An episode of "Black Mirror"
entitled "White Christmas"
was broadcast in 2014.
It showed a technology
where you could cancel a person.
That meant you couldn't see
or hear that person.
And that person couldn't see
or hear you either.
At the same time the government
could make that decision
with criminals.
Cancel them for everyone.
No one could see or hear them
and they could not see or hear anyone.
Imagine if this could really be done
and we could cancel
the celebrities who commit crimes,
the celebrities who don't think like us,
the offensive characters,
the movies we don't like anymore...
It would be a power we couldn't control.
Each person has different
parameters to cancel
and we would end up
canceling everything.
Luckily that technology doesn't exist yet.
But we have other ways to cancel things.
So today at "Summing It Up"...
"Cancel With The Wind".
Yeah, it's a shitty title,
but it's related to the news
that led me to make this video.
Well, just with the news headline.
Because the whole mess
was generated for a clickbait headline.
If people had read the whole story
nothing would have happened.
But reading the full news
is a thing of the past century.
Let's go with the headline.
HBO removes "Gone With The Wind"
for being racist.
But first...
What does cancel culture mean?
To cancel is basically
to stop consuming a product
or products that a person generates
because of ideological incompatibility
or because he or she
did something that causes us rejection.
It can be a personal decision.
I'm canceling you,
you fucking pedophile!
Or it can be a collective issue,
where the world agrees to ignore
the existence of something or someone.
This habit has probably been reinforced
in recent years.
The most conservative sectors
cancelled "Birds Of Prey"
because the villain is a man
or Brie Larson because of
her feminist comments.
The more progressive sectors
did the same with films like "Bañeros"
for being sexist
or Woody Allen for being a rapist.
We all cancel.
It's a part of our consumer freedom.
And we as consumers
have a great responsibility.
I recommend the video of Damián Kuc
that talks about this topic.
I leave the link in the description.
People might think it's something
that came out of this generation.
But it didn´t.
This has always happened.
I will give you three examples
where the culture of cancellation
is explained very well.
CANCEL DUE TO CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENTS
In 1966 the Beatles were
at the top of their career.
All their records were a success
and the audience loved them.
But, but, but...
In March of that year a British newspaper
interviewed John Lennon
and he stated the following.
I quote his words in Spanish
because my English sucks.
"Christianity will go.
It will vanish and shrink.
I needn't argue about that; I'm right.
We're more popular than Jesus now
I don't know which will go first
–rock 'n' roll or Christianity."
When the interview was published
in the English newspaper
it did not generate any controversy.
Lennon was talking about the situation
of the Catholic Church in England
and everyone agreed
with what he was saying.
Even many priests had already stated
that the youth's interest in religion
was decreasing
and perhaps it was time
to modernize the church.
The problem came five months later,
when the news was published
in a US newspaper,
an ultra-conservative
and ultra-Catholic country.
But that wasn't the only problem.
The problem was that
the editor of the magazine
that published the article,
placed on the cover a picture of Lennon
with the phrase
"We're more popular than Jesus now."
Bad decision...
The American people
were so, so, so enraged
that they set fire to
The Beatles' records and photos,
prohibited the radio stations
from playing their songs,
and cancelled some shows.
The shows that took place
were disrupted by religious protesters
and even members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Finally, they took a sentence
out of context,
they took Lennon's opinion
out of context
and The Beatles were CANCELLED.
Of course it wasn't forever,
it's The Beatles.
But there was one person
who was cancelled forever
and that's my next example.
CANCEL FOR "IMPROPER" ACTS
This is Meg Ryan.
Maybe if you' re too young,
you won't know her.
But in the '90s she was an icon
of Hollywood romantic cinema.
The '90s were her decade.
If a romantic movie was a success,
it was probably
because Meg Ryan was in it.
In fact, I've done several summaries
of romantic movies
where she appears.
I'll leave them up here
in case you didn't watch them.
Anyway...
Between '89 and 2000
she starred in many successes.
For example...
"When Harry Met Sally"
where Meg plays Sally,
a good, innocent, dreamy,
romantic and faithful woman.
"Sleepless in Seattle"
where Meg plays Annie,
a good, innocent, dreamy,
romantic and faithful woman.
"City of Angels"
where Meg plays Maggie,
a good, innocent, dreamy,
romantic and faithful woman.
"You've Got Mail"
where Meg plays Kathleen,
a good, innocent, dreamy,
romantic and faithful woman.
And so many other movies.
