The classic film "Gone with the Wind" has been removed from the shelves! (Don’t panic)
In the protests triggered by the death of black George Freud, some people believed that the film "beautified slavery." Therefore, the American streaming platform HBO Max decided to remove the film (later an explanation was added and it was relaunched).
Whether "Gone with the Wind" "beautifies slavery" or not, it doesn't matter. But the film "Fences" really tells people that even if slavery is abolished, the lives of black Americans are not much better.
"Fence" is directed and acted by the famous black Hollywood actor Denzel Washington. The film received four Oscar nominations and finally won the Best Supporting Actress Award.
Denzel Washington has won two Oscars and paid as much as 20 million. He is currently the most expensive black actor in Hollywood. Someone commented on Denzel Washington and said: He is not a great black man, but a great man with black skin.
But the skin color is destined to be something he can't get around. For example, some people say that the award for "The Fence" is for the balance of black and white.
1. After being liberated, you still have to work for the farmer
The historical turning point in the living environment of black Americans was the American Civil War, or the Civil War. The "turbulent times" in Gone with the Wind refers to the chaotic period of the Civil War.
During the war, then President Lincoln promulgated the "Proclamation for the Emancipation of Negro Slaves" in 1862, the main content of which officially became the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865.
Since then, the United States has officially abolished the slavery system, and blacks have personal freedom.
But as Trump said, Lincoln liberated the slaves, but the result was...Although Trump has always been a big mouth, this sentence is not entirely unreliable.
The blacks had personal freedom, but they did not achieve political equality and did not receive a share of land. Blacks who have recovered their freedom still have to rely on farming for the farmers to make ends meet.
Troy, the protagonist of "Fences", recalls his childhood life. It was the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. His father was worried about paying rent on time, and his family was left alone. Mother ran away from home because of the hopelessness of life.
There is a similar plot in the Oscar-winning film "Green Book". In the 1960s, blacks were still working hard in large areas of the south. It is no different from the slave labor scene of Scarlett’s farm in Gone with the Wind.
It can be seen that 100 years after Lincoln issued the Declaration, blacks are still struggling on the poverty line, and their living conditions have not been completely changed due to the change of status.
2. After arriving in the city, it is more difficult
After the Civil War, the United States began a process of large-scale urbanization. At the end of the 1950s when the story of "The Fence" took place, the urbanization of the United States was already close to 70%. A large number of blacks came to the city, but the city did not provide them with enough and reasonable living space.
In the city, black people still struggle to survive.
When Troy was 14 years old, after a fierce conflict with his father, he ran away from home. I walked more than 100 miles with my feet and came to the city.
At that moment, like many children, he felt free and thought that the vast world had a lot to do. But I soon discovered that the outside world was too big, and I was as small as a particle of dust, and I couldn't find my place after floating for a long time.
He has never gone to school and has no skill. The simplest and most convenient life is to be a thief during the day and sleep on the street at night.
Find a woman after you fill your stomach, and you will have a child if you have a woman. A family of three needs Troy to steal three times the money to feed. Grab if you can't steal it. Occasionally, accidentally, "failure" resulted in death, and Troy went to jail.
This experience of Troy is almost exactly the same as that of Malcolm X, the famous American black leader.
Malcolm's father was killed for his participation in the black affirmative movement. After dropping out of school, he came to the city at the age of 16 and became a street gangster. He did all the bad things that the lower-class blacks could do. He also tasted the ups and downs of the lower-class blacks. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for failing in robbery.
Coincidentally, the movie "Kuroshio Malcolm X" adapted from Malcolm's life was also starring Denzel Washington.
Whether it is an unknown little person or a well-known celebrity in the future, they have similar sad experiences. Denzel Washington, as a black elite, fits with them in the film, and I don't know how he feels.
To this day, in Minneapolis, black Freud has been violently executed by the police to death. The reason was that he used 20 yuan counterfeit bills. After Freud's death, he was regarded as a hero by the protesters, and the funeral was extremely grand. But follow-up news said that Freud not only used counterfeit money, but sometimes robbed it.
After the Freud incident, some people commented like this: If you are a black person living in the United States, then you will have many difficulties in life. Even if you have good wishes, you may still embark on the path of crime. Even if you want to re-start a better life after being released from prison, the society may not give you such an opportunity.
