Films and TV shows removed from streaming services

[Pi]

so .. a bit more on 'gone with the wind'

https://www.theage.com.au/culture/books/gone-with-the-wind-the-book-presents-dangerous-fare-for-young-minds-20200618-p553vw.html

Even in these relatively enlightened times, Gone with the Wind is dangerous fare for young minds. I can’t begin to imagine what the book would do to an African-American reader

yeah... er.. no... I dont want people writing the popular politics of the day on to any literature... 20 years from now it all gets changed...again.


And for the record I didnt like the movie or the book. I prefer to read non fiction history anyway.

To me that isn't the point of it, getting into the mind set of the author is, prefacing it with social and or political commentary is the literary equivalent of graffiti tagging.

[David]

It does feel a little infantilising, but I wouldn't exactly equate a critical preface to graffiti – after all, it's perfectly common for books to have (usually laudatory) prefaces that everyone skips past, so that's just about how the publisher wants to present the book. Indeed, it's entirely likely that editions with relatively critical prefaces, addressing the racist ideas of the book, already exist.

What I do shake my head at is the notion from the writer of that article that it's in any way "dangerous" for "young people" (i.e. middle-upper teenagers) to read a book like this. Reminds me a great deal of that brief moral panic (also kicked off by an Age op-ed) over Love in the Time of Cholera a few years back, which laughably presented year 11 students as wide-eyed innocents capable of corruption due to a statutory rape subplot. Not only is it possible for teenagers (African-American or otherwise) to be exposed to historical literary racism and not be irreparably damaged by the experience, it is, of course, profoundly educational to encounter those attitudes and gain insight into what they reveal about the time and place a book was written. In any case, I hope that most of us can still agree that the point of encouraging young people to read is not just so they can learn good moral lessons or have nice, socially acceptable ideas reaffirmed to them.

(Of course, I'm not necessarily saying this particular book has to be on the curriculum, and maybe there are other novels, including contemporary ones, that offer more value. But I certainly wouldn't be trying to shield a young person from reading a classic literary work, for god's sake – as if that's the biggest problem facing society at the moment.)

Anyhow, what might make this op-ed a little less worthless is if Sullivan proceeded to detail exactly how this book corrupted her "young mind" and the terrible things it led her to think and do – after all, she read it as a girl, so she should be able to tell us all about how "dangerous" it is, right? But one suspects that, as is often the case with these puritans, it's not people like her who are at risk; it's all those other readers, the ones whose minds are like sponges and are incapable of processing a book that fails to reflect contemporary political norms and negotiating the discomfort that may produce. Those working-class people, probably.

[Tannin]

[stui magpie]

I don't think I've ever actually watched all of Gone with the wind, nothing about it really appeals to me. Besides, the name makes me think of the baked beans scene in Blazing Saddles.

If people these days are too stupid to understand that it's a movie set in a certain time with some historical accuracies about that time and not a modern documentary or an influencer post about how life should be, shoot the stupid people.

[ronrat]

Censorship is largely to be avoided. Whats next? Nude paintings and statues, Mafia movies,. Ban Guess who is coming to dinner because it offends vegetarians. This is getting like South Park Christmas episode.
Why don,t we ban every public holiday except New Years day so we don;t offend pacifists, aboriginals, anti royals, non christians and the animal rights movement. And do not replace them with anything.

[Morrigu]

Never seen Gone with the Wind and this is totally irrelevant (and will illustrate what a dill I am when it comes to movies but what the hell) when we went to Morocco our first stop was Casablanca - people asked are you going there because of the movie - just nodded - thought the movie they were talking about was GWTW

We stayed there an hour and then jumped on the train to Rabat ( absolute shithole).

Let people adult for good or for bad - this desire to do away with everything that “may” offend depending on the beliefs of the demanding is just nonsense!

[David]

On the last couple of posts, worth noting that there is no suggestion of banning Gone with the Wind (film or book), just adding a disclaimer of sorts at the beginning. If that's going to be the new thing that progressive people call for in response to "problematic" art, then, sure, fine, whatever. Could be worse, that's for sure. But I think it's still fair to view it as a kind of pointless exercise and one that is symptomatic of a nanny-state mentality on steroids.