YGO Uncensored- Draconmouth: The Thoughts of Jaya Lakshmi

There are two movies that people consider American classics: Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. Both were based on popular books and both received Academy Awards, becoming American classics and household names. Both came out during the Great Depression and featured female protagonists. Both were landmarks in America’s film history, although not very impressive ones. Be prepared for hard criticism, because as a woman and as a critic, I find these movies lacking.

As one of my teachers has noted in short fiction he wrote, The Wizard of Oz is actually a classic because it embodies American principles of not wishing for anything more than what you have and letting your friends do most of the hard work for you. At least that’s the message I got from the movie. Having read the book and the rest of the books in the Oz series, the movie disappointed me. I tried to like it, but I couldn’t. The movie had good acting, special effects, and lovely scenery, all of which amounted to nothing in the end. The reason? The story was weak.

If you don’t know, L. Frank Baum, a Populist (farmers’ political party) who wanted to educate children in the values of Populism, wrote the Oz series, starting with The Wizard of Oz. It was supposed to be a political allegory, but people loved it for the fantasy instead. I am one of those people because in the book Dorothy is a model for a feminist. Hollywood took away Dorothy’s feminism by taking away her goodness. Dorothy did not dream of leaving Kansas, nor did she have to deal with a bad woman who wanted to hurt Toto. It was just her bad luck that she couldn’t get into the cellar before the cyclone hit. But the scriptwriters must love drama, because they added that stupid subplot in.

Dorothy is supposed to be a bland character, regardless of what people may think. Certain male writers like to write about good little girls; just read Alice in Wonderland or Matilda and you’ll see that statement proven three times over. The Land of Oz makes the story interesting because of the way Dorothy copes with it. A line that was particularly interesting in the book was when the Munchkins called her a good witch because she was wearing white and because her house fell on the Wicked Witch of the East. Dorothy doesn’t let this get to her head because she knows that she is an ordinary little girl who fortunately or unfortunately ended up in Oz. She is resourceful by taking food from her house and then making do with what is on the way to the Emerald City, such as nuts and fruits. She does get tired of those eventually, as would any average person.

One scene that disappointed me in the movie was with the poppies that made them fall asleep. The Woodsman and the Scarecrow didn’t panic and call for help; they carried Dorothy to an area not surrounded by poppies and with the help of mice they got the Lion out. I understand they had to shorten it for time, but why should they constantly rely on Glinda, who is nothing more than a pretty witch with powers, instead on themselves? Although I know that this is a fiction story, I think that children would prefer to see a character solving their problems without help than having them need a superman or superwoman as a deux ex machina.

The most disappointing sequence (not scene, for there were many scenes in this sequence) was when they go to kill the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes, winged monkeys did capture Dorothy, but IN THE BOOK THEY DISABLED THE TIN MAN AND THE SCARECROW AND THEY CAPTURED THE LION. The monkeys captured Dorothy instead of killing her because a mark from the Good Witch of the North protects her from harm. The Wicked Witch of the West then decided to make Dorothy her slave. She manages to get one of the girl’s magic shoes by having Dorothy trip over an invisible iron bar. A furious Dorothy drenches her with water. In the movie, Dorothy’s friends have to rescue her, causing a chase scene. Dorothy drenches the witch accidentally because the witch set the Scarecrow on fire.

There is a distinction between the two versions. Yes, Dorothy kills the witch by accident both times, but Dorothy’s book counterpart had more self-confidence and self-respect than her movie version. The book is not supposed to be a drama about appreciating your home and killing your dreams for your family’s sake; it’s an ideal story preaching Populist notions, and it’s a lot of fun to read. If you ignore the symbolism, you’re going to enjoy the novel regardless of whether or not it’s as high quality as The Catcher in the Rye.

Gone With the Wind is a different fish, though not that much different. I do not consider it a classic because despite the movie’s attempt to remain faithful to the book (which is did technically), it failed to nail the two main characters: Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler.

Don’t call me a purist; I like Bridge to Terabithia, Tuck Everlasting, and the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. All of these movies changed elements of the books, but they retained the books’ original spirits. What makes Gone With the Wind different from these movies is that Gone With the Wind had no empathy for its protagonist; whether or not it was the director’s decision, Scarlett is portrayed as a worse person than she should be portrayed.

