Can we forgive old movies?

[Tech priest support]

Let's face it, the racism in blazing saddles was insignificant compared to the campfire scene.  

 

 

[Tech priest support]

BTW, there are some old movies I don't think should be forgiven.

 

"Birth of a nation" was specifically meant to create racist sentiments and inflame hatred towards blacks. As comical as the sight of white actors literally rubbed with shoe polish to make them look black and having ridiculously thick trails of fake drool coming from their mouths as they chased white women is today it was meant to create hatred and fear, and several people were murdered by mobs of white people who had seen the movie and stormed out of the theater looking for the first black person they could find. That movie and it's makers are unforgivable.

 

Likewise movies like "triumph of the will" and "the eternal Jew" were not just reflecting the reality of their days but were made specifically to cause hate and pave the road to the death camps.  Movies like these should be viewed only in academic settings as educational inoculations against everything they were and the kind of  people WhO made them.

 

But not every movie with what would be terribly racist stereotypes should be lumped into the same class as these. For instance,  some people today find charlie chan movies horribly racist, but they weren't meant to create fear and hate, they were meant to paint a positive image of Asians to reduce fear and hate. People may get offended by them today but they tend to ignore the good intent of the people making them.

 

[Cancer]

You can find other traces of this sort of thing.  Go find yourself a copy of the book "Dr. Seuss Goes To War", which is an examination of Theodor Seuss Geisel's stint as a political cartoonist for PM in the run-up to WW2 and early in the War (he left that job and did war work after that).  He had clearly racist items in his cartoons depicting the Japanese there.  Hardly a surprise in that era, but sort of uncomfortable these days and in conflict with how we tend to think of him from The Cat in the Hat and so on.

 

You can condemn those statements.  But to bury them is to make a grave mistake.

[st barbara]

Does anyone remember an old cartoon from Warner Brothers from the war years called "Gremlins From The Kremlin" ? It was kept off screens for years during the post war period , possibly because it glorified the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin in particular.

[Simon]

This whole thread orbits around something I've been trying to figure out....and I still don't know that I have it clear mentally, so the following is likely not going to come out entirely right (consider this an advanced apology...and I'll attempt to clarify as needed).

 

Looking at some of the behaviors and depictions in old movies is VERY similar to looking at the behaviors and actions of certain individuals in recent press in regards to sexual abuse/predation.  Context plays a large part, but intent seems to be a major factor that is not discussed either because it's considered irrelevant or is too "sticky"/difficult to address.

 

By context, I'm referring primarily to the prevailing attitudes of the time.  Ben Franklin owned slaves.  So did most other wealthy Americans.  It was part of that period of time. Not something that we want to celebrate, but neither is it something that we want to condemn people of that time for (IMO).  To take a more current example, if 100 years from now some of the extreme arms of PETA have their way and owning an animal (say a dog or cat for a pet) is considered akin to slavery, I don't think that people today should be judged for that.  People today should be judged based on today's societal and moral standards -- owning a pet is fine, but you need to treat it properly (care for it, feed it, etc.). This applies equally well for sexual harassment -- the prevailing attitude of the time needs to be part of the equation.  That we have (hopefully) progressed in our current time from 50 or 100 years ago doesn't mean that we should judge people from prior times based on our current ideas -- their actions should be judged based on the times in which they were made.

 

Which is where we run into intent...and things get really sticky.  The intent behind an action (the production of a movie, physical contact with a member of the opposite sex, the publication of a book, etc.) should be considered strongly in any sort of "judgement" of that action.  A three year old boy who kisses a girl in his kindergarten class on the cheek should not be accused of sexual harassment (IMO) -- there is no intent there. A CEO (or anyone in a position of authority) who pulls a subordinate in for a peck on the cheek is a different story.

 

Blazing Saddles is a great example of one extreme, oddly enough.  Its main theme is based around racism.  White supremacy, racism, mysogeny, you name it -- all there.  But the intent was to laugh at them...to mock them and hopefully grow past them through laughter.  It's hard to take the movie as offensive or wrong (unless, of course, you sympathize with the white supremacy group).

 

Warner Bros./Bugs Bunny through WWII had some remarkably racist themes.  They were part of the propaganda push within the US.  Without the context of WWII, they are extremely offensive.  With proper context, they are (IMO) educational and enlightening as to what was going on in society at the time.  Certainly not something that would personally feel is appropriate for kids on a Saturday morning (do they still do that?), but not something to be locked away or burned.

