Chickenboy
Posts: 24520
Joined: 6/29/2002
From: San Antonio, TX
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Contemporary academic and social justice thinking is that it's racist to portray black characters in the role of slaves or laborers as happy or cheerful. They're right that slavery and Jim Crow life were basically miserable states of existence in which the people yearned for freedom or a fair chance, too often chaffing under mistreatment, inequality and an unequal opportunity for the "pursuit of happiness."
But people are remarkable at finding ways to survive and sometimes thrive in adverse circumstance. There were slaves and Jim Crow-era blacks who enjoyed life. Some thrived. Sometimes black slaves, black tenant farmers, and black laborers had cordial and affectionate relationships with their white owners or neighbors. I think it would be fair to say that was perhaps startlingly common, while also acknowledging that far too often there was mistreatment and cruelty ("absolute power corrupts).
Movies suggesting that white supremacy was beneficial or desirable would be detestable. Movies suggesting that blacks willingly embraced a subservient role (usually or all of the time) would be historically inaccurate and therefore detestable to we Forumites. Movies suggesting that it was possible for whites and blacks to get along, or for blacks to be at times happy or joyful and cordial with their white neighbors would be historically accurate.
I haven't seen Song of the South in many years, but I didn't find it offensive at the time. Gone With the Wind does portray the slaves as mostly humble and cheerful in their servitude; that was possible though not universal, so the movie sees the South through rose-colored glasses, as told from the point of view of the privileged class. If the makers had wanted to present a more balanced view, they could've depicted slave auctions and whippings and whites fathering children by their slaves, which would be rape by any definition of the word. But the movie wasn't there to make a message or teach history; it was there to entertain through drama, and did a good job of it. It's not a perfect movie but those circumstances could have existed.
Gettysburg was a nice balancing act that managed to do a lot of things rather seamlessly.
I recognize that my views on these topics would be noxious to 75% of New York Timesand Washington Post readers. People see these things way differently.
Well said.
I think there are some aspects of your balanced point of view that 'slip past' the gatekeepers of political correctness as well.
In 'Gods and Generals', I found the show production of the "Bonnie Blue Flag" at Jackson's camp to be-well-astonishing. Lyrically, that ballad is a glorious rendition of the joys of secession and catalogs each state's successive departure from the Union with the chorus. That Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star was found in South Carolina's secessionist flag as it left the Union and-arguably-in Texas' current flag.
Why there wasn't an uproar about derivatives of this flag still flying high is beyond me. But it's not the Stars and Bars or the better known (and lesser used) Battle Flag, so I guess nobody in the know really cares about it. I think that's part of it though-people are so ignorant about history and historical relics that some of these can slip by without their knowledge or understanding. Meanwhile other equally poignant reminders of the times still fly high unassailed.
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RE: The movie that shall not be named - 
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