In fact, in 10 years
she made 15 films.
And, almost always,
she played the same character.
Which, if you didn't notice,
was a good, innocent, romantic
and, above all, FAITHFUL woman.
One-man woman.
The one who falls in love for life.
Even in her personal life
she played the same role.
In '89 she married Dennis Quaid,
the guy from "The Day After Tomorrow."
And they had a son,
Jack Henry Quaid,
the star of "The Boys".
And everything was going relatively well
in Meg Ryan's life until one day...
One day she starred in the film
"Proofs of Life" with Russell Crowe.
And they became lovers.
He was married too, of course.
When this came out,
the whole world went crazy.
How can it be that the woman
who made us believe
that she was good, innocent, romantic,
faithful and a one-man wife,
cheated on her husband?
And with a married man!
She's a whore!
She's a homewrecker, a liar!
Hollywood educated us
so that we viewers
can't tell the artist from the character.
That's why actors and actresses
are categorized into roles.
Tom Hanks almost always
plays the good guy.
Robert De Niro almost always
plays the tough guy.
Stallone plays the loner...
And so, and so, and so...
That's how Hollywood works,
actors are brands.
Like an appliance.
An even more absurd example
occurred a couple of years ago
when a film came out in which
Luisana Lopilato
and Francella played lovers.
People went crazy!
Because for many years
they played father and daughter.
And people couldn't separate
the characters from the actors.
About the separation
of art and the artist
there is a video
that Natalia Maldini made
that goes into much more detail
on the issue.
I leave the link in the description.
When people found out Meg Ryan
cheated on her husband,
they turned their backs on her forever.
And they never went to see
her movies again.
From that day on
she had no other success.
Meg Ryan was CANCELLED.
CANCEL FOR BEING OFFENSIVE
"The Simpsons" were known
to be offensive.
I speak in the past tense because
they don't offend anyone anymore,
except for the golden age fanatics
who can't believe that such bad episodes
are being made.
But everything I have to say
about "The Simpsons"
I already said in a video
I'm leaving up here in case you didn't see it.
Let's continue.
"The Simpsons" used to be offensive.
But the problem
was the susceptibility of certain nations
that were easily offended.
For example,
the great episode "Cape Feare"
begins by showing us a McBain special
where the host is an old Nazi.
This drove the managers
of the German networks crazy
and they broadcast that episode
without that scene.
In the thirteenth season the Simpsons
go to Brazil because of Lisa.
And they attack the country quite a bit.
Obviously the episode
wasn't broadcast in Brazil for several years.
In season 10 the Simpsons go to Japan
and obviously the episode
was not broadcast there.
It wasn't even in there DVD edition.
But no one cancelled "The Simpsons"
as much as Chile.
Because it was broadcast on Canal 13,
an ultra-Catholic channel,
and they removed scenes that
they considered offensive to their religion.
For example, the Pope reading
the newspaper in the angel episode,
Homer dragging his ass
on the roof of a church,
the trial of Jesus against a taxi driver,
the scene of Bart in the gay pride march,
the scene of Reverend Lovejoy
throwing that white ribbon on the floor,
Bob Dole's speech where he says
there will be abortions for some
and miniature American flags for others.
And the episode where Lisa
becomes a Buddhist wasn't even aired.
So in Germany, Brazil, Japan, Chile,
among other countries,
"The Simpsons" were CANCELLED.
There are many such examples.
There is a very nice podcast
called "Angry People"
that explains many other cases.
It's hosted by a very handsome,
very nice
and very blond neoliberal boy.
I leave the link in the description
for you to listen.
Now that that's cleared up,
let's talk about "Gone with the Wind".
"Gone with the Wind" is a 1939
American film directed by Victor Fleming,
adapted from Margaret Mitchell's
1936 novel of the same name.
It's about the life of Scarlett O'Hara,
who's in love with her sister's boyfriend.
But because he's dating her sister,
she marries the brother
of her sister's boyfriend
who ends up dying.
Then she starts dating Clark Gable
in the middle of the Civil War.
What about racism?
Where's the racism?!
Well, the story is set in the 19th century
and the characters
have African-American slaves.
"That's no problem,
in the 19th century there were slaves,"
an expert in the 19th century tweeter 
would say.
I totally agree.
The problem is that slaves are portrayed
as people who are happy to be slaves.
And these characters
never question their slavery condition.
And that really wasn't the case
in the 19th century.
In fact, in the years covered by the film,
Lincoln proclaimed
the emancipation of the slaves.
