Theater bans Gone With The Wind for being "Insensitive"

[ban1o]

Just now, cookie said:

MLK is a funny guy since everybody seems to be using him as a shield but if the man was alive today he'd be decried as the ultimate SJW.

 

This isn't really relevant to your post, I just needed an excuse to point that out.

This His approval rating before he died was very low too lol. Most people weren't huge fans of him back then as they pretend to be now. 

Edited August 28, 2017 by ban1o

[Webslinger]

6 minutes ago, grey ghost said:

So maybe this is not the best time to screen a film that glorifies and celebrates the Confederacy and white supremacy.

 

I mean, knowing all this, if people in your community voiced their concern, would you screen the movie, delay the screening or cancel. And if you did choose to cancel would you consider it an assault on free speech in general?

 

 

 

 

 

I do agree that it's the theater owner's decision to do what seems right, and in this situation, I understand and respect the decision not to screen the film at this particular theater. I just don't think it's that huge of a deal, and each side is blowing it wildly out of proportion. On the one hand, not showing a movie with troubling racial implications is probably the right move right now, and it's not like the film is going to go out of circulation entirely just because one theater in Tennessee isn't showing it. On the other hand, liking the movie in question or - in the case of any viewers who might have been interested in attending the screening that would have happened - wanting to go see it doesn't make the individual an unrepentant racist who won't stand up to hate speech. It's just a movie, and we should be able to trust the average person to be able to separate their personal values from those of an 80-year-old film.

[Water Bottle]

13 minutes ago, cookie said:

MLK is a funny guy since everybody seems to be using him as a shield but if the man was alive today he'd be decried as the ultimate SJW.

 

This isn't really relevant to your post, I just needed an excuse to point that out.

 

MLK Sr. and MLK, when he was 10, went to a party before the premiere of the movie and dressed as plantation slaves sang choir songs to celebrate the movie's release.

 

When asked to defend himself MLK Sr. said not everything they do is political.

[Water Bottle]

1 hour ago, a2knet said:

If all the energy against GWTW screenings actually goes into protesting on how unfairly minorities are sent to for-profit prisons, then it will be very worthwhile. In fact showings of GWTW across the nation could raise money to fight the prison industrial complex. That is how MLK would do it I like to think.

 

Ironically the author of Gone with the Wind privately donated some of the money she earned to help black people. She gave money to Morehouse College for example.

[grey ghost]

17 minutes ago, Barnack said:

I would speculate (while a could go in verify), but I suppose no one on the message board (or very few) supported theater owner banning Beauty and the Beast and try to justify is action, etc... leaving to very little argument, so a separate thread for the news was not needed it was all talked about in the movie thread.

 

If a group of people would have supported is decision, explaining why it is bad to show beauty and the beast in theater and so on, and long argument and a thread would have started.

 

Number of pages is more an indicator of argumentation/disagreement  than something else.

 

You keep putting it up and trying to make a strawmen than what bother people is the theater choosing not to screen a movie, the theater did decide to screen the movie and did as recently than this summer. People complaining about the theater showing the movie and making them stop showing the movie (something that they have absolutely the right to do obviously, like youtube has the right to have and have not video they want playing on their platform or the owner of this message board to kick who they want, etc...) is what bother people.

 

What if there is a boycott amazon until they stop selling Gone With the Wind bluray organized and Amazon give up and stop selling, would then be a time when it would be legitimate for people to voice concern ? If so, what is the big difference between the 2 situation ?

 

There are plenty of dvds or items I can't get off Amazon.

 

I just buy them off Ebay.

 

But if the government banned GWTW, you wouldn't be able to find it anywhere and the bootleg could get you arrested.

 

Pretty sizable difderence.

 

 

[Barnack]

2 minutes ago, grey ghost said:

There are plenty of dvds or items I can't get off Amazon.

 

I just buy them off Ebay.

 

But if the government banned GWTW, you wouldn't be able to find it anywhere and the bootleg could get you arrested.

