《乱世佳人》下架：黑人不都这样- 大数跨境

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《乱世佳人》下架：黑人不都这样

QuriositySISU

2020-06-28

导读：吵了80年的“种族”架，到底该如何落幕？

编者按

月初，HBO Max由于近期在美国日渐激化的种族矛盾下架了经典电影《乱世佳人》。事实上，自1939年，影片原著——小说《乱世佳人》出版后，关于作品美化奴隶制的争议声便不曾间断。除了影片结尾女主角饱含感情，说出的那句令人印象深刻的台词，“Tomorrow is another day(明天又是新的一天）“，这部经典老片在美国所引起的社会和文化争议，也和小Q一起了解了解吧！

“Gone With the Wind,” starring Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara, left, and Hattie McDaniel as Mammy, has enduringly shaped popular understanding of the Civil War and Reconstruction perhaps more than any other cultural artifact.Credit...MGM

电影《乱世佳人》长期影响着公众对于美国内战和战后重建时期的主流理解，其影响力或许超过其他任何文化产品。图左为费雯·丽饰演的斯嘉丽·奥哈拉小姐，图右为哈蒂·麦克丹尼尔饰演的女仆。图源：美国米高梅公司

When HBO Max announced on June 9 that it was temporarily removing “Gone With the Wind” from its streaming service, it seemed as if another Confederate monument was coming down.

6月9日，HBO Max（华纳打造的流媒体平台）宣布暂时下架电影《乱世佳人》。这一举措给人感觉好像又一座美国南部邦联纪念碑倒下了。

注：此前，因种族冲突，示威者于美国多地推倒南部邦联雕像和纪念碑。

“Gone With the Wind” may register with younger people today only as their grandmother’s favorite movie (or maybe, the source of a lacerating joke that opens Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman”). And for every prominent conservative accusing HBO Max of censorship, there were plenty on social media calling the movie, well, boring.

如今的年轻人可能认为，《乱世佳人》只是奶奶辈爱看的电影（或是被斯派克·李导演拿来放在《黑色党徒》开头用来反讽的场景）。然而，每次一有著名保守人士发声指责HBO的审查制度时，社交媒体上就会站起来一大波人吐槽，说这部电影很无聊。

《黑色党徒》影片开场引用电影《乱世佳人》片段

争议：美化奴隶制

Originally released in 1939, the film romanticizes slavery as a benign and benevolent institution. Still the highest-grossing film in history when adjusted for inflation, "Gone with the Wind" continues to have a profound impact on the ways mainstream audiences visualize the antebellum South and the Reconstruction period that followed the Civil War.

《乱世佳人》最早于1939年上映。影片将奴隶制美化成了一种良性、仁慈的制度。经过通货膨胀率调整后，它仍居全球票房之首，持续影响着主流观众对美国内战前的南方和内战后的重建时期的看法。

There have been many highly visible efforts to represent slavery on screen from more historically accurate African American perspectives, from the 1977 miniseries "Roots" to Oprah Winfrey's "Beloved" (1998) to Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" (2013).

从1977年的迷你剧《根》到1998年奥普拉·温弗里主演的电影《真爱》再到2003年史蒂夫·麦奎因主演的《为奴十二年》，为了从更符合史实的非裔美国人视角将奴隶制呈现在银幕上，许多影视作品都做出了不懈努力。

But "Gone with the Wind" endures in popular culture. It is an account of slavery devoid of the physical abuse (save Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara's legendary slap of Butterfly McQueen's Prissy), the grueling labor and the separation of families.

而《乱世佳人》却在流行文化中经久不衰。影片讲述了没有身体虐待（除了费雯·丽饰演的斯嘉丽·奥哈拉给了巴特弗莱·麦昆饰演的普丽西出名的一巴掌），也没有繁重劳役和骨肉分离的奴隶生活。

Over the decades, "Gone with the Wind" has seen many theatrical re-releases, featured presentations on prime-time network television and spectacularly packaged home video editions. It was the very first film shown on Turner Classic Movies when the network premiered in 1994. And then this behemoth of classic films, clocking in at nearly four hours, made the leap into the world of on-demand streaming.

