The irony is Clark Gable refused to attend the Oscars if his African-American co-star in the movie was not allowed.
I haven’t heard any cries to police what people watch in their own homes for political correctness. This is a discussion about what material we want to allow in the public sphere.
Your ascription of protests against Gone with the Wind to some vaguely alleged "current atmosphere of ‘everything is racist’ " doesn’t seem to take into account the fact that, as I pointed out already in post #4, people have been protesting racism in Gone with the Wind ever since the movie was first released in 1940.
There’s a whole lot of white people nowadays incorrectly imagining that “people” protesting racism in popular media is somehow a new phenomenon.
But isn’t the only reason such businesses (should) put stock in such agitation be that they think it will cost them money due to a drop in attendance? If it was just a single person agitating with no noticeable affect on my business, why should I care? Or if there are people who privately dislike my movie, why should I care if there are enough people coming to see the movie to make up for those not coming?
The issue seems to be that businesses are either anticipating or realizing a drop in revenue due to the agitating having an affect on others. In other words, businesses are anticipating or actually realizing that people’s very public opinions are affecting other people’s actions to the detriment of the business. I don’t see a problem with this as people are perfectly free in this country to agitate against a business as much as they want (within legal limits), including encouraging others to stop patronizing a business.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding your position?
People have a right to be stupid, ridiculous, and immoral. Still doesn’t mean they should be stupid, ridiculous or immoral.
If you don’t like a show on TV - don’t watch it. If you don’t like a movie - don’t go see it. You don’t like a book - don’t read it. But agitating against the TV network, movie theater or a book publisher is advocating censorship. No, it is not government censorship, so it is not against the first amendment, but censorship nonetheless.
You would be the first one to say it is stupid and ridiculous for the “moral majority” people to agitate against movie theaters that are showing let’s say “Fifty Shades of Gray”. You’d say “don’t like it, don’t watch it” right?
The one and only difference between people protesting Gone with the wind in 1940 and today is that it’s taken 77 years for it to be enough of us to actually make a difference.
Tried to watch “Gone with the wind” once. Once. Couldn’t finish it. “Boring” doesn’t even begin to describe the effect it had on me.
I guess that some decades from now it will end up being like other films that are praised in film classes but actually are almost never shown to the general public due to disinterest.
Meh, I’ve never been able to stay awake long enough to see the burning of Atlanta. So, let’s just say I’m not a fan.
That said, I would applaud a theater that was brave enough to show a movie that I can’t stand to watch. People often protest against events, and the event holders have to decide whether the event is important and/or profitable enough to withstand the protest. In this case, they decided it wasn’t worth it to them. Since I think the movie is boring as hell, I can understand their position.
I don’t see how anyone can see this as someone being oppressed. If you want to rent out a theater and show the movie, you still can. More offensive movies than it get shown.
Do I think the people protesting Gone With the Wind are similarly silly to the folks that protest at rock concerts? Yeah, I doubt many satanists actually attended Ozzy Osbourne concerts, and few white supremacists are going to see Gone With the Wind. I’d prefer my side not make themselves look like Bob Larsen when he declared the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were leading children into satanism*, but it’s a free country.
*This was simultaneously the most horrifying and hilarious hour of radio I have ever experienced.
As others have pointed out, objections to GWTW on the grounds of racism are nothing new. My mother walked out of a screening of the film when she was in college, 40+ years ago. I have seen the movie and found it appallingly racist. The book is even worse.
The management of this particular theater has decided not to show the film. That’s fine with me. If the government declared that GWTW could not be shown publicly or if a library removed the book from its shelves, I would object loudly. But that isn’t what has happened here.
Hey, why pick on Peter? 
Sure, he was autocratic (all the tsars were). But if you’re looking for a “bloodthirsty monster” who is lionized in contemporary Russia, it isn’t hard to find those who were much worse than Peter.
However, that is not what happened.
You quoted the article quoting one person. Fine. But the decision was based on multiple people objecting to the movie, indicating that they would probably not pay to see it next year, indicating that between the cost of renting it and the loss of sales in the period it would have been shown, showing it again next year would result in a loss of revenue.
The Orpheum theatre did not say that they would refrain from showing it because it was “tribute to white supremacy.” They said they would not show it because it was not “sensitive” to their larger audience. That is standard business-speak for “if people don’t like our product, it makes no sense to spend the money to offer it.”