 

Pretty sizable difderence.

Sizable different yes, but that can become effectively not that sizable.

 

Still an interesting question to the topic I think:

 

Quote

 

What if there is a boycott amazon until they stop selling Gone With the Wind bluray organized and Amazon give up and stop selling, would then be a time when it would be legitimate for people to voice concern ? If so, what is the big difference between the 2 situation ?

 

 

Would who say to the example above that it would legitimate to voice concern in that situation ? And if so, what is the big difference between the 2 situation ?

[grey ghost]

1 hour ago, a2knet said:

My point is that a theater owner wanting to show Gone With the Wind may not be a neonazi at all. Might be a good bloke who thought, "hmmm....next 2 weeks let me screen the 14 movies that won the most academy awards and make some dough", and while he does that somebody will bully his kids at school for being the kid of a racist neonazi for showing GWTW.

 

Where did I advocate bullying?

 

No kid deserves to be bullied but if they're walking through the hallways using racial or homophobic slurs then I'd hope that other studentd and faculty voice their opposition rather than stay silent in the face of bigotry.

[grey ghost]

46 minutes ago, Water Bottle said:

 

The screening was set for next year not right now.

 

Well they can reschedule it once race relations improve.

 

Unless the community is really mostly black then I can see how they don't really feel the screening is essential for their community.

 

Play the Color Purple instead.

[a2k]

6 minutes ago, grey ghost said:

 

Where did I advocate bullying?

 

No kid deserves to be bullied but if they're walking through the hallways using racial or homophobic slurs then I'd hope that other studentd and faculty voice their opposition rather than stay silent in the face of bigotry.

you didn't advocate bullying anywhere. i was pointing out a scenario where a potentially innocent screening ends up attracting hate towards the theater owners because folks are quick to tag someone racist/neonazi. to call a theater owner a neonazi because he is screening a movie with 8-10 oscars without knowing his intentions is same as bullying him/her.

Edited August 28, 2017 by a2knet

[grey ghost]

28 minutes ago, Water Bottle said:

 

MLK Sr. and MLK, when he was 10, went to a party before the premiere of the movie and dressed as plantation slaves sang choir songs to celebrate the movie's release.

 

When asked to defend himself MLK Sr. said not everything they do is political.

 

I don't get your point?

[cookie]

37 minutes ago, Water Bottle said:

 

MLK Sr. and MLK, when he was 10, went to a party before the premiere of the movie and dressed as plantation slaves sang choir songs to celebrate the movie's release.

 

When asked to defend himself MLK Sr. said not everything they do is political.

My point was more about his open/private beliefs during the Civil Rights era (a lot of which has been whitewashed - heh - in the public consciousness) and not really how he viewed GWTW tbf.

Edited August 28, 2017 by cookie

[grey ghost]

2 minutes ago, a2knet said:

you didn't advocate bullying anywhere. i was pointing out a scenario where a potentially innocent screening ends up attracting hate and bullying towards the theater owners because folks are quick to tag someone racist/neonazi.

Bullying and racism is bad and should be discouraged.

 

No political movement is flawless. But you still need to effectively fight against bigotry regardless.

[Macleod]

21 hours ago, Dexter of Suburbia said:

Nobody is saying that Gone with the Wind should be banned. But there is nothing wrong with a theater backing out from showing it. It was the owners decision not show it.

Here's how you find out if people still want to come see Gone with the Wind. 

 

You schedule a screening.

 

The public speaks with their wallets, yay or nay. 

 

I wouldn't have made my decision to screen a film (especially one as relatively-highly regarded and regularly-screened such as GWTW) from an ill-conceived social media backlash.

 

12 hours ago, Water Bottle said:

"The movie comes from a world with values and assumptions fundamentally different from our own--and yet, of course, so does all great classic fiction, starting with Homer and Shakespeare. A politically correct “GWTW” would not be worth making, and might largely be a lie."

 

Roger Ebert

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-gone-with-the-wind-1939

This.