在过去的几十年里，《乱世佳人》曾多次在影院重新上映并在电视的黄金时段播放，同时还出现了包装精美的家庭录像带版本。这是特纳经典电影频道在1994年首映时播放的第一部电影。此后，这部长达4小时的经典电影巨兽便跃进了流媒体点播时代。

Some complained that taking the film down was a form of censorship. For others, seeing "Gone with the Wind" featured so prominently in HBO Max's launch felt like salt rubbed into wounds that have never been permitted to heal. These wounds are reopened with every act of anti-Black violence, every delay in justice and every failure to acknowledge the extent of Black suffering.

一些人抱怨说，此次影片下架意味着某种形式的审查制度。对其他人而言，看到《乱世佳人》在HBO Max平台上占据如此高地，感觉像是往无法愈合的伤口上撒盐。每一次的反黑人暴力，每一次正义的迟到，每一次对黑人苦难的回避，都会将这一伤口重新撕裂。

But it is precisely because of the ongoing, painful patterns of racial injustice and disregard for Black lives that "Gone with the Wind" should stay in circulation and remain available for viewing, analysis and discussion.

但也正是因为这些根深蒂固、令人痛苦的种族歧视观念和对黑人生命的漠视，才使得《乱世佳人》能够一直流传下去，供大众欣赏、分析和讨论。

偏见：黑人都这样

HBO Max’s move came a day after The Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by John Ridley, the screenwriter of “Twelve Years a Slave,” criticizing “Gone With the Wind” for its racist stereotypes and whitewashing of the horrors of slavery, and calling for it to be presented only with added historical context.

HBO Max下架《乱世佳人》的前一天，《为奴十二年》的编剧约翰·里德利在《洛杉矶时报》上发表了一篇专栏评论。他批评《乱世佳人》对种族主义的刻板印象以及对奴隶制恐怖之处的粉饰，并且呼吁影片在播放时加入历史背景的介绍。

But it also represents a belated reckoning with African-American criticism that started immediately after the 1936 publication of Margaret Mitchell’s novel — even if it was barely noted in the mainstream white press.

自1936年玛格丽特·米切尔的小说《乱世佳人》出版，来自非裔美国人的批评声不断——尽管白人主流媒体并没有注意到这一点。此次的影片下架，正是对此迟到的清算。

“Gone With the Wind” is one of the mythic lightning strikes of American cultural history. Mitchell, a former journalist who wrote the novel (her first and only) while recovering from an injury, expected it to sell 5,000 copies. Instead, it became a sensation, selling nearly a million copies within six months, and earning her the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

《乱世佳人》是美国文化史上的一个神话。其作者米切尔曾是一名记者，在伤病恢复期写了这本小说（这是她的第一部，也是唯一一部），她本预计卖出5000本。但这本书却轰动一时，在六个月内售出了近100万本，并获得了普利策奖和美国出版商协会奖。

The production of the movie version, including the casting of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, was covered breathlessly in the press. And by opening night, in 1939, seven million copies of the book had been sold.

媒体对于《乱世佳人》电影版的制作，以及主要角色斯嘉丽·奥哈拉和瑞德·巴特勒的选角都密切关注。截至1939年的电影首映之夜，这本书已经卖出了700万册。

The frenzy around the novel and the movie also touched off a national craze for all things Dixie. Mitchell was inundated with requests to authorize “Gone With the Wind”-themed pens, hats, dolls, even chintz fabric. In 1939, Macy’s devoted several floors of its flagship store to products associated with the film, under the theme “The Old South Comes North.”

人们对于该小说和电影的痴迷也引发了全民对美国南部事物的狂热追求。米切尔授权了大量《乱世佳人》主题的周边，包括钢笔、帽子、玩偶，甚至是印花棉布。1939年，梅西百货举办了“旧南方到北方”的主题活动，与这部电影有关的产品陈列了好几层楼。

Many African-Americans, like these protesters outside a theater in 1940, objected to the flawed history and racist stereotypes in “Gone With the Wind,” including its depiction of “happy” slaves.Credit...AfroAmerican Newspapers/Gado, via Getty Images

许多非洲裔美国人和1940年在剧院外的这些抗议者想法一致，反对《乱世佳人》中的历史缺陷和种族偏见，包括其对“快乐”奴隶的描述。（图源：非裔美国报纸记者加多／盖蒂图片社）

“People just ate it up,” said Karen L. Cox, a historian at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and the author of “Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture.” And the Northern embrace of Mitchell’s plantation nostalgia, with its depiction of happy, obedient slaves, wasn’t just harmless lifestyle consumerism.

