Memphis Tennessee’s Orpheum Theater has cancelled the movie “Gone With the Wind” from it’s summer movie series, because it is “insensitive” to the black community the theater’s board said on Friday.
The Orpheum Theatre Group decided not to include the 1939 movie about a plantation in the Civil War-era South in its 2018 Summer Movie Series after feedback from patrons following the last screening Aug. 11.
“As an organization whose stated mission is to ‘entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves’, the Orpheum cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population,” the theater’s operators said in a statement. (Memphis’ population is about 64 percent African-American.)
Orpheum’s Facebook page event for the August screening has users become a battleground with some posters saying the film is “racist.” Another notable comment has somebody saying “slowly but surely, we will rid this community of all tributes to white supremacy.” Others meanwhile are deeply disappointed that the movie group has dropped GWTW. “I thought this was a joke! Shame on you for canceling “GWTW.” You just insulted every single actor and crew member on this film. You insulted SAG and every institution that has fought for this film to be exhibited since its release in 1939. How pathetic!”
Gone With the Wind is raked at #6 on the American Film Institute’s 100 GREATEST AMERICAN FILMS OF ALL TIME
An interesting point to all this is that Hattie McDaniel was the first black American to win an Oscar with her co-staring role as Mammy in Gone With The Wind. McDaniel the daughter of former slaves rose to the epitome of the elite acting profession and was justly rewarded for her role in the classic film.
I guess her achievement is also gone with the wind.
A teaching moment was lost.
There are several points that can be made here. The “PC” police really need to stop re-writing history by removing it. They pull down a statue and that figures contributions are erased? They remove a flag and the Civil War did not happen? They remove a movie from a theater and that depiction of Southern Life in that era didn’t exist? Will they remove the academy awards won from the books too? Should the Smithsonian remove Bob Mackie’s “Gone With The Window” gown from display?
Why do the “PC” police and the Black community seem to want to erase the era from our history books? Why not celebrate how far we have come? The answer is simple. The Reverends and activists in the Black Community do not want that. They perpetuate and encourage hate and reverse discrimination. The Black community is a community of exclusion. So why shouldn’t we question motive when you do not see these very same Reverends and Leaders using fiery rhetoric when a White officer is killed by a Black Man.
We are finding the same thing in our schools and the mascots we have had for generations. Remove them, re-write history.
It is a crying shame that people are so closed minded and want to try to erase history. Never mind that the first black actor won an award for her part in the movie. Just erase that too. Dumb dumb dumb
All I can say is LMFAO!! It’s becoming theater of the absurd!