TCM host Jacqueline Stewart says the films selected for “Reframed Classics” are intended to give audiences the tools to discuss and even still appreciate problematic films. | Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
“Reframed Classics” promises wide-ranging discussions about 18 culturally significant films from the 1920s through the 1960s that also have problematic aspects.
Loving classic films can be a fraught pastime. Just consider the cultural firestorm over “Gone With the Wind” this past summer. No one knows this better than the film lovers at Turner Classic Movies who daily are confronted with the complicated reality that many of old Hollywood’s most celebrated films are also often a kitchen sink of stereotypes. This summer, amid the Black Lives Matter protests, the channel’s programmers and hosts decided to do something about it.
The result is a new series, “Reframed Classics,” which promises wide-ranging discussions about 18 culturally significant films from the 1920s through the 1960s that also have problematic aspects, from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and Mickey Rooney’s performance as Mr. Yunioshi to Fred Astaire’s blackface routine in “Swing Time.” It kicks off Thursday at 7 p.m. with none other than “Gone With the Wind.”
“We know millions of people love these films,” said TCM host Jacqueline Stewart, who is participating in many of the conversations. “We’re not saying this is how you should feel about ‘Pyscho’ or this is how you should feel about ‘Gone with the Wind.’ We’re just trying to model ways of having longer and deeper conversations and not just cutting it off to ‘I love this movie. I hate this movie.’ There’s so much space in between.”
Stewart, a University of Chicago professor who in 2019 became the channel’s first African American host, has spent her career studying classic films, particularly those in the silent era, and Black audiences. She knows first-hand the tension of loving films that also contain racial stereotypes.
“I grew up in a family of people who loved classic films. Now, how can you love these films if you know that there’s going to be a maid or mammy that shows up?” Stewart said. “Well, I grew up around people who could still love the movie. You appreciate some parts of it. You critique other parts of it. That’s something that one can do and it actually can enrich your experience of the film.”
While TCM audiences will know her as the host of Silent Sunday Nights, this past summer she was given a bigger spotlight when she was selected to introduce “Gone With the Wind” on HBO Max to provide proper context after its controversial removal from the streaming service. She remembers drafting her remarks for that while also concocting this series.
“I continue to feel a sense of urgency around these topics,” she said. “We’re showing films that really shaped the ways that people continue to think about race and gender and sexuality and ability. It was really important for the group to come together to think about how we can work with each other and work with our fans to deepen the conversations about these films.”
TCM hosts Ben Mankiewicz, Dave Karger, Alicia Malone and Eddie Muller will also be part of many conversations. The films that they’ve selected aren’t under the radar novelties either. As Stewart said, “they’re the classics of the classics.”
The series, which runs every Thursday through March 25, will also show “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “Gunga Din,” “The Searchers,” “My Fair Lady,” “Stagecoach,” “Woman of the Year” and “The Children’s Hour.”
Turner Classic Movies via APClark Gable and Vivien Leigh are shown in a scene from “Gone with the Wind.”
The selections allow the hosts to think about Hollywood films more broadly, too. For “Psycho,” which will be airing on March 25, the hosts talk about transgender identity in the film and the implications of equating gender fluidity and dressing in women’s clothes with mental illness and violence. It also sparks a bigger conversation about sexuality in Alfred Hitchcock films.
During the “My Fair Lady” conversation on March 25, they talk about why the film adaptation has a less feminist ending than the stage play, and Henry Higgins’ physical and psychological abuse of Eliza Dolittle. Not feeding her and stuffing marbles in her mouth are played for cute laughs in the film. Is it a commentary on misogyny or just plain misogyny?
And on the “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” night, airing March 11, Stewart discusses the complex legacy of Sidney Poitier.
“His career is so important for the ways that white Americans really started to have more sympathy and understanding of Black people. But at the same time, there are aspects of his films that are clearly oriented primarily to white audiences,” Stewart said. “That opens up all kinds of complications for Black viewers who felt that he wasn’t a representative of the race as a whole.”
