Is Gone with the Wind too controversial for the Plaza Classic Film Festival?
It’s been a year in the works and finally the El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival has the opportunity to air Gone With the Wind. The classic film will also tie into an exhibit at the History Museum talking about El Paso’s own Confederate past.
The winner of 10 academy awards, Gone with the Wind has it all, intrigue, emotions, love affairs and strong, memorable characters.
But for some, the movie also have undertones of racism, and that Confederate flag, splashed in numerous scenes. The confederate flag is now a hot button issue across the country, with a massacre in South Carolina in a black church leading to the take down of the divisive symbol.
“I think it gives us an opportunity to open a dialogue about it,” said Plaza Classic Film Festival Program Director Doug Pullen.
The 2015 Plaza Classic Film Festival will feature the classic, and an exhibit that features the flag, the history behind its making, including some details about El Paso’s own controversial past.
“I think a lot of people don’t know we were part of the Confederacy,” Pullen said. “And we also wanted to look at what El Paso what like in the 1940’s because I don’t think a lot of people knew we were segregated.”
Blacks has to come through a separate entrance in the Plaza, nor could they sit with their white counterparts. But bringing that up, has some people feeling a bit uncomfortable. Tury Ruiz writing on our FB page: I’m offended because “Gone With the Wind” took place in The Confederate States of America.
Some film critics are even calling for the movie to be banned, the New York Post writing, “The more subtle racism of ‘Gone with the Wind’ is in some ways more insidious.”
But goal behind showing the movie and the exhibit is to remember the era in which it was made, viewers don’t necessarily have to support it.
“It will probably be the best selling movie this festival, selling more tickets than any other movie,” Pullen said.
Gone with the Wind airs Aug. 6, the exhibit is open until Sept. 8.