 

Then there are movies that I've either intentionally avoided or simply not been subjected to due to my own preferences -- the ones that don't just portray hateful ideas/ideals, but promote them (without the excuse of historical context). The best examples I can think of here (again, I'm somewhat sheltered) are some of the earlier cartoons and their depictions of black people. They've generally been scrubbed from the airwaves at this point...and rightly so -- keep them for people researching history and society at those times, but they have little place for the general public.

 

 

[Simon]

22 minutes ago, st barbara said:

Does anyone remember an old cartoon from Warner Brothers from the war years called "Gremlins From The Kremlin" ? It was kept off screens for years during the post war period , possibly because it glorified the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin in particular.

Absolutely.  There were a slew of cartoons out of Warner Bros. during the war years that served as one of the major propaganda arms for the US.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

there are some old movies I don't think should be forgiven.

 

Sure.  Among the many otherwise truly great movies that were made by Hollywood during WW2 to help inform and train soldiers and the pubic about the war, there was one about the Japanese that was truly shocking, hateful, racist, and unworthy of its director.  Some of this kind of film may still be being made, but won't be understood for their nature for generations, perhaps.  One of the best reasons to watch old movies is what CS Lewis said about reading old books: so that you can see how the people at that time were blinded to and so used to their culture they could not see its evils and confusions... and through that perhaps get a glimpse at our own.

[Ternaugh]

4 hours ago, Hermit said:

Yup. Like I said, Racism in that movie is portrayed as idiotic, and the racists as idiots. As they should be.

 

[mrinku]

Actual, deliberate propaganda is likely to be pretty bad anyway, whether it's Fascist, Democratic, Soviet or Imperial.

[Tech priest support]

One thing I have to say in fairness to to thee ww2 cartoons is that they were not bashing the Japanese just because they were Asian but because they were the enemy.

 

I mean, Germany was whiter than America and we ripped on them big time. Germans were portrayed quite badly in a lot of old propaganda. 

 

 

[Tech priest support]

BTW I notice a trend to "throw the baby out with two bathwater" among some people wen it comes to objectionable things that come up in media. I'm a hardcore star trek fan and I was really down when I heard about Stephen Collins pedophilia. On one board a guy even said he burned his sttmp DVD over it.

 

I sure didn't do that, I thought that was really excessive. I would not watch a new movie with him in it as if one would ever be made.

 

 

[Tech priest support]

5 hours ago, Simon said:

This whole thread orbits around something I've been trying to figure out....and I still don't know that I have it clear mentally, so the following is likely not going to come out entirely right (consider this an advanced apology...and I'll attempt to clarify as needed).

 

Looking at some of the behaviors and depictions in old movies is VERY similar to looking at the behaviors and actions of certain individuals in recent press in regards to sexual abuse/predation.  Context plays a large part, but intent seems to be a major factor that is not discussed either because it's considered irrelevant or is too "sticky"/difficult to address.

 

By context, I'm referring primarily to the prevailing attitudes of the time.  Ben Franklin owned slaves.  So did most other wealthy Americans.  It was part of that period of time. Not something that we want to celebrate, but neither is it something that we want to condemn people of that time for (IMO).  To take a more current example, if 100 years from now some of the extreme arms of PETA have their way and owning an animal (say a dog or cat for a pet) is considered akin to slavery, I don't think that people today should be judged for that.  People today should be judged based on today's societal and moral standards -- owning a pet is fine, but you need to treat it properly (care for it, feed it, etc.). This applies equally well for sexual harassment -- the prevailing attitude of the time needs to be part of the equation.  That we have (hopefully) progressed in our current time from 50 or 100 years ago doesn't mean that we should judge people from prior times based on our current ideas -- their actions should be judged based on the times in which they were made.

 

Which is where we run into intent...and things get really sticky.  The intent behind an action (the production of a movie, physical contact with a member of the opposite sex, the publication of a book, etc.) should be considered strongly in any sort of "judgement" of that action.  A three year old boy who kisses a girl in his kindergarten class on the cheek should not be accused of sexual harassment (IMO) -- there is no intent there. A CEO (or anyone in a position of authority) who pulls a subordinate in for a peck on the cheek is a different story.

 

Blazing Saddles is a great example of one extreme, oddly enough.  Its main theme is based around racism.  White supremacy, racism, mysogeny, you name it -- all there.  But the intent was to laugh at them...to mock them and hopefully grow past them through laughter.  It's hard to take the movie as offensive or wrong (unless, of course, you sympathize with the white supremacy group).

