WARNING

 

YOU WERE WARNED!

  I was riled a while back when I surfed past Turner Classic Movies and was presented with a WARNING about the upcoming showing of Gone With the Wind. The good news is, I suppose, that the movie was still being aired. Apparently HBO stopped showing it until a proper Sensitivity Disclaimer was composed. 

   Similar warnings are now required for other movies, such as Breakfast at Tiffany's (!)  and My Fair Lady,(!) and Disney+ is putting them before all of episodes of The Muppet Show. Sensitive times indeed.  

Disclaimers For Dummies
  Some time has passed and I am less riled now, but I still think the profusion of such pronouncements is excessive and likely to be counterproductive. TCM is probably "Reframing" films, partly to protect itself from the newly sensitized who may start picketing. I like Ben Mankiewicz and generally enjoy the analysis and background he provides. I have also benefitted from the insights of film critics who explained what some complicated movies were all about. But, this new didacticism which re-educates us as to what is right or wrong or good or bad about a movie and needs to "contextualize" it for us and point out that attitudes about such things as race and gender and cowboys and Indians were different back in olden times, assumes that most movie viewers are cretinous. There have always been some warnings and, for example, the Motion Picture Association provided ones for guidance, but they were intended to suggest to potential viewers, whether a film was appropriate for children. 

  There are thousands of films and even entire genres of them that are now unacceptable to the new sensitivity scrutinizers. Propriety Pronouncements are probably being produced as I write so we will know what to think about a film. Perhaps instead, this simple, old generic one can be used and placed before every movie - "Viewer Discretion Advised." 

Sources:

  About the changes at TCM see, "Turner Classic Movies is Changing, and Trying to Stay the Same," David Itzkoff, New York Times, Sept, 1, 2021.

  The piece about the awful, hurtful Muppets is here: "Disney + Adds 'Negative Depictions' Disclaimer to Multiple Episodes of The Muppet Show", Rosy Cordero, Entertainment, Feb. 21, 2021.

Post Script:

  It didn't take long for the conservative folks and Fox News to make fun of all this as the images above indicate.

The Bonus: Someone just paid $25,000 for the book - Gone With the WInd - I hope they know about it.