Should "Gone with the Wind" go the way of the Confederate flag?

1895-1999
User avatar
OscarGuy
Site Admin
Posts: 13668
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 12:22 am
Location: Springfield, MO
Contact:

Re: Should "Gone with the Wind" go the way of the Confederate flag?

Post by OscarGuy »

Their stated mission is to "educate." Then educate. Don't shy away from controversial subject matters. Invite prominent members of the black community to discuss the film's impact, its stance, and more.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: Should "Gone with the Wind" go the way of the Confederate flag?

Post by Big Magilla »

Sometimes they go too far.

Now they're claiming that the film is racist because Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) slaps Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) during the birth of Melanie's (Olivia de Havilland) baby. Now, really, did anyone who saw the film in 1939 or in its many subsequent showings in theatres, on TV and home video, where it's been a consistent favorite, cheer Scarlett on or think Prissy deserved the slap? Most people I know, winced the first time they saw it.
dws1982
Emeritus
Posts: 3790
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 9:28 pm
Location: AL
Contact:

Re: Should "Gone with the Wind" go the way of the Confederate flag?

Post by dws1982 »

Orpheum theater won’t show ‘Gone With the Wind,’ calling film ‘insensitive’

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — “Gone With the Wind” will be gone from The Orpheum’s summer movie series, the theater’s board said Friday.

The Orpheum Theatre Group decided not to include the 1939 movie about a plantation in the Civil War-era South in its 2018 Summer Movie Series after feedback from patrons following the last screening Aug. 11.

“As an organization whose stated mission is to ‘entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves’, the Orpheum cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population,” the theater’s operators said in a statement.

Memphis’ population is about 64 percent African-American.

The historic theater in Downtown Memphis has shown the movie for decades, but this year’s event “generated numerous comments,” leading to the decision.

“While title selections for the series are typically made in the spring of each year, the Orpheum has made this determination early in response to specific inquiries from patrons,” the Orpheum group said.

The theater’s 2018 movie series will be announced in the spring and will contain classic films and more recent blockbusters.
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: Should "Gone with the Wind" go the way of the Confederate flag?

Post by Big Magilla »

The argument against Gone With the Wind for showing the "confederate flag" is a nonsensical one.

As I understand it, there was no "confederate flag" per se. The flag flown in front of the South Carolina State Capitol is one of many regimental flags of the Confederate Army. It is in fact the regimental flag of Robert E. Lee's north Virginia regiment. The flag that was flown on the dome of the Capitol from 1962-2002 (?) was the Georgia Confederate state flag which was (?) the one shown in Gone With the Wind. South Carolina Civil War regiments all had their own particular flag. The state did not have a confederate flag of its own.

The flag as a symbol of racism did not appear as such until it was co-opted by the Ku Klux Klan after the war. The re-emergence of the flag as a symbol of racism began with the racist Democratic governor of South Carolina ordering it placed on the Capitol dome in defiance of the growing civl rights movement of the day.

While it is true that many of the flag's supporters see it as a symbol of Southern pride, it is clearly a misguided sentiment. In wake of the church killings by a self-made white supremacist who draped himself in the flag in pictures on his hate spewing website, the confederate flag, in its various iterations, needs to be stricken from government supported veneration. It belongs in museums and yes, books and movies about the period, not in front of state capitols or on license plates in various Southern states.
Heksagon
Adjunct
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 10:39 pm
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: Should "Gone with the Wind" go the way of the Confederate flag?

Post by Heksagon »

Heh, I'm a particular admirer of Gone with the Wind as an artistic achievement. I have a soft spot for historical dramas that revolve around the family-in-distressing-times theme. The Pianist is another, very different, film I like for this reason.

Nevertheless, I don't see any reason to act apologetically about the historical revisionism that the movie advocates. Soon after the Civil War the Southerners began to promote a revisionist myth about the War and the ante-bellum Southern society that downplayed the significance and the inhumanity of their "Peculiar Institution". This mythical "Lost Cause" managed to become quite popular and Gone with the Wind is a product of that tradition.

However, even if the film's untruthful rendering of history is a legitimate reason for the Academy and film historians to exclude the film from events honoring classical films, it is not a valid reason for censoring the film in any way, or for revising the film in a way to make it more palatable for modern viewers. The film is what it is, warts and all, and altering it would be historically dishonest.

The fact is that history is written and re-written all the time, and people should be aware of this. Everyone knows that even supposedly factually-based Hollywood films constantly alter historical facts for their own ends. It is better to recognize this fact as such rather than pretend otherwise. Whitebrushing the Lost Cause elements from history is in itself historical revisionism.

There is plenty of historical revisionism in films these day, including racially themed revisionism. Perhaps the most prevalent is the Mississippi Burning type whitewashing which portrays racial discrimination as an exclusively Southern phenomenon, and ignores the fact that there was plenty of institutionalized discrimination also in the North, even if there was no Jim Crow there.

Concerning the Confederate Flag specifically, it's strange to start the discussion on this subject with Gone with the Wind. Now, I haven't particularly followed the debate about how much the flag is a symbol of racism or of some Southern identity. But aren't there quite a lot of films made in the 70s and 80s that use the flag specifically as an anti-authoritan symbol? Silkwood is the first film that comes to my mind, is that film racist because the lead characters have a huge Confederate Flag in their home?
anonymous1980
Laureate
Posts: 6377
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 10:03 pm
Location: Manila
Contact:

Should "Gone with the Wind" go the way of the Confederate flag?

Post by anonymous1980 »

Lou Lumenick asks this question in his column. I like Gone with the Wind (I don't think it's the greatest movie ever or anything). Admittedly, its racial politics are troubling. But I think trying to treat it like Birth of a Nation seems way too harsh.
Post Reply

Return to “The First Century”