Why TCM Is Showing Problematic Films Like ‘Gone With the
“Getting to have discussions in the gray area was something that interested me,” host Alicia Malone says
“It’s not about censoring the film, it’s not about treating your audience as though they’re not intelligent enough to see the issues, and it’s not putting a childproof lock on the movie or a caution label,” Alicia Malone, one of many hosts of the “Reframed” collection, advised TheWrap. “It’s about giving it some context.”
The discourse round a few of these movies has been extensively coated. Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of a stereotypical Asian landlord in “Breakfast With Tiffany’s” is a well known sore spot. The portrayal of Native Americans in lots of Westerns, however particularly movies like “The Searchers” or “Stagecoach,” has lengthy been criticized.
TCM host Jacqueline Stewart lately filmed an introduction to run earlier than “Gone With the Wind” on HBO Max that discusses how the movie romanticizes the Antebellum South. In the spirit of the collection, Tabesh truly really helpful that HBO Max embody a video intro of somebody speaking about “Gone With the Wind” quite than a easy warning label or disclaimer calling it objectionable.
“A lot of this is stuff that we as a society are just trying to re-address ourselves,” Malone stated. “It’s nothing that was untoward when they were making the film, but it’s stuff that we can see is problematic through our modern lens.”
Alicia Malone (Courtesy of TCM)
Charlie Tabesh, TCM’s SVP of programming, stated that every of the movies within the “Reframed” collection is a “true classic,” not an obscure title, one thing that has stood the check of time and precisely the type of factor you’ll count on to see proven on TCM.
Some movies on the record you could not have thought of as problematic. Katharine Hepburn’s “Woman of the Year” is an early instance of a robust feminist character — however one who provides up her profession to change into a housewife struggling to make toast for her husband. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” was seen as progressive in 1967 however raises eyebrows for Sidney Poitier’s character right this moment. And there’s 1954’s “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” which Malone referred to as a “delightful musical but it involves a lot of kidnapping of women.”
And Malone additionally pushed to incorporate Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” within the lineup, which has lately been reassessed for the way it portrays a cross-dressing character as totally different, monstrous, evil and affected by a psychological sickness. “What does it mean if you have a character who is dressing up in a film and is the scary monster of the movie? How does that make audiences then think about transgender people when they meet them in real life? What does it say about womanhood in general?” Malone stated. “That’s one I’ve started to think about differently in the past couple of years. It doesn’t mean I don’t still love it for all of the reasons why it should be enjoyed, but it’s just given me another layer on top of it.”
“Gone With the Wind” (Warner Bros.)
As a part of the collection, different TCM hosts Jacqueline Stewart, Ben Mankiewicz, Eddie Muller and Dave Karger will take part discussions of the movie in prefaces that embody each their basic qualities in addition to how trendy audiences may reassess them.
“Each of us don’t pretend to have all the answers, and we’re not saying to the audience this is how you should feel about a movie, but it is interesting to grapple with that idea of loving a film and being able to appreciate so many qualities of them,” Malone stated. “These days these can sometimes be quite binary; you love it or you hate it, it’s good or it’s bad, and getting to have discussions in the gray area was something that interested me.”
She continued: “We definitely didn’t want to ruin anyone’s cinematic experience with these films. We didn’t want to layer in all these problems and then be like, ‘Enjoy the movie!’”
