Gone With The Wind Banned From Memphis Theater

When Vice News argued that perhaps Mt. Rushmore should be demolished, running a headline which declared without irony – “Let’s Blow Up Mount Rushmore” (a headline subsequently scrubbed) – we suggested that the fanatical push to sanitize all historic monuments and public references to past political leaders perceived as ‘tainted’ or controversial “may have hit peak crazy here.” Well, we were wrong – it appears the PC mob is now coming for the film industry.

The historic Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee has decided to censor “Gone With the Wind” from a line-up of movies it will show as part of its 2018 Summer Movie Series after dubbing it racially “insensitive”. The 1939 classic film, based on the book by Margaret Mitchell, is set on a plantation in the American South during the Civil War and Reconstruction era, and is widely considered by critics and historians to be among the greatest American movies of all time. It broke Academy Award records at the time, receiving eight Oscars including a Best Supporting Actress for Hattie McDaniel, who became the first African-American Academy Award-winner. It also remains the highest grossing film of all time (with ticket prices adjusted for inflation) – beating out even Star Wars.

Memphis’ Orpheum Theatre has included the movie as part of its annual local film festival featuring American classics for decades. But apparently this nearly 80-year old world renowned classic has been scrubbed for the first time based on some complaints the theater received after its last August 11 showing. “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 board said in a statement.

P/C WIKIMEDIA