Companies have lately taken to adding disclaimers before shows and films depicting outdated or stereotypical characters and themes. And in some instances, films have just been made unavailable. Disney has said that it’s 1946 film “Song of the South” will never be on Disney+. The classic film podcast “You Must Remember This ” has an excellent series about the controversial movie and how it came to be.
The goal of “Reframed Classics” is to help give audiences the tools to discuss films from a different era and not just dismiss or cancel them. And Stewart, for her part, doesn’t believe that you can simply remove problematic films from the culture.
“I think there’s something to be learned from any work of art,” Stewart said. “They’re all historical artifacts that tell us a lot about the industry in which they were made, the cultures that they were speaking to.”
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s latest exhibit preaches equity, but behind the scenes artists and former museum employees are demanding real change.
“When we shut down in March 2020, we pivoted our programming immediately,” MCA director Madeleine Grynsztejn wrote in a recent column for Art in America. The most important new programming was “The Long Dream,” a wide-ranging exhibition featuring more than 70 local artists, which was meant to reflect the museum’s “commitment to equity.”…Read More
A botched raid on the home of social worker Anjanette Young — police had the wrong house — sparked an effort to reform the Chicago Police Department’s search warrant policies. | CBS 2 Chicago
No-knock warrants will be strictly prohibited except in “specific cases where lives or safety are in danger.” And even in those extreme cases, they will need to be approved by a “bureau chief or higher.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday unveiled an array of reforms aimed at preventing a repeat of the botched raid on the wrong house that humiliated an innocent woman and forced a crying and pleading Anjanette Young to stand naked and handcuffed before male police officers for 40 minutes.
No-knock warrants will be strictly prohibited except in “specific cases where lives or safety are in danger.” And even in those extreme cases, they will need to be approved by a “bureau chief or higher.”
All other search warrants will need to be approved by a “deputy chief or higher,” instead of by a lieutenant.
Before either type of search warrant is executed, the team involved will be required to conduct a “planning session” to identify “any potentially vulnerable people who may be present at the location in question, including children.”
In addition, an “independent investigation” will be required before warrants are served to “verify and corroborate that the informed used to obtain the warrant is accurate.”
To prevent a repeat of the indignity that Anjanette Young suffered, at least one female officer will be required to be present for the serving of all search warrants. So must a “lieutenant or higher.”
The reforms are not nearly as sweeping as those unveiled by Black female aldermen and embraced by Anjanette Young.
But Lightfoot is hoping they’re enough to regain the trust she lost after the now-infamous airing of the botched raid on Young’s home.
“What Ms. Young experienced served as an abrupt wake-up call to our entire city to the reforms our city needs and our values demand,” the mayor was quoted as saying in a press release.
“Every step we have taken and we continue to take will be with that goal in mind.”
Lightfoot has been under fire for her changing story about what she knew and when she knew it about the botched raid that saw a crying Anjanette Young telling officers more than 40 times that they had the wrong house as they cavalierly allowed her to stand there naked. It took a long time before one of the officers finally gave her a blanket to cover up.
The mayor initially insisted she knew nothing about the raid until WBBM-TV (Channel 2) aired the video in December.
But after reviewing internal emails, the mayor was forced to admit she learned about the raid in November 2019, when a top aide warned Lightfoot about a “pretty bad wrongful raid” by Chicago police.
“I have a lot of questions about this one,” she wrote at the time to top aides.
The mayor has emphatically denied knowing anything about her Law Department’s efforts to block the CBS2 from airing bodycam video of the raid. To underscore the point, she forced the resignation of Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner, a longtime friend who served together with Lightfoot in the U.S. attorney’s office.
Lightfoot is a former Police Board president who co-chaired the Task Force on Police Accountability in the furor that followed the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel was ordered to release the video of convicted Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald sixteen times after the video was concealed until Emanuel had been safely re-elected in 2015.
Lightfoot personally drafted the policy that requires the city to release body and dash cam video of police shooting and other incidents involving police shootings within 60 days.