 

Warner Bros./Bugs Bunny through WWII had some remarkably racist themes.  They were part of the propaganda push within the US.  Without the context of WWII, they are extremely offensive.  With proper context, they are (IMO) educational and enlightening as to what was going on in society at the time.  Certainly not something that would personally feel is appropriate for kids on a Saturday morning (do they still do that?), but not something to be locked away or burned.

 

Then there are movies that I've either intentionally avoided or simply not been subjected to due to my own preferences -- the ones that don't just portray hateful ideas/ideals, but promote them (without the excuse of historical context). The best examples I can think of here (again, I'm somewhat sheltered) are some of the earlier cartoons and their depictions of black people. They've generally been scrubbed from the airwaves at this point...and rightly so -- keep them for people researching history and society at those times, but they have little place for the general public.

 

 

Well, as to the future and what may become the zeitsmode in it, who can say? I mean it's possible that there could be a major turn against capitalism in America due to it's increasing abuse of the majority if Americans. Could the word "corporation" become a dirty word in the future? Could be. Could "wall street" become considered something to foul to say in polite company? Who knows? Your example could come to pass but PETA is so far on the fringe I'm not sure pet owning would become considered slavery. But in a few decades, barring a huge halt in technical advancement, vat grown genetically engineered meat could replace actual animal meat to the point  that eating meat from animals may get you looked at like pond scum. To be honest if genetically engineered meat became a safe, efficient and palatable source of food that was viable I would welcome it as a way to end animal suffering in massive battery farms.  

 

Touching on what you said here, in 1990 A.C.  Clarke wrote ”ghost from the grand banks" in which a person had a job using computer image manipulation to eliminate smoking in old movies as smoking had become so horrible to most people they could'nt   stand to even see people doing it. Christ, how far are we from that now?

[Badger]

not as far as we should hope, I'm afraid.

 

 

[mrinku]

2 hours ago, Tech priest support said:

One thing I have to say in fairness to to thee ww2 cartoons is that they were not bashing the Japanese just because they were Asian but because they were the enemy.

 

I mean, Germany was whiter than America and we ripped on them big time. Germans were portrayed quite badly in a lot of old propaganda. 

 

 

 

Have a look at how they were portrayed before that.

 

It's not pretty.

 

Though to be fair, before the Thirties they were most likely to be depicted the same as Chinese anyway.

 

A reminder of Detective Comics #1:

 

(And those are Chinese he's fighting, in an American Chinatown.)

[Sundog]

I have to say, yes, we can forgive old movies. And sometimes, we should.

 

A most controversial one that we actually NEED to, like it or not, is Triumph of the Will. Yes, it's pro-Nazi, a regime subsequently found to be so heinous and foul as to become literally synonymous with evil. But it is also the precursor to virtually all modern film, and that is not hyperbole. Leni Riefenstahl's photography and cinematic techniques, experimented with in her previous films but perfected here, gave birth to the modern cinema.

 

If a film is simply a product of it's times, then let it be. Use it to tell our kids of how the world used to be. On the other hand, those films with no other purpose than to espouse outdated ideals? Let them sit in the archives and be footnotes for media students.

[Tech priest support]

Well, along the lines of what you just said "birth of a nation" is also a true landmark (an overused term) in film. Before BoaN most fils were short, usually less than 20 minutes. Also most of them followed a person thru the film in real time.  BoaN was several hours in length and covered years of time, had a very a large cast, featured massive open battle scenes, etc.

 

I can acknowledge BoaN for it's quantum leap in film length, production, scale, etc. Without forgiving it for it's intent to portray blacks as subhuman, lazy, stupid beasts bent on raping white women. Likewise TotW had some technical accomplishments but while those must be acknowledged for their value that doesn't wash the blood off the film can.

 

If you want an example of as movie I can forgive, it would be "breakfast at Tiffanys" which I understand was offensive to Japanese people given Mickey Rooney's yellowface caricature of a Japanese man, (see below) but that movie was not trying to create fear and hate, and by extension violence, against Japanese people.

[death tribble]

On 21/11/2017 at 2:39 PM, Cygnia said:

In a similar vein, I no longer listen to old Cosby comedy CDs, read Marion Zimmer Bradley or watch "The Usual Suspects".  I just CAN'T.

One thing that has just been pointed out is a major difference between British and American libel laws.

