," and will be presented "as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.

"If we are to create a more just, equitable and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history," the spokesperson said."

So they have not burned GWTW but as I have said many times about old movies - a modern audience tends to laugh at the silly dialog and ludicrous acting and often stupid plot lines they are a modern audience who are say 18 years old and think of minorities as equals so they need some sort of "context" to older movies (and books for that matter).

Terminology that is racist today was not viewed as racist (at least not by whites) in the 1930s.

And this is only the beginning - Many other films from the past are being held to the Bechdel test

"The Bechdel test, also known as the Bechdel-Wallace test, is a measure of the representation of women in fiction. It asks whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added."

So movies like the The Thing fail right out of the gate since there are no women in the movie.

But films like Raiders of the Lost Ark - which for what it is is deemed a classic also comes under fire to modern audiences because of the way Marion is written and that Indiana Jones initially had a relationship with her when she was underage.

I have an entire book series for children that were called the Value books and each book would teach children about courage or wisdom or whatever. And they would use real life figures like Helen Keller or Jackie Robinson.

BUT because of the language used in these books they can't be used in the modern classroom. It's sad because they're excellent books and like the representative in the above quote - all you really need to do is come up with a statement that reads this is a product of history and this the dual lesson here is that we learn about the history of language usage from these periods of time whether 1930 or 1940 etc.

What should bother all of us is that people are not being taught to contextualize the arts in their time periods. None of these things should be banned - you can watch these older movies and in a very real way see where we have come and indeed how language has changed over time.

This stuff SHOULD be taught in your schools - that you need to put films and books and even music in the culture and context of the ERA they were written in so that some HBO executive doesn't field millions of outraged calls that some 1939 film was racist. These people SHOULD have been taught this in elementary school that this is the way people talked in 1939 - this was the attitude of the white man in 1939. Granted it still is the attitude in many quarters.

The other problem is that political correctness gets to a point where everyone is an eggshell. When a child falls - you pick him up and keep moving. If the parent stops and fawns all over the kid they wind up bursting into tears to get more attention. No - pick up keep going and the kid is probably just fine - you make a big deal the kid will make a big deal.

John Cleese and Bill Maher talk about this over political correctness (usually the ultra far left wing who as Cleese notes has a semi-good idea and then takes it too far)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCj6YNIpqmA (Open in New Window)

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