It was a helluva week. I came back from Africa—a 16-hour flight!—and landed right back in the middle of the crazy I had left behind for 10 days. There was dangerous normalization of Donald Trump and his authoritarian ways from a new media outfit, as well as John Durham’s BS-fueled final report, which was misrepresented by Trump and his cultists as proof of the phony conspiracy theory that the supposed Deep State plotted to manufacture what they call the Russia “hoax.” Someone had to set the world right. So I did (here and here). But between all that and chronicling my time in South Africa and Namibia (here and here), I was wiped. So I’m taking the easy way out and letting Our Land readers carry much of this issue.
After writing this newsletter for two years, I’ve learned there is not much that generates more passionate reader response than cultural debates. While overseas, I sent out an Our Land issue that republished a dispatch from 2021 in which I asked whether you can still enjoy your favorite old movies. I had been prompted to ponder that question after viewing The French Connection and finding it difficult to watch the lead character—Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman—hurl racial epithets and engage in assorted acts of police brutality, all as routine. I wasn’t self-righteously outraged. It just felt cringey and made it harder to relish what was once a favorite film.
That column triggered a lot of replies, as did its recent rerun. Subscribers who read the reposting wrote about entertainment fare they once fancied but now find problematic. Yet others excoriated me for being a cancel culture cowboy. Here is a sampling:
Douglas Greenberg emailed:
My wife and I, in full nostalgia/escape-from-the-present mode, have been viewing, the original Star Trek series, one episode per weeknight. Wow, talk about hard to watch decades later! The portrayal of women (aside from Lt. Uhura), including the facility with which Captain Kirk instantly transforms females of all intergalactic species into willing sex toys, is appalling. Also cringeworthy is the imperialistic hubris, in which the supposed Prime Directive is consistently violated for the sake of assisting (read: forcing) "backward" peoples to "progress" towards American-style modernity.
Cathy Crawford wrote:
My favorite old musical has always been Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, as it seems to define the word "rollicking." What I once thought of as an exaggerated manly ethic portrayed in it—by men who literally knew zero women at all—feels rough, as the Pontipee brothers kidnap the girls they like to force them to be their brides through what I can only describe as the Stockholm Syndrome. (The screenplay was based on a short story based on the Roman legend the Rape of the Sabine Women.) Wacky hijinks that do not translate well to 2023, despite the fact that the plot has their new sisters-in-law foiling their efforts and establishing "proper courtship." Fun still, but yikes.
Brian Snedeker gave a classic the thumbs-down:
I popped in Gone with the Wind recently, and I did not get past the opening crawl, which lauds the values of the old South. Bye-bye GWTW!
Nadine Zucker shared this:
Years ago, my husband and I wanted to share one of our favorite movies when we were children with our children: The Bad News Bears with Walter Matthau. Sadly, it did not stand the test of time.
She did not elaborate.
Leslie Inzunza recounted her own revisionist moment:
I rewatched Sixteen Candles recently with my teenager and was stunned at the sexist and racist jokes. The only Asian in the film played a buffoon that everyone ridiculed. The others made references to his “weirdness” in every scene. A scene with the lead describing how he could have (justifiably) raped a girl because she was drunk. There was much more as well. I had to stop the film to check in with my daughter multiple times.
Patricia Young emailed:
I re-watched the relatively recent cop-partner movie, Rush Hour, with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. It's not a 70s movie, thank goodness, it's from 1998, and I remember getting some good laughs during that movie when I first saw it. I was looking forward to seeing it again, when I saw it come up on one of my TV channels. Now, Chris Tucker's portrayal is so stereotypical it's sickening to me. I remember him being a bit over the top then, but now I can't tolerate it. If they'd used a white guy bungler, it might have been fine. But I am so very tired of seeing black people portrayed as Chris portrayed the NY city cop that I couldn't finish the film. Not so Lethal Weapon, with Danny Glover. Thank goodness they made Mel Gibson the crazy guy.
Patricia also noted she can no longer watch Holiday Inn, the 1942 Christmas season classic with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, which features the two song-and-dance men in a blackface scene.
William Baker was adamant in the opposite direction:
When it comes to performing in blackface, I say "get over it"! It was an era. It was performed that way at church events. It was an era in history. It was not meant as racist. If African Americans feel offended by this, I say to them, "get over it" as well. It is much ado about nothing.
I don’t agree. I suggest William Google “what’s wrong with blackface.” He will find a long list of articles explaining this, even including one from Good Housekeeping.
Connie De Rooy took issue with my general premise:
I enjoy your e-mails and generally agree, but I was disappointed to hear about your reactions to some of the social ignorance in films of old. Did you make the world a better place by tossing the DVD in the trash? These films have much to offer. Why can’t we be aware of the folly of some of those views, talk about it, and still enjoy the great parts of the films? You said conservatives decry PC cancelling. I am a liberal and a progressive and am dismayed by all the reactionary PC behavior on the left. Why do we all think everyone is either for us or against us? Why can’t anyone have views that are a bit more nuanced about some of this? Gene Hackman has played a misogynistic creep in most of his films. I feel repulsed by this but still, like you, rewatched The French Connection recently. And I just belatedly discovered Midnight Run, a delightful film.
Tom Cleaver shared a similar point:
If you apply the standard you used on The French Collection to art, how do you go look at Picasso or Degas? How do you read Huckleberry Finn? How do you listen to Sinatra?
I look at myself—who didn't think about those moments in The French Connection—who does think about them now, and I'm pretty proud of myself for having learned and internalized what I exemplify in my behavior. I'm pretty sure you can do the same. Far better for people today to see where we've come from and the progress that's been made, to see how much further there is to go.
Paul Kaplan was in this camp:
I read your piece on criticizing classic films like The French Connection and TV shows like The Office. I was saddened and horrified to read your piece. You do not put any of these films in historic context. As you know, blackface and racial epithets etc. were commonplace in films in those periods. We can’t judge them by today’s standards. You tossed Holiday Inn in the garbage because of a few scenes you felt uncomfortable by?
I think it’s overly moralistic how you virtue signal in your piece. You’re basically saying you’re so thoughtful that you’d never read or watch any art form with anything offensive. I strongly object to cancel culture. Honestly, I disliked your piece so much that I decided to cancel my subscription to Mother Jones. It’s too self-righteous for me. I’m a Democrat for sure and am horrified by what the GOP has become. But this reminds me of how morally overbearing much of the Left has become.
There you have it. I’m glad to see that Our Land reaches folks with different perspectives. But I’m sorry that Paul Kaplan was so enraged that he took it out on Mother Jones, which has no editorial responsibility for what I write in Our Land. To reiterate, I wasn’t proposing that films that offend current sensibilities be burned or cancelled. I was merely contemplating how to approach such works today. The same goes for how one might appreciate the work of Picasso in the context of what is now widely known about his personal conduct. (The New York Times recently addressed the Picasso question.) Ditto Woody Allen.
Considering and contextualizing is not the same as cancellation. And to be practical and perhaps lowbrow about this, the issue might just be how much does a piece of art or entertainment make you cringe? That is, to what extent do the old stereotypes—or details about the creator—distract from the delights? We are each free to render our own judgments. Best of all, we are free to debate them.
Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.