I find myself wasting a lot of time on the internet these days. Actually, maybe not these days. Maybe this year. Maybe the last two years. Anyway, it’s a lot of time. More often than not, I regret it as time wasted.
So then I came across this article about a Memphis theater cancelling a showing of Gone With the Wind, a classic movie that won 8 Academy Awards in 1939. It beat the Wizard of Oz for Best Picture that year. No wonder. The two cannot be compared. One is an American version of War and Peace. The other is a slapstick comedy. One heroine matures through war, the other finds her way home by clicking her heels. One I’ve watched about a dozen times and discover something new every time. The other had me filled after one viewing.
Let me explain Gone With the Wind. When I was about 16, I was getting ready to leave for a night out when this movie came on television. I sat down to put on my shoes. By intermission, I realized I wasn’t going anywhere. I hadn’t realized I had been holding one shoe the entire time. I put it down and untied the other.
My mother told me that my father had done the same thing, but with a different movie. He was getting ready to go out when the Irony of Fate came on television. He sat down and put on one shoe. At the end of the film, he was still holding the shoe.
Now, Irony of Fate could have easily and legitimately been censored by the self-proclaimed Communist authorities, but it wasn’t.
Gone With the Wind is being censored on the pretext that it is “insensitive,” by “an organization whose stated mission is to ‘entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves.” Is there anyone else that sees the irony?
Because there is just one way of viewing history, right? If it’s not politically correct, it should be thrown out, right? No room for dialogue, discussion, intellectual stimulation. Just throw it out. Burn it with the heap or relegate it to the dark corners so that no other person dare be exposed.
Is it the racism that bothers people, or the rape?
Just remember, when Scarlet lost everything, she passed down her father’s watch to the house servant, who is black. A small gesture that I didn’t catch for many viewings.
“Pa would have wanted you to have it.”