“人们对此深信不疑。”凯伦·L·考克斯说。他是夏洛特北卡罗莱纳大学的历史学家，也是《南部之梦：美国流行文化下的南部》的作者。小说《乱世佳人》洋溢着对种植园的怀旧之情，并描绘了快乐、顺从的奴隶形象。但美国北部对这些的接纳，不只是一种无害的消费主义生活方式。

“There was nascent civil rights activity in the 1930s, but if everyone is watching this movie or reading this book, they get the idea that that’s how things were,” Cox said. “It made it easier for white Northerners to look at African-American migrants arriving in places like Chicago and say, ‘Why can’t you act like these Negroes?’”

考克斯说：“20世纪30年代，民权运动刚刚萌芽。但如果每个人看过这部电影或读过这本书，他们就会认为事情本该如此。这会导致北部白人看到来到芝加哥等地的非裔美国人时，更容易问出，‘你们为什么不能像这些黑人那样行事?’”

But even as white Americans embraced the moonlight and magnolias, African-Americans were registering objections. Soon after the producer David O. Selznick bought the rights, there were complaints that a movie version would incite violence, spread bigotry and even derail a proposed federal anti-lynching bill.

尽管美国白人欣然接受书和电影里美化后的南部，非裔美国人却提出了反对。制作人大卫·O·塞尔兹尼克买下版权后不久，就有人抱怨说，电影版会煽动暴力、传播偏见，甚至会扰乱联邦反私刑法案的提请进程。

注：“moonlight and magnolias”指对美国内战前南部的美化。后被当作一种委婉语（euphemism）使用。

归来：正视历史误

As the title indicates, "Gone with the Wind" looks back nostalgically at idyllic days that are no more (because they never were). By harkening back to the great old days, plantation dramas invite white viewers to imagine appealing but false pedigrees. When working class and poor white viewers identify with a noble white lineage, for example, they might be less likely to form what could be beneficial alliances with their Black working class and poor counterparts.

正如书名和影名所示，《乱世佳人》回顾了不复存在的田园诗般的美好生活 (因为它们从未存在过)。这个故事在带观众回到过去的美好时光的同时，也让白人观众错误地沉浸在他们“血统高贵”幻想中。例如，当工人阶级和贫穷的白人观众认为自己的白人血统很高贵时，他们就不太可能与工人阶级和贫穷的黑人结成有益的联盟。

A spokesperson for HBO Max noted in a statement that the film's "racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible." As the current debates about putting up, taking down, and contextualizing "Gone with the Wind" make clear, it is a film that continues to expose deep fissures in our interpretations of American history, film history and the relationship between the two. The film has loyal fans, and it has vocal critics who critique its version of Southern history with the same language Black activists used when they picketed the film 80 years ago.

HBO Max的发言人在一次声明中指出，这部电影“对于种族主义的刻画，无论放在过去还是现在都是错误的。我们认为，继续在平台播出这部电影却不对影片中有关种族主义的描述进行解释和谴责，是不负责任的。“目前关于该片上架、下架和增加影片背景说明的讨论表明，《乱世佳人》进一步暴露出人们在解读美国历史、美国影史以及两者之间关系的解读上的深刻分歧。这部电影有忠实粉丝，也有直言不讳的批评家，用80年前黑人激进分子抗议时所说同样的话来批评这部电影对美国南方历史的描述。

HBO Max will bring "Gone with The Wind" back to its line-up, and when it appears, the African-American film scholar Jacqueline Stewart will provide an introduction placing the film in its multiple historical contexts as she announced in an opinion piece for CNN.com. Right now, people are turning to movies for racial re-education, and the top-selling books on Amazon are about anti-racism and racial inequality. If people are really doing their homework, we may be poised to have our most informed, honest and productive national conversations yet about Black lives on screen and off.

HBO Max将重新上架《乱世佳人》，到那时，非裔美籍的电影学者杰奎琳·斯图尔特将为影片提供一段多角度历史背景的介绍，正如她发表在CNN网站的评论中所说。如今，人们希望电影能够帮助他们进一步正确认识种族，亚马逊上最畅销的书也都和反种族主义或种族不平等问题有关。如果人们真的都为此付出努力，我们也许很快就能在全美范围内，理智、坦诚、有成效地谈论黑人话题，无论是在银幕内还是银幕外。