IF IT AIN'T WOKE, DON'T FIX IT......WATCHING TCM RE-WATCHING THEIR POLITICALLY INCORRECT CLASSICS

               You may have seen the recent discussions held by the Ben Mankiewicz and his fellow film hosts on Turner Classic Movies.......

                They engaged in a sometimes perceptive, sometimes awkward discussion about classic films that now, in our current day and age, contain scenes and characters deemed offensive and racist. 

                True enough, but let's be clear on our position........

                 If the 'cancel culture' movement is going to set their sights on wiping out all artistic works that don't meet the bar set in today's cultural climate, then TCM wouldn't be able to screen two thirds of their catalogue.

                 And that would include their regular showings of "Gone With The Wind", which is ground zero for racial stereotyping.

                We're excluding Disney's "Song Of The South" since Disney literally wiped this movie from its archives and corporate memory. Since the 1970's the Mouse House has pretended the film doesn't exist........never happened, nothing to see here, folks, move along.......(though we had no trouble whatsoever finding rogue streaming sites that carried it......see our post on 2/8/19)

                  Here at BQ, we've always viewed films within the context of the era in which they were made.......and yes, we've pointed all the painfully beyond belief, stuff in them. 

                  Sometimes it makes them very uncomfortable to re-visit. And more often than not, it makes them unintentionally funny......(we're mostly thinking of the 1960's sex comedies, which reveled in the objectification of women and for all the snark and leer in these films, they had no sex in them either....)

                  If you can't look at these films without some rational overview, without considering where the culture and the mindset sat at the time of their release, then you probably shouldn't be looking at them at all.  

                  But one particular thing we'll agree on with the TCM hosts and every other film buff.....Mickey Rooney's 'Mr. Yunioshi' from 1961's "Breakfast At Tiffany's" was a repulsive horrorshow portrayal when the film was first released and only gets worse as the years go on.......

                  But erasing and cancelling "Breakfast At Tiffany's is not the answer.  Let it exist, we say....and let is provoke discussion, by all means. 

                   And if it means we can't completely lose ourselves in Audrey's Hepburn's charm and have to watch the film with a 2021 jaundiced eye.....so be it. 

                   But the cancel culture vultures can't re-write history.....or films for that matter. 

                   What do you think, BQ visitors?  Feel free to join the discussion at thebeachedquill@gmail.com........