3. Where is the way out
Malcolm was released early in 1952 and joined the black affirmative movement after being released from prison. Two years later, in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court cancelled the segregation policy in public schools. But in 1957, whites in Little Rock, Arkansas still refused to go to the same school as blacks. For this reason, the country sent troops and helicopters to escort black students to implement this policy.
Without the opportunity to be educated, the children of Troy will be like him.
Troy's eldest son did not want to be like his father. Therefore, he persisted in his music dream and insisted not to follow his father to collect trash. For this reason, he has not yet worked in his 30s. In order to survive, you can only gnaw on the old. Every time he opens his mouth to borrow money from his father, he must endure his father’s humiliation.
Even so, Troy's eldest son did not steal it.
Is there really no way out for him?
There are still.
As a soldier. Troy's younger brother had served as a soldier. Unfortunately, half of his head was taken off the battlefield of World War II. In the end, although a life was lost, IQ became the same as that of a child.
But the pension he got from this not only supported himself, but also supported his brother's family.
Troy's youngest son finally chose to be a soldier when he was desperate. Six years later, he told his brother that he wanted to retire. The brother comforted him and said, "Let's stay here. Retire. There are too few opportunities outside of society."
But if he continues to stay in the army, it is possible to participate in the Vietnam War. So, what is waiting for him?
This is the situation faced by black soldiers.
Another way is sports.
Troy played baseball when he was young. But in the context of racial discrimination at the time, it was difficult for blacks to have the opportunity to play. In Troy's words: "A black man wants to play, and he has to work twice as hard as a white man!"
The youngest son inherited Troy's athletic talent and wanted to go to college by playing football. But Troy tried his best to oppose it. He was afraid that his son would follow his old path and fail to make a difference in playing basketball. Instead, he would lose the job opportunity to become a repairman or a supermarket porter.
It is not so much that Troy is short-sighted and uses patriarchy to control the development of the next generation. It is better to say that his past social experience has made him lack a basic sense of security, and he just wants to grasp everything in the moment.
It now appears that discrimination in the sports world should be the least obvious. Many blacks have achieved stratification by playing ball. For example, the previous generation of NBA stars, such as Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, were born in ordinary families and changed their destiny by playing basketball. And NBA retired player Stephen Jackson directly said that he is an old friend of Freud.
But such a way out is only the choice of a few people after all. In a wider range of fields, such as economics, finance, politics, and technology, the career ceiling of blacks is still very low.
4. Circular dilemma
After the death of Troy, the head of the "Fence", the black affirmative movement continued throughout the 1960s. But whether it was Martin Luther King, the black elite who advocated peaceful struggle for rights, or the bottom black Malcolm X, who advocated violent resistance, they were all assassinated in just a few years.
The affirmative movement has achieved certain success. The state has issued a series of decrees, and blacks have the same rights in education, employment and housing. But words that stay on paper can hardly change people's deep-rooted concepts. Racial issues are still a major ailment in American society, causing large-scale riots every few years.
Like the Troy family in "The Fence", generations of people have repeated a similar fate.
When Troy was 14 years old, he was beaten up by his father and wandered away from home. When his youngest son was 15 years old, he was also beaten up and kicked out of the house. The youngest son finally went back to his uncle's path and joined the army to make a living.
Troy's eldest son has a musical dream and wants to get rid of the bottom fate of his parents through music. But like his father, he was accidentally arrested and imprisoned.
Troy's wife, Rose, has many brothers and sisters, but not two of the same father and mother. She tried her best to maintain family relationships and avoid repeating her own experience in the next generation. But in the end, the three children in the family were still born by different women.
Although Rose told her husband Troy at the beginning of the film, this society is different. But the fate of the two generations does not seem to be fundamentally different.
Of course, Troy himself or the black people around him also have many problems. For example, Troy has no concept of rules. He always wanted to be a driver, but he didn't even have a driver's license.
The blacks look down upon themselves. A black neighbor in Troy won the lottery and opened a restaurant, but the restaurant shut out the black people.
Troy often uses the term "nigger" in his mouth, which is a very insulting term. Other people use this word to call him, and he also uses this word to scold his children.
The life of the Troy family is like the song Rose often sings: "Sometimes the road is so difficult, and the night is so long." She wants to build a fence to protect the family.
However, a short barrier cannot stop outside damage, nor can it guarantee the integrity and happiness of the family. The barriers rooted in people's hearts are the biggest harm.
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