Ex-NBA Star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is not on-board with the effort to ban Oscar-winning Civil War classic, Gone With the Wind. But he does want a warning label slapped on the film and all other entertainment that does not meet woke standards.
The entertainment industry has begun expunging the classic movie that has been considered one of the most romantic epics in Hollywood history since its 1939 debut. The new ban craze is based on the accusation that it features the stereotypical characters popular in the 1930s.
For his part, in his June 16 op-ed, Abdul-Jabbar slams the film not just for its black stereotype, but also for glorifying “the Confederacy as if they were a bunch of highly principled martyrs hunkered down in holy glory instead of an entitled mob of human-trafficking murderers, rapists, and traitors trying to destroy the United States.”
Abdul-Jabbar also hates the way slavery is depicted in the award-winning film:
The film also romanticizes slavery as if it was nothing more than a workplace sitcom in which all the slaves were happy baristas at the plantation’s Starbucks. On the other hand, very few movies or TV shows from the past could withstand today’s rightfully rigorous standards. Almost every one of them that pees on the stick of political correctness will come up positive for insensitivity— or worse.
After falsely claiming that the Trump administration is “undermining democracy by silencing a free press,” Abdul-Jabbar finds that he agrees with Los Angeles Times editorialist John Ridley and his suggestion that Gone With the Wind be hidden from the public for some undetermined period of time.
Pointing out that Ridley did not call for the permanent destruction of the film, Abdul-Jabbar adds, “So, what he’s asking is that, given the current public heated climate of widespread protests over police brutality and systemic racism, maybe let’s hold off shoving the joys of slavery and heroes of racism in our faces.”
Abdul-Jabbar next criticized the women of ABC’s The View for assuming that “in a world where kids watch movies spontaneously on their phones with no one around,” they can influence the way their kids think and feel about movies with a mere parental talk.
Abdul-Jabbar went on to slam the whole of America’s entertainment industry:
Most adults have been brought up on an unhealthy diet of movies and TV shows that were proudly racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and xenophobic. Women were addled-headed sex objects that were especially cute when they tried to act equal to men. Gays were predators or objects of ridicule. The portrayal of Blacks was generally as subservient, drug-addicted, or perhaps worse, non-existent. (Did you know that 25 percent of cowboys were Black? Not if you watched Western movies or TV shows.) It’s disturbing to me that many of the films and TV shows I loved as a child make me wince with embarrassment at their bold cruelty and callous dismissiveness. John Wayne in two different films spanking grown women to show them their place. The Beatles song, “Run for Your Life,” with the lyrics: “Catch you with another man/That’s the end of little girl.” Never mind the fact that he’s creepily referring to her as “little girl,” more to the point he’s threatening to kill her if she dates someone else.
Still, the ex-NBA player thinks that bans of these old forms of entertainment are not the right move.
“What we need,” he exclaims, “is a way to present art within its historical context so the works can still be available and appreciated for their achievements but not admired for their cultural failings.”
He then offers an idea. Abdul-Jabbar wants all old TV shows, movies, or radio broadcasts that don’t fit his standards to be retconned with disclaimers, labels, and video warnings that “explains that the work contains harmful racial or gender stereotypes that were acceptable at the time but which we now know are harmful.
“That is the bare basics of what we should do to emphasize that these portrayals are no longer acceptable. To do nothing is a tacit endorsement of their destructive messages. And, like vaping, prolonged exposure causes damage to our children. We put a warning label on one, why not the other,” he insists.
With his conclusion, Abdul-Jabbar attempts to make his expensive and expansive “solution” to seem high-minded:
Art can either inform us of past follies, or it can perpetuate them. Movies and TV shows that display the subjugation, humiliation, or marginalization of anyone are like the Confederate monuments: they have a place in history as both manifestations of and warnings against our ignorance. In contemporary life, they are weighty anchors pulling us down to the bottom while the rest of the world swims freely toward the future.
One might make a counter-proposal to the former basketball player’s solution. How about instead of wasting billions with new video disclaimers, labels, and warnings placed on every form of entertainment from before 2020, we teach our children about actual history in school so that when they go out in the world, they will already know what happened before they were born and can place entertainment in its proper perspective?
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