If you accuse someone in Britain in the media of doing something wrong the onus is the person making the claim to prove it. In America the onus is on the person being accused like Cosby et al to prove it is wrong. Also because of the freedom of speech and the press enshrined in the Constitution the one accused also needs to prove that the person or journalist is deliberately telling a lie.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Mostly I can forgive awful people when I enjoy their product because I can separate the character of the person from their work. However, the more the person is part of their work, the harder it is to do so.  Its easier with music, for example, and harder with film.  I know nearly everyone involved in entertainment is a pretty miserable human being so I would really rather not know about their particular evils.

 

Still, even if I do I can often enjoy their work, even guys like Cosby or Jeffrey Jones who are pretty terrible, and other entertainers whose politics are caustic and obnoxious to me.

[Cassandra]

11 hours ago, mrinku said:

 

Have a look at how they were portrayed before that.

 

It's not pretty.

 

Though to be fair, before the Thirties they were most likely to be depicted the same as Chinese anyway.

 

A reminder of Detective Comics #1:

 

(And those are Chinese he's fighting, in an American Chinatown.)

 

This versus Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, The Rape of Nanking, and Unit 731.

 

Okay, minus ten for comic book artist, and minus one million for Japan.

[Cassandra]

6 hours ago, Tech priest support said:

Well, along the lines of what you just said "birth of a nation" is also a true landmark (an overused term) in film. Before BoaN most fils were short, usually less than 20 minutes. Also most of them followed a person thru the film in real time.  BoaN was several hours in length and covered years of time, had a very a large cast, featured massive open battle scenes, etc.

 

I can acknowledge BoaN for it's quantum leap in film length, production, scale, etc. Without forgiving it for it's intent to portray blacks as subhuman, lazy, stupid beasts bent on raping white women. Likewise TotW had some technical accomplishments but while those must be acknowledged for their value that doesn't wash the blood off the film can.

 

If you want an example of as movie I can forgive, it would be "breakfast at Tiffanys" which I understand was offensive to Japanese people given Mickey Rooney's yellowface caricature of a Japanese man, (see below) but that movie was not trying to create fear and hate, and by extension violence, against Japanese people.

 

Yes, movies are terrible.

 

Want to really be offended watch Nancy Walker's Rabbit Test starring Billy Crystal.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

I finally figured out why this was bothering me so much. This is not a yes or no question. In addition, "forgive" is an incredibly loaded word and means different things to everybody. I know that being raised Catholic (and turning atheist, like a lot of my fellow Catholics) it brings different baggage for me than it does for others. But that's not even the problem, either. I need to ask, what does it mean to forgive or not forgive an old movie? Disney's "Song of the South" has been removed from history. They won't even acknowledge that it ever existed. A lot of art has been deemed offensive by somebody and destroyed. Is that what it means to not forgive it? 

 

There's a persistent movement to ban "Huckleberry Finn" because it contains the word n!##er. Yet, it is still considered one of the greatest books in american literature.Less than ten years ago a group wanted to rewrite it so that it didn't contain the word at all. It didn't happen.  Does that mean it has been forgiven?

 

We're destroying statues from the Civil War in a desperate attempt to look like we're not endorsing slavery. These statues, like so many religious relics, were destroyed by the winning side and they will never come back, not even in a museum. History is constantly being rewritten to uphold a certain political view. Shakespeare's histories bore little resemblance to actual events, but today they are dominant images because they pleased the queen. Are these biased, inaccurate shows then forgiven? 

 

 

I don't like rewriting history for any reason, and I don't think that these works are for us to forgive or not forgive. I prefer to acknowledge that they existed and move forward. If the political views presented are such that they would be offensive in modern culture, we have the alternative to acknowledge them without endorsing them. It is acceptable to look at these things and say they existed, but I am glad that isn't the way it works today. No forgiveness or lack thereof is implied. we do not visit historical museums with the intent of forgiving (or not). History doesn't ask that we forgive but that we learn. If we decide not to forgive and ban it then we are saying steadfastly that we refuse to learn from it. "Song of the South" was a collection of classic folk tales beautifully animated. We could have a lot to learn from it. The statues of the confederacy should cause us to ask why they exist at all, but instead we have chosen to say it never happened and there's nothing to learn here. 

 

The horribly racist propaganda from films surrounding WWI and WWII have a lot to teach us. "This is the way the world existed once" is an incredibly important lesson... from every time period and every nation. We should analyse, evaluate, adjust our lenses, and we should learn. It is not for us to forgive or not forgive. 

