SubJeff on 11/6/2020 at 08:28
Interesting turn of events following BLM - a bunch of TV shows being removed from various streaming services, and some celebs now apologising for past "racist endeavours".
Gone With the Wind has been removed from HBO, pending addition of a message.
League of Gentlemen and The Mighty Boosh have been taken off Netflix, for use of "blackface".
Little Britain too.
UK TV celebs Ant + Dec and Keith Lemon have made apologies, the latter crying whilst doing it (I think this is PR nonsense myself).
Who is next?
Will Ali G survive this? That's a complex one :p
And will Robert Downey Junior finally have to pay for the crime of playing Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris? :joke:
PigLick on 11/6/2020 at 10:31
I'm actually against this, are we just gonna whitewash history? Art is a function of its time, Gone with the Wind is a classic piece of cinematography, is it racist, hell yes but it is an indicator of the times it was made, a reminder of what used to be. How about instead of erasing art, we start with the shit that caused systemic racism in the first place, capitalism and the white powerbase that benefits from it.
[video=youtube;knury0Na1pQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knury0Na1pQ[/video]
henke on 11/6/2020 at 10:50
No art is being erased. You can still buy and watch DVDs of Little Brittain and Gone With The Wind. HBO and Netflix don't have any obligation to stream certain titles if they're feeling icky about them.
I agree that the whole capitalist system is a much bigger problem, but this isn't an either/or issue.
icemann on 11/6/2020 at 10:57
It's revisionist history. Blanking out the media that doesn't line up with societies present day left aligned values, and not factoring in the values which existed at the time of it's production.
When was the last time you saw "Song of the South" on TV hmm? Loved that movie as a kid.
Sulphur on 11/6/2020 at 11:14
Yeah, I dunno. The onus isn't on the past to revise itself. If it means adding a message about certain works being important but still problematic, and that the network shows they're trying to do better by the community -- I think that acknowledgment is more important than pretending these things didn't and don't exist.
Having said that, Little Britain isn't exactly a landmark work of art. I remember laughing at the first bunch of episodes, but that was slowly replaced with a feeling of encroaching horror at the sheer inanity of it all as time went on.
PigLick on 11/6/2020 at 12:06
Its not being erased YET, but its the slipperiest of slopes.
SubJeff on 11/6/2020 at 12:32
The stars of Gone With the Wind aren't going to be affected by this. Anyway, it'll be back one they've added whatever message it is.
But the stars of modern stuff will surely get some backlash, even if the offending show is only taken off Netflix. I imagine there are some worried people right now. RDJ will be well aware of what is going on, I'm sure.
Quote:
You can still buy and watch DVDs of Little Brittain and Gone With The Wind. HBO and Netflix don't have any obligation to stream certain titles if they're feeling icky about them.
For now.
I imagine other services will feel pressure to do the same, and shops will feel pressure to stop selling things that have been, ahem, blacklisted, won't they?
Thirith on 11/6/2020 at 12:42
I'm somewhere between henke and Sulphur. If all these works just vanished, I think it'd be a disservice on many levels, but right now the idea that the likes of Gone with the Wind could just vanish is a strawman. By and large I do prefer for these media to be available somewhere, with proper contextualisation (as HBO is planning to do with GwtW), but I understand any content providers who say that it isn't their job to provide access in the first place.
icemann on 11/6/2020 at 14:05
If we revise and delete history then we stand to learn nothing from it. The point of media (from a historical standpoint) is to show the values of the times when it was produced. If you judge only by societies views on right and wrong of today, then how are we any better than ISIS when they went around destroying historical artifacts since it clashed with their beliefs?
All media should be saved for future generations. The good and the bad. Good and bad is so subjective.
There was this bit in the 70's movie "Rollerball" where all of society was ruled by corporations (but not cyberpunk), and all books had been outlawed / destroyed, with all of human history and literature transferred to this super computer. Problem being, that whatever the corporate higher ups didn't like got deleted accidentally on purpose in computer glitches. It's a slippery slope once you start ruling on what isn't and is to be kept. However we do have the internet and there is absolutely nothing stopping us from saving and keeping the media ourselves to preserve it. But then what if that is deemed against the law, much the same as pirating?
Sulphur on 11/6/2020 at 14:15
Well, obviously it's subjective. The point is that racism is bad regardless of subjective opinions on quality. I don't really see acknowledging that on products of their time and place as a problem while letting viewers access them, but if a content provider does away with hosting something like a thinly veiled racist propaganda piece/episode because it's morally reprehensible, that's their call to make, and IMO the right one.
