The pros and cons of erasing controversial media history

All over the world, they are reviewing back catalogues to see which programs fail today's tests.

An episode of the classic comedy, Fawlty Towers, is the latest victim.

An episode of the classic comedy, Fawlty Towers, is the latest victim. The British streaming service UKTV has taken down an episode because of "racial slurs". It's reviewing the matter. It hasn't specified a specific problem but it's the episode where Basil Fawlty goes into an anti-German rant and goose-steps like a Nazi as he gets exasperated with a German guest at his hotel.

HBO Max has also pulled Gone With The Wind, which won eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best actress for Vivienne Leigh (as Scarlett O'Hara) and best supporting actress for Hattie McDaniel (Mammie), the first black person to win an Oscar.

And Variety, the paper which covers Hollywood, said: "Netflix has removed four comedy shows featuring outspoken Australian performer Chris Lilley from its platform in Australia and New Zealand."

Netflix wasn't commenting but Variety said the broadcaster had confirmed the decision.

Most companies aren't saying but it is clear that the power of social media to organise commercially-damaging