 

12 hours ago, Water Bottle said:

When Birth of a Nation was released, there was loads of controversy over it's racist materials: so much so the director followed it up with Intolerance. I am sure white people complained Gone with the Wind was also racist when it came out.

 

That doesn't change that the film was a huge success, it's influence in film history (you can't dismiss it's place just because you think only whites appreciate it), and that it's a piece of art. Racist, sure, but on principal alone I defend any film's right to exist and be screened in America.

And THIS. 

Edited August 29, 2017 by Macleod

[Boxx93]

This is bullshit. Gone with the Wind is a classic that influenced global cinema for the last 8 decades. I understand it's not the time to show it in theatres but come on, enjoying GWTW does not make you racist.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Boxx93

[Sal]

On 8/27/2017 at 5:57 PM, Dexter of Suburbia said:

I been on Christians mission trips and undergrad college was a Christian college.  We never brought up the Bible when we built a house for family, when help out a neighborhood in New Orleans or helped cleaned out a graveyard to in San Antonio area. My college hand out blankets during the cold winters in Iowa. We never said anything about God to people who need the blankets, i helped with a Holiday charity drive for one of my classes. Any family regardlessvof religion could go. We offered free meals to the families and holiday meal they bring home. In fact we did not have a Bible at the charity drive. I know that since I ordered all the thousands of books  

 

Maybe your college was an exception because when I was homeless and the only options for food were churches, there was like one out of all the churches I ever got food handouts from that didn't make you sit through a sermon and prayer before letting you eat.

[Kvikk Lunsj]

31 minutes ago, Sal said:

 

Maybe your college was an exception because when I was homeless and the only options for food were churches, there was like one out of all the churches I ever got food handouts from that didn't make you sit through a sermon and prayer before letting you eat.

I know some do churches which is shame, I am sorry that you had a bad experience. I do not attend church but I like the ones that help out the community without asking for anything in return.  Like there was a church in my grandma town a tornado came through and they had hundreds of pizza to hand out for families so people hand something to eat. They drove around neighborhoods handing them out.

 

My college was super liberal it made the town people upset that he had drag shows and help the high school start a gay-straight alliance.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Dexter of Suburbia

[DAR]

23 hours ago, grey ghost said:

 

Well they can reschedule it once race relations improve.

 

Unless the community is really mostly black then I can see how they don't really feel the screening is essential for their community.

 

Play the Color Purple instead.

Better yet do a series of films

 

Birth of a Nation

Gone with the Wind

Song of the South

Guess Whose Coming to Dinner

Do the Right Thing

12 Years a Slave

[Sal]

On 8/27/2017 at 7:15 PM, Valonqar said:

Like I said, LOTR is based on medieval Europe which lands authenticity to the fantasy world. Fantasy is the best when it's based in reality. Adding Latinos (a race that didn't even exist in those times), Africans (within Euro-centric culture, not fantasy culture based on African), Asians (ditto) would not feel authentic but forced. Whether you like it or not, people understand the metaphor and that is why those stories work. They feel real because they are based on something familiar and they look familiar. The same goes for MNS ruining Avatar the Last Airbender with culturally misplaced casting. Why was Fire Nation whose ruler sat on the freakin Dragon Throne populated by Indians and Maoris? Eveyrone and their mother understand that Dragon Throne = China or at least Asia and Fire Nation was obviously a fusion of Chinese and Japanese cultures. Everything about them screamed Asians yet MNS cast Indian and Maori actors and they felt un-authentic and miscast. And don't get me started with white Inuits Katara and Sokka and white-ish or whatever Tibetan Aang. They could have cast authetic but they didn't and the mistake wasn't just in white-washing 3 characters but those Indians and Maoris were just awful too. When something doesn't fit everyone's gonna see it doesn't fit. 

 

Did you seriously just say Latinos didn't exist during that time period?