As to the objections to the movie, they are part of a long American tradition. Are you opposed to American traditions?
Only the left ones. So much so that I bet he make 3 right turns if instructed by his GPS to turn left at the next light.
No, advocating (or “agitating” – is there a difference?) against a venue or media service because one disagrees with the content is not advocacy of censorship. Saying “this movie is bad because the acting is terrible” isn’t censorship. Saying “this movie is bad because it trivializes racism” isn’t censorship.
If advocating against a movie studio, or cinema, or book publisher, due to a philosophical disagreement, is censorship, then your advocacy against advocating against media platforms is also censorship.
And that would be silly. Neither one is censorship. Boycotts are part of free expression and free market, whether for good causes or ill causes, and so is advocacy against boycotts. I can say “don’t go to that cinema because they’re racist!”, and you can say “don’t tell people to avoid that cinema!”, and neither one is censorship.
And then you’ll be kicked and beaten and covered in honey and lowered into a pit of fire ants!
And a passer by will see you and say “Why are you lowering that poor fellow into that pit of fire ants?”
And a vanguard of 1984 will reply “Sir, this man viewed a DVD of Gone with the Wind in the privacy of his own home.”
“What!? FIRE ANTS ARE TOO GOOD FOR HIM!”
Why are people protesting GWTW for its tribute to white supremacy when they could be protesting it for its glorification of rape?
I’ve always felt that GWTW is extremely offensive because of what to me is clearly a rape scene. But as others have said, it’s up to the theater owners to determine what films they want to show. It’s not as if this involves the government or free speech in any way, and the film is easily available to anyone who wants to see it.
GWTW is not some art film that is beloved of critics but disliked or misunderstood by the general public. GTWT held the record for highest-grossing film for 25 years, and is the highest grossing-film of all time adjusted for inflation. I doubt the public will ever stop being interested in the film as entertainment, although it will certainly continue to date and be less culturally appropriate.
It remains one of the favorite movies of my mother. But she used it to teach me something. The first time I watched it with her, at a small theater in the late 70’s, she made one comment about a particular scene that has stayed with me.
It’s right when Scarlett has brought Melanie, the baby, and Prissy back to Tara. It’s devasated. Pork, the butler for Mr. O’Hara, tells her about what has happened. They have one cow, and Scarlett says he will have to milk the cow for the baby. He replies, in consternation, “But Miss Scarlett, we’s house servants!” Mom told me it was sad when someone could be conditioned like Pork, was, to accept such a place as he had.
Mom loves the movie, but that didn’t mean she liked all the people in it. And the movie itself soft pedaled some of the incidents in the book.
When Hattie McDaniel won Best Supporting Actress I heard a story she had been shunted off to a corner of the dining room where the awards were held. Anyone know if that’s true? Of all the characters in the movie, I liked her best. Most of the roles she had were those of servants, but she was quoted as saying she’d rather make $150 a week playing a maid, than $5 a week actually being one.
It doesn’t matter if white supremacists attend Gone With the Wind, because that’s not the argument being made. The argument made is that they don’t want to see it because these racist aspects, and that you should also find these racist aspects bad enough to not want to see it. Which is just them spreading their ideas.
I’m not a big fan of this pardon we give for racism in older works. And we definitely do–since the bulk of the argument for film is people arguing it’s not that racist. Not that it’s racist but we understand this and want to watch it for how good it is in other ways. In fact, I haven’t heard anyone talk about how it is well shot or well acted or anything.
Can you watch movies with racism, recognizing the bad parts but appreciating the good? Sure. Is our society at large mature enough to do so? Sure doesn’t seem like it.
Maybe once venerating the Confederacy is a quaint thing in the past, we can pull it off. But it’s not. The wounds are still open.
Maybe once we get past these people whining about people being “politically correct” instead of actually acknowledging other views.
It’s one of my favorite books and movies, but if other people hate it and want to protest it? Good for you. I can see where you’re coming from. It’s a guilty pleasure and I don’t pretend it’s not problematic. I just dial myself back a bit when reading/watching it.
My favourite part of the movie is when Carol Burnett comes downstairs wearing a curtain with the rod still in it.
‘I saw it in the window and just had to have it.’
It’s not an academic question: MSN
So a theater made a business decision? Film at 11! Or in this case, film at 11 canceled!