It is impossible that these slaves
do not feel alluded to by the subject.
It's all about where you focus
on telling the story.
The director, or the screenwriter,
or the author of the book
decided to put the focus
on the couple story,
omitting anything related to racial issues.
The thing is that this year, 2020,
the film was CANCELLED
by HBO for being racist.
Is that reason enough to cancel it?
It is often said that you cannot
judge the past with the present mentality
and that is the most stupid thing
that has been said in the last five years.
Because we are constantly judging
the past with a present mentality.
How do people who think this
watch movies? Like this?
-You're watching FOX.
-We're watching FOX.
Well, you can watch it that way
and it'll be all right.
You'd be part of
the "passive audience" group.
But there is the "active audience" group
that watches a film and thinks about it,
analyses it, reviews it, studies it.
For this group, cinema and art in general
is not mere entertainment.
Cinema is a tool for communication,
denunciation or mobilization.
For the other group, cinema is this.
Both groups are fine.
No one is forced to analyze a play
but they are forced
to let other groups analyze it.
Anyway, "Gone with the Wind" wasn't only
analyzed with the present mentality
but it was also analyzed
with the past mentality.
Well, actually from the present of its time.
A section of the
African-American community
was very unhappy with the way
they were portrayed in the film.
But they were a minority
and nobody cared about their opinion.
But this shows that it's not that
it' s racist now and it wasn't before.
It always was,
but not everyone realized it.
But on the other hand
there was another sector
of the African-American community
that was very happy with the film.
Not so much because of what it said,
but because it gave space
to African-American actors.
They were able to work as actors.
In fact, Hattie McDaniel,
the actress who plays Mammy, said,
“I'd rather get paid $700 a week
for playing a maid than $7 for being one.”
She was also the first
African-American actress to win an Oscar.
In the 80 years since the release
of "Gone with the Wind",
many more people have understood
that the film was racist.
And there's still a lot more people
who need to understand it.
So, in my opinion "Gone with the Wind"
does not have to be cancelled
but has to be analyzed
according to the current standards.
Watching "Gone with the Wind"
and saying "Hey, that's racist!"
speaks to our evolution.
We are no longer
like the 1939 audience,
we have another way of thinking.
And that' s why the film
has to stay there.
Analyzing past mistakes
leads us not to make them again.
When the news came out,
many people said that we had
to understand that it was a different time.
Yeah, that's right, Shrelock Holmes...
It was a different time!
But racism still exists.
In fact, there was a lot of chaos
in the United States recently
because of racial issues.
It is still a current problem.
It's not something from another era.
It's an all-time thing.
But if we delete films because
they are racist, homophobic, sexist, etc.,
we are pretending
that these problems never existed.
But they existed, they do exist
and unfortunately
they will continue to exist.
And the clickbaits
will also continue to exist
because the news portals
only told half of the story.
HBO removed the film
to place a note at the beginning
that gives a historical context
as the Looney Toons have done.
Of course, a lot of people
complained about that,
saying, "I don't need to be told
that a movie is racist."
Turns out that the warning is not for you,
a 39-year-old man,
but for the childish audience
that absorbs everything it touches.
Like that rug.
But all the people who got angry
and turned HBO into a trendig topic
actually got angry
with a news headline.
If they were less dumb
and read the whole article,
they would have avoided a problem.
Tomas Baliña, on his channel,
has a theory about this.
I leave the link in the description
for you to listen to it.
CONCLUSION
History has shown that
when you try to cancel something
it becomes more and more famous.
Canceling turns the perpetrator
into a victim
and this makes them
gain more supporters
and more people to defend them.
It makes them martyrs.
When something causes us rejection
the best we can do is to analyze it,
find out what is wrong
and report it if necessary
so as not to make
the same mistake in the future.
Many times the problem is solved
by putting up an explanatory note.
But you can't always solve it that way.
Nothing has to be cancelled.
If we cancel it
we're pretending it doesn't exist
and neither does its problem.
Well, I've said too much already
and I'd like to know
what you think about this.
Leave your opinions in the comments
because I would like to make a video
answering what you say.
I also welcome video responses
as you have done
with other videos on my channel.
Everything is welcome.
And I welcome new followers.
If you want to see this kind of videos
I leave some here.
And don't leave without listening
to my Aunt Marta.
Subscribe to the channel...
and go tell all your friends.
Period.
XOXO
BYE BYE
Summing It Up
Original Idea by Don Jorge Pinarello
Good night.
