GONE: Theater Won't Show 'Gone With The Wind' Anymore
The Orpheum "cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population ..."
So much for the "greatest screen entertainment of all time," at least at The Orpheum theater in Memphis, Tennessee, whose board on Friday announced that due to the film's "insensitive" nature, the theater would no longer include the film in its summer movie series.
Memphis' CBS-affiliate News Channel 3 reports that the board's decision came after receiving a great deal of negative "feedback" after the last screening of the film, which took place on August 11, the day before the violence erupted in Charlottesville. Patrons, the outlet reports, did not feel that a film that featured a plantation in the Civil War-era South was appropriate to show in the current cultural climate. "Memphis' population is about 64 percent African-American," the CBS-affiliate notes.
So, while the board did not announce what films would be included in the series next summer, it made sure to tell the community that Gone With the Wind would definitely not be among them:
“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 operators said in a statement. ...
The historic theater in Downtown Memphis has shown the movie for decades, but this year’s event “generated numerous comments,” leading to the decision.
“While title selections for the series are typically made in the spring of each year, the Orpheum has made this determination early in response to specific inquiries from patrons,” the Orpheum group said.
Rumor has it this is why Disney never released Song of the South on any media besides Laser Disc ......