That’s apparently why the accusation that she somehow played a role in the Law Department’s efforts to conceal the video hit so close to home. It’s also why she is so sensitive to trust that she has lost.
“There’s a lot of trust that’s been breached. And I know that there is a lot of trust in me that’s been breached,” the mayor said in December.
“We will do better. We will win back the trust that we have lost.”
Robert Forster’s tough-guy long vowels got him typecast as a cop, like Chicagoans Dennis Farina and Dennis Franz. But Forster is from upstate New York. So what gives?Read More
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – FEBRUARY 28: Patrick Kane #88 of the Chicago Blackhawks celebrates his 400th career goal in the third period against the Detroit Red Wings at the United Center on February 28, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
Winning the Art Ross Trophy as the National Hockey League’s leading scorer is incredibly difficult. Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks has already done it once in his career and he is looking to do it again. He has his eyes on it as he is tied for second in the league with Leon Draisaitl of the Edmonton Oilers. Patrick Kane has one more goal than Draisaitl so that is the tiebreaker but they have the same number of points at 34. They trail Connor McDavid of the Oilers who is in first with 40.
It is going to be really hard to catch McDavid as he has been the NHL’s best player pretty much since coming into the league. It will also be hard to keep up with Draisaitl because of the fact that he is one of the best scorers in the league and he plays significant power-play time with McDavid. There are also two Toronto Maple Leafs in Mitchell Marner and Auston Matthews on his tail as well. Mark Scheifele of the Winnipeg Jets isn’t that far behind them.
If you take a deep dive, Kane is the only player in the top-six that doesn’t play for a Canadian team. That North Division is loaded with scoring and not so loaded with stellar defense. Every team scores a lot and it makes sense for them to have a lot of players in the scoring race. For Kane, however, he plays in the Central which is a much more sound defensive division which makes it that much more impressive.
It isn’t a sure thing that he catches McDavid or even keeps up with Draisaitl. The odds are against him as they are all young and in more prolific situations but if there was anyone to bet on to beat the odds, it is Kane. He does have Alex DeBrincat going well as he is tied for seventh in scoring. The fact that he is having a bounce-back year is really helping Kane out as well.
Kane’s 400th career goal came last week and it was an incredible milestone in the history of the franchise. Now, people are talking about Kane and where he ranks in terms of American hockey history, the history of the organization, and the history of Chicagosports. Another scoring title would certainly add even more to his already decorated career.
Kane was named as the NHL’s Second Star of the Week for last week and then that was followed by being named the Central Division’s Star of the Month yesterday. All of these things are significant for Kane as he tries to lead this team into the playoffs. If he succeeds, expect to see his name in the Hart Trophy race as well.
ChicagoBulls (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
Chicago Bulls vice president of basketball operations, Arturas Karnisovas, sat down before the Chicago Bulls vs. Denver Nuggets game for a rare media session.
Before the season started, Karnisovas stated, “Preserving cap room for next summer and using this season to look at our roster and evaluate and see what the long-term goals will be following this season,” via K.C Johnson of NBC Sports.
At first, Bulls fans were curious as to what the future held for star players like Zach LaVine and Lauri Markkanen. The vice president made it seem like no one was safe from being traded or released into free agency in his evaluation period.
Now, nearing the all-star break of the season, Karnisovas dropped some hints as to what the future of the Chicago Bulls could look like.
The Bulls have a jam-packed schedule in the second half of the season and they currently sit in tenth place in the Eastern Conference, just two games behind the New York Knicks, who hold the fourth place spot.
LIVE: Arturas Karnisovas takes questions from the media ahead of tonight’s game against the Denver Nuggets https://t.co/Z6ARIn7whV
The former Lithuanian basketball player showed his commitment to the Bulls by rattling off several team and player statistics to the press, evidential of an improving Bulls team.
From there, he spoke only good things about the team and its star players like LaVine and Markkanen, and the rest of the team. Here are the essential takeaways from the quotes he shared with the press on Monday night.
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