“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” said the Orpheum Theatre to those wishing to watch “Gone With the Wind” there any time soon.
The Memphis, Tennessee, theater recently decided to discontinue its 34-year-old tradition of annually screening the movie “Gone With the Wind.”
This decision was made in the middle of the Charlottesville, Virginia, rallies that coincided with the Aug. 11 showing of the movie, which sparked local outrage over social media.
Though people opposed to the showing raise valid points, the film can still inspire valuable discussion.
In a statement regarding the discontinuation of the annual film showing, the president of the Orpheum Theatre Group stated that “the Orpheum cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population.”
At face value, yes, it is easy to agree with the Orpheum’s decision to pull the movie because of its argued glorification of slavery and the non-dynamic nature of the black characters in the story.
The book’s author, Margaret Mitchell, was criticized for painting the black characters in her novel as “more of pets than people” and “uninterested in freedom” according to The Atlantic. When producing the film, David O. Selznick attempted to correct this by eliminating the use of the “n-word” and more offensive scenes in the film, while also making the black characters in the film more lovable and dynamic.
The work is definitely a product of its time, as the movie was criticized for sugar-smearing the story by focusing primarily on a classic Hollywood romance and not giving enough integrity to the black characters.
Representing slavery in artistic form is a very sensitive topic to tread, and doing so in the 1930s has definitely left a plethora of critiques to the story’s message.
The movie definitely does not provide a new and insightful look at slavery in the south. However, I believe there is a very strong argument for the Orpheum to continue showing the film, with an adjustment to the programming.
The Orpheum Theatre’s mission is to “entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves.” There doesn’t seem to be a problem with the entertainment portion of this film. At its release, the Hollywood Reporter called “Gone With the Wind” the “mightiest achievement in the history of the motion picture.”
Both black and white viewers went to see this movie, and the large interest in this film leaves it as the highest grossing film of all time in the U.S. However, in terms of education, there is a lot about the film that viewers may not know.
For example, Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, was the first black actor to win an Oscar. Selznick told peers multiple times he had “no interest in making an anti-Negro film” and even hired black staff to consult on his casting and writing choices.
For the time of this film’s production, that practice was essentially unheard of.
Some even praise the work as being one of the first mass-market produced films to give black actors a substantial opportunity in film. On the opposite side of this, one could argue this opportunity involved black actors auditioning for a flat role that was completely devoid of any racial dignity they had recently gained.
But this discussion piece – education and enlightenment rolled into one – is the addition the Orpheum Theatre could add to make the screening of this film more meaningful than before.
I believe a brief presentation of the film's background could be given before the showing: the racial landscape of both the setting of the film and the time, the creative choices taken in the movie that separate it from the novel and important facts surrounding the film.
The showing could then be followed by a mediated talk with either someone from the theater or someone who has vast knowledge of the film.
Engaging viewers of all races in discussing their thoughts in regards to the film, how they feel about certain racial portrayals and how much progress – or lack thereof – has been made could bring a very enlightening, productive outcome to this viewing experience.
In a period where ignorance seems to be the norm and white supremacists are choosing to unite again, it is my firm belief that the worst thing we can do as a society is to stop talking about topics of race that are uncomfortable.
Learning about our history as a society, acknowledging and addressing wrongs and productively talking about how not only art, but society, can move forward is vital to rising above ignorant racism.