 

You do know that Latino doesn't refer to 'mestizo' (mixed race latin-american native with european) but rather to the population of Latin America as a whole, right?  One does not need to have any European blood to be Latino (several latin countries have a high population of afro-latinos, for example).  ALso "latino" is not a race, it's just a generalized description used for natives of latin america, the same way "Asian" isn't a race, but Chinese is.

 

The Maya, for example, existed in latin america since 2000BC, well before medieval times in Europe.  So yes, there may not have been Latinos IN Europe in Medieval times, but they absolutely did exist.  They didn't just magically spring into being when Europeans arrived in Latin America.

 

As for your other comments... there was actually a fair amount of contact between China and the rest of Asia and Europe, even dating fairly far back.  It was more common for Europeans to travel to China than vice versa though.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_European_exploration_of_Asia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europeans_in_Medieval_China

There were also diplomatic missions to Europe from Asia in the 1200s

 

As for Africa... there was a lot of contact between Europe and Africa.  Several European nations had dealings with Nubia and other wealthy African nations.

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/619

http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2010/08/history-of-black-people-in-europe.html

 

In fact in some European countries, like portugal, by the end of the 1500s the population was about 6-7% black in non-isolated regions.

 

https://www.publicmedievalist.com/uncovering-african/

 

Of even greater interest is that the Christian Church had already converted most of Nubia by the 1200s.  There are also accounts on record of black people living in Europe in the 1300s.  There are also books covering specifically whether or not black people served as knights during Medieval times (hint: they did).  The Moors regularly interacted with the Spanish around that time.  There were those called the Moriscos who were Moors who converted to Christianity and served the Spanish in the capacity of knights.  Most of them were purged during the Inquisition, however.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/videos/africans-in-medieval-britain/

https://books.google.com/books/about/Knights_on_the_Frontier.html?id=Rm_OEacyT8IC&hl=en

 

 

But you know one thing that absolutely didn't exist in Europe during Medieval times, yet that no one seems to have a problem with having show up in LOTR or other "medieval based fantasy"?

 

Tomatoes.  Those came from the Americas.

 

Oh yeah.  Also Dragons and Elves.  Those too.

 

But hey, no one complains about having Dragons, Elves or Tomatoes in Medieval Fantasy.  Only Black people, Asians and other POC.  Cuz lol, heaven forbid we have unrealistic elements in our fantasy stories am I right?

 

Edited August 29, 2017 by Sal

[Barnack]

3 minutes ago, Sal said:

As for Africa... there was a lot of contact between Europe and Africa.  Several European nations had dealings with Nubia and other wealthy African nations.

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/619

http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2010/08/history-of-black-people-in-europe.html

Apparently because a large portion of Europe were conquered by Romans army and that it was common for Romans to have sub-sahara Africans in their troops, black people were not that uncommon in western europe, even in England after the 3rd century. Now with new ability to determine from a skeleton bones someone origins they are finding a lot of Africans in old cemetery. And before the western europe-american slave situation, how white people viewed blacks in Europe was really different apparently (because Africa was renown to be rich in gold and linked to wealth they were seen as exotic/erotic figure apparently and the concept of race like it europeen had in the 16th+ was not yet invented).

 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/23053734

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people_in_Ancient_Roman_history#cite_note-Cowherd-4

https://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-black-romans/

 

 

 

 

[Lordmandeep]

A classic of why America is stupid really...it is a movie that is controversial like many movies made ever since....

How many old movies contain values and ideas that are acceptable in 2017? 

Um should be ban screenings of 300 as it is pretty much racist towards Persian culture???

 

People are not as stupid as SJW think...We do not need to be sheltered from anything that can cause offense... People in 2017 can look at this film objectively like many people on this forum have and I can say the film is rather pretty good B+ imo.

 

Reality is people like Bano and Cmasterclay have displayed that they are for equality but display, some rather disturbing authoritarian tendencies in how they want their vision of society to be fulfilled and I am not supportive of that. 

 

It is up to the theater to play the movie, but imo banning things is not going to work really...

Edited September 16, 2017 by Lordmandeep