I cannot go and analyze every scene, even though many scenes could prove my point. However, here is a perfect example: after Scarlett finds out that the taxes on Tara (her home plantation) have been raised and she goes to ask Rhett for money to pay the taxes, she at this point is willing to become Rhett’s mistress. All of her pride disappears in order to save Tara. In a scene long before Sherman’s march on Atlanta, Rhett asks Scarlett to become his mistress. She, at first revealing that she doesn’t because she doesn’t want to have children and not for hypocritical decency, then attempts to kick him out because of his crudeness. (Rhett was not a gentleman in the book; he was a rascal who drank a lot, made fun of every Southerner he could find, and hung out with the prostitute Belle Watling. Belle is the reason why Scarlett constantly doubts Rhett’s love for her, even after they are married.)

With the Movie Decency League prevailing, however, Scarlett seemed to only want to seduce Rhett in order to get his money. The filmmakers simplified the scene and took out its greater meaning: how people swallow their pride in order to survive. So rather than have the viewers contemplating on how people sort priorities, they get a laugh at Scarlett’s expense and at Rhett’s witty rebuttal.

Another example would be right after when Scarlett tells her sister’s fiancé Frank Kennedy that her sister, Sue Ellen, is going to marry another boy. Later on she coerces him into marrying her in order to get his money. She does it because Frank has money she can use to pay for the taxes and because Sue Ellen would not spend the money to save Tara. There are huge paragraphs in the book outlining Scarlett’s thoughts leading up to this decision, including reasons for not simply asking Frank to loan her the money. The film, however, just shows her muttering “But that doesn’t help Tara” before she lies to Frank. We don’t see or hear her going through other options such as asking Frank for a loan. The viewer hates her for not thinking through and for acting insensitively. We never get a chance to see the situation from her point of view.

We also never get to see her subsequent dabbling in business. We never see her adding up figures on her head while Frank has to do it on paper. We never see her worrying about losing her home and lumber mill to the Yankees, or having to deal with them as a businesswoman catering to her clientele, or drinking at night and make her baby girl a feather head as a consequence (yes, she did have a baby girl before Bonnie, and a baby boy for that matter with her first husband), or reliving the day she returned to Tara through her dreams, or hearing about the Ku Klux Klan threatening the forced stability following the Civil War’s conclusion. We only see her hiring convict crews to run the mill and her bullying Frank. What she does isn’t worse than what Andrew Carnegie or Nelson Rockefeller did in the steel and oil industry or what McDonalds does to its employees; Scarlett gets blamed because she is the first businesswoman dramatized on film. Following this Hollywood’s movies put on a false front about what businesses do to their blue-collar workers, ignoring that as recently as a few weeks ago studios want more reality shows to eradicate screenwriters on strike.

I won’t deny that the novel is racist, and for months I have been battling with the racism within it because I am brown-skinned and I am not stupid, unlike the slaves in the book. But despite that, Gone With the Wind is still an awesome story about complex characters in a complex society with superficial values. That is why I cannot forgive the movie for its blindness and its simplification. It ruined one of the best American classics to earn money. The movie is like Scarlett: aiming to earn money, blind to real problems and poverty and to character depth, and always promoting itself. The beautiful scenery, costumes and props should’ve been saved for a better movie. The background music is melodramatic instead of inspiring. Clark Gable saves the movie because he gets the best quips as Rhett Butler. Even he suffers the indignity of having to play a gentleman who lets a woman break his heart instead of a rascal who at the end of his life wants to settle down and raise a family, but cannot because he cannot trust his wife. And THIS movie is considered a classic?

Why am I criticizing these films? I may as well ask why JD is criticizing 4Kids’ dubs or why YGO Uncensored even exists. We do it because we want to educate people and inform them that 4Kids is cheating them.

Here is a famous quote: “You must change yourself before you can change the world.” If we as American anime fans want to change the way the works we love are brought to the screen, we have to look at our own history. We have to see that we are not perfect as we have Hollywood to mangle beautiful stories. We have to find out what caused the flaws in our media and how we can change them. Once we change ourselves by educating ourselves about our own media history, then we can thoroughly criticize 4Kids for its low standards in children’s intelligence but understanding why they have low standards. I say this as a reader, a viewer, and an anime fan.