[Cassandra]

3 hours ago, Logan.1179 said:

I finally figured out why this was bothering me so much. This is not a yes or no question. In addition, "forgive" is an incredibly loaded word and means different things to everybody. I know that being raised Catholic (and turning atheist, like a lot of my fellow Catholics) it brings different baggage for me than it does for others. But that's not even the problem, either. I need to ask, what does it mean to forgive or not forgive an old movie? Disney's "Song of the South" has been removed from history. They won't even acknowledge that it ever existed. A lot of art has been deemed offensive by somebody and destroyed. Is that what it means to not forgive it? 

 

There's a persistent movement to ban "Huckleberry Finn" because it contains the word n!##er. Yet, it is still considered one of the greatest books in american literature.Less than ten years ago a group wanted to rewrite it so that it didn't contain the word at all. It didn't happen.  Does that mean it has been forgiven?

 

We're destroying statues from the Civil War in a desperate attempt to look like we're not endorsing slavery. These statues, like so many religious relics, were destroyed by the winning side and they will never come back, not even in a museum. History is constantly being rewritten to uphold a certain political view. Shakespeare's histories bore little resemblance to actual events, but today they are dominant images because they pleased the queen. Are these biased, inaccurate shows then forgiven? 

 

 

I don't like rewriting history for any reason, and I don't think that these works are for us to forgive or not forgive. I prefer to acknowledge that they existed and move forward. If the political views presented are such that they would be offensive in modern culture, we have the alternative to acknowledge them without endorsing them. It is acceptable to look at these things and say they existed, but I am glad that isn't the way it works today. No forgiveness or lack thereof is implied. we do not visit historical museums with the intent of forgiving (or not). History doesn't ask that we forgive but that we learn. If we decide not to forgive and ban it then we are saying steadfastly that we refuse to learn from it. "Song of the South" was a collection of classic folk tales beautifully animated. We could have a lot to learn from it. The statues of the confederacy should cause us to ask why they exist at all, but instead we have chosen to say it never happened and there's nothing to learn here. 

 

The horribly racist propaganda from films surrounding WWI and WWII have a lot to teach us. "This is the way the world existed once" is an incredibly important lesson... from every time period and every nation. We should analyse, evaluate, adjust our lenses, and we should learn. It is not for us to forgive or not forgive. 

 

 

I think you mean "They" are destroying Civil War statues.

 

Unless you have done so.

 

As for that I think it's acting out in a meaningless way.  Why not go after the big dogs like President Woodrow Wilson who segregated the Army and Washington, D.C., or Senator Robert Bryd who was an actual member of the KKK.  Why not take their names off of building and destroy their statues?

[mrinku]

5 hours ago, Cassandra said:

 

This versus Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, The Rape of Nanking, and Unit 731.

 

Okay, minus ten for comic book artist, and minus one million for Japan.

 

Dude, that one was pure Chinese racism. At a time when America was supporting the Chinese against the Japanese invasion, I might add. This isn't wartime propaganda, just everyday yellowface racism from 1937.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

1 hour ago, Cassandra said:

 

 

I think you mean "They" are destroying Civil War statues.

 

Unless you have done so.

 

That is a fair point.  I was using that pronoun implying responsibility when in fact I have not done that. It seems I cannot completely distance myself from the collective human race, no matter how I try.  

 

[Ternaugh]

56 minutes ago, Logan.1179 said:

 

That is a fair point.  I was using that pronoun implying responsibility when in fact I have not done that. It seems I cannot completely distance myself from the collective human race, no matter how I try.  

 

 

I'd blame Catholic guilt for some of it. It's one of the hardest things to shake when becoming a former Catholic, that feeling that everything's really your fault, somehow.

 

Former Catholics seem to only rarely convert to another religions. More often, they become agnostic or atheist. It's like Catholic catechism either makes you one of the faithful, or burns the desire for organized religion out of your system. There's sort of a middle ground, that of being a lapsed Catholic, but that's sort of like Limbo*. Some lapsed Catholics will attend mass on High Holy Days and other occasional events, often out of a sense of duty to others (usually related to the guilt of upsetting someone), and others will cruise along, until asking for a priest on their death bed ("Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It's been 34 years since my last Confession....). I said that I was a lapsed Catholic for a long time, until I finally realized that I had essentially become an agnostic (or a Deist on sunnier days).

 

 

*Except that Limbo's been removed from Church** teachings after 800 years, but you get the idea.

 

 

**See, there's that Catholic dogma again. There's only one true Church, and we're still a little upset over that upstart, Martin Luther.