IN THEIR WORDS
U.S. President Donald Trump added a new riff to his schtick at a rally in Colorado Springs, Colo., Thursday night, bemoaning the South Korean film Parasite — the first foreign-language film to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
“How bad was the Academy Awards this year? The winner is … a movie from South Korea! What the hell was that all about? We got enough problems with South Korea with trade. On top of it, they give them the best movie of the year? Can we get Gone with the Wind back, please? Sunset Boulevard?
So many great movies.” — U.S. President Donald Trump
“I just finished giving a lecture about one of the most pervasive myths of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. The audience was engaged and asked some incredibly thoughtful questions, so … SCREW THIS
GUY.” — Kevin M. Levin, who specializes in Civil War memory and is author of Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth. Gone With the Wind depicted the slavery-loving South’s secession and defeat as heroic and even patriotic.
“We cannot criticize” the black actors who accepted the roles in Gone With the Wind “too severely for their attempt at racial suicide, for they are economic slaves.” — African-american film critic Earl J. Morris, motion picture editor for the black Pittsburgh Courier, in 1939. The film was criticized for depicting enslaved African-americans as simple, scatterbrained and happy in slavery.
“(I would) rather make seven
hundred dollars a week playing a maid than seven
dollars being one.” — Hattie Mcdaniel, who played house servant Mammy in the film, who was criticized as an “Uncle Tom.” She became the first African-american to win an Oscar, for Best Supporting Actress; the awards ceremony was held in a segregated hotel and she was seated in the back row of tables.
“He thinks Gone with The Wind and Sunset Boulevard
should be honored again. Because: America or something. Who wants to tell him Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard were
foreign workers;
Billy Wilder an immigrant?” — Comment on Twitter
“Understandable.
He can’t read.” — Neon, the U.S. distributor for Parasite (referring to the film’s subtitles), responding to Trump’s comments on the movie.
“Was it good? I don’t know.” — President Trump, about Parasite