Going, Going, ‘Gone’ Shelving a Cinema Classic
4. Lou Lumenick wants to retire “Gone With the Wind” (June 25).
How does he propose to do this? Should we make a huge fire and burn all copies of the book and movie?
They had a similar approach in Germany in the 1930s. Maybe we should tear down Margaret Mitchell’s house or crush Hattie McDaniel’s Academy Award.
Lumenick doesn’t approve of “Gone With The Wind?” Frankly, I don’t give a damn. David Farbman
The Bronx
Your “Retire This Racist Relic” is pure insanity. “Gone With the Wind” should now be in the archives of history?
One of the greatest, if not the greatest, movies ever is now relegated to the trash heap of political incorrectness. This was a story, plain and simple.
It’s not historical fiction, it’s not part of the school syllabus. It’s just a magnificent story by a great Southern author.
Are we to now blame Margaret Mitchell for the actions of Dylann Roof ? Why not. That’s what we do best — blame someone else. Susan Last Monroe, NJ
Is Lumenick serious? If so, let’s ban “All Quiet on the Western Front” for possibly glorifying war and “Scarface” for focusing on Italian gangsters.
What can we expect next from our new politically correct and fascist America?
Sal Dye New Rochelle
was a northerner going to a small college in North Carolina in the 1970s. One evening, there was a campus showing of “Gone With the Wind.” The auditorium was filled to overflowing with students and faculty and townspeople.
All of them were white. Were all of them racist?
Lumenick would say that they were. He would relegate “Gone With the Wind” to museums, where only those with a need to experience a great film would be allowed to see it.
What I would say, however, is that they were simply remembering their past and honoring their forebears.
If it was a flawed past, that hardly distinguished them from any other people who have ever lived.
Memory is an important thing, all the more so in a country as diverse as our own. It’s something to be kept, and cherished.
It’s not the province of any particular people, but for all of us, even now, even for those who would celebrate a civilization gone with the wind.
Daniel Mercer Pennsauken, NJ
If someone as intelligent as Lumenick can’t watch and appreciate “Gone With the Wind” in 2015 in the appropriate historical context, with out obsessing about the film not fitting into his armchair view of what the Civil War was all about, or seeing past and putting into perspective its racist overtones, he shouldn’t watch it.
And he would do well to educate himself beyond watching Hollywood films in general.
If Lumenick’s idea is to “retire” the movie, where does it end?
Should we not also do the same to the works of a Mark Twain or F. Scott Fitzgerald? Alex Simmons
Central Valley
After I read Lumenick’s article calling for the banning of “Gone With the Wind,” I was incensed.
Modern day liberals are truly the most intolerant group I have seen in my life. Calling for the banning of a movie in America is nothing more than censorship.
“Gone With the Wind” is just a movie. It pushes no agenda, it merely shows how life used to be.
How many other movies does he want banned? A number of other films show the Confederate flag. Anthony Johnson
Brentwood