HBO removes Gone with the wind.

[Rev. Rye]

For what it's worth, by most accounts, HBO's taking the film down is temporary.


And, apparently, according to a Washington post article that I cannot read because they put it under a paywall, "‘Gone With the Wind’ will probably be back on HBO Max next week, with an African American scholar at the front of it." This would be nice, if only because, even when it was released in those huge 4-disc DVD and Blu-Ray sets, there was no featurette devoted to exploring the more fucked-up racial subtext of the film (and, for the record, my copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's does have one on Mickey Rooney's character, and while incomplete and failing to mention the changes that they made to him for the film, namely that he was originally written as a normal Japanese-American photographer and not the icon of Asian racist stereotyping, it's thoughtful).

And for what it's worth, it's still in print on physical media. If you have trouble finding a copy online, it's only because this whole controversy has caused sales to spike. And, if that Washington Post article is accurate, if my experience with the post office under COVID is any indication, by the time you actually get the copy you ordered in the wake of this controversy (Amazon Prime being the most likely exception), it could probably be back on HBOMax anyway.

Also, as a side note, the fact that streaming services can remove content from their services at all is a major part of the reason I strongly prefer physical media. If I want to watch it, I can do so anytime I want (provided I have access to the disc and player) and I'm not at the mercy of the whims of either the platform or whatever copyright issue's taking it down.

[Sal]

If it's a private company then I don't care.

If it's state censorship, then I care.

[Ranjr]

Don't stop there.  Get rid of Terms of Endearment, Steel Magnolias, and Marley and Me while you're at it.  I will personally burn the Big Chill.

No sir!    

The Big Chill is one of my favorite movies...definitely one of my favorite soundtracks.

But I'm highly offended by the male stereotypes, negative portrayals of men, having to watch it every time the dish sees it on, and by Kline's big mistake in not saying,  "I'll sleep with your friend, but only if you help."  That's all embarrassing and wrong.

[The Architect Of Fate]

It's not even censorship it's adding context

[arewethereyet]

No sir!    

The Big Chill is one of my favorite movies...definitely one of my favorite soundtracks.

But I'm highly offended by the male stereotypes, negative portrayals of men, having to watch it every time the dish sees it on, and by Kline's big mistake in not saying,  "I'll sleep with your friend, but only if you help."  That's all embarrassing and wrong.

 

I watch it about once a year.  I absolutely love the music.  The story lines are pretty cheesy but the music always sucks me in.

[Duty]

Oh my days, so I downloaded GWTW and the rolling text in the intro is...well...erm, yes, HBO et al needed to act on this and in fact should have done so a looooooong time ago! Ah well, better late than never. The following is a hand written reproduction of that rolling text. Was it hard work? No, not really. I will now watch the film...it's 4 hours long...maybe not all of it.

"There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South...Here in this pretty world Gallantry took its last bow..Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilisation gone with the wind."

[arewethereyet]

There is a podcast I listen to that is mostly about the lives of old movie actors and often the scandals surrounding them.

A few months ago they did an extended series on the Disney movie 'Song of the South' that came out in 1946. I remember seeing this played on the Wonderful World of Disney when I was a kid and may actually have seen it in a theater when I was really young.

It's been pulled from their collection and won't be rereleased. Holy Moly...the racism and stereotypes in that movie are unnerving. As a little kid I just liked the music and it was one of the first live action/animation films I recall seeing. I am pretty sure I had the Uncle Remus books and I clearly recall Br'er Rabbit stories.

I am not sure exactly how I feel about censoring films. They are a reflection of the time in which they were made. But I don't have a problem with a company deciding they want to pull something from their lineup.

Do we pull 'To Kill a Mockingbird' because it's depicts the times and then erase the message conveyed?

Gets a little dicey, I think.

[Duty]

OMG the sexism! The belittling of women as they're squeezed and laced into their corsets! 1939 people - 1939.

[Ranjr]

Just hope some alien spacecraft never picks up a stray airing of Star Trek.

[Rev. Rye]

Yeah, it should definitely be kept in mind that the film was made in an era when racist assholes in the South were actually considered a key demographic for studios. There was an early adaptation of Brewster’s Millions a few years after this movie came out that got banned in Memphis because the black servant character was treated too well. Studios had to relegate black actors to playing servants because anything else would be seen as an abomination to the natural order. Either that or they were black entertainers doing their act in such a way that it could easily be cut from the film if the local censorship boards decided it shouldn’t be shown. As much flak as Song of the South gets, the mere act of a major studio making a film about a black protagonist was actually fairly radical for the era, even if the 13th Amendment was the only thing keeping him from just being a slave. And it seems like the benign portrayal of the culture of the era, a world where Uncle Remus can easily accept (and likely even enjoy) a lot in life that isn’t much better than slavery and possibly even worse in a few, was probably the spoonful of sugar that helped it go down at the time.

This is also why so many Civil War films from this era had a pretty heavy pro-Confederacy slant and so few were pro-Union; not necessarily because they believed it (though, of course, they may well have), But because to make a Civil War film that sided with the Union in that time would have been commercial suicide. It’s sort of analogous with Hollywood’s relationship now with the People’s Republic of China today. So, yes, the reason films like this tended to favor the Confederacy over the Union is more or less the same reason they changed Dr. Strange’s master from a Tibetan monk to a Celtic one.

And, despite some small progress in the 1950s and early 1960s (mostly from Sidney Poitier putting a “respectable” face on a black protagonist) it pretty much stayed that way until about 1967, when Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was released to great success (and surprisingly little backlash at that point) and Hollywood finally learned to stop worrying about the Wrath of the South. If you watch a film from that era where black people appear or should theoretically play a non-negligible role, this is what you have to bear in mind. I know it’s fucked up, but that doesn’t change the fact that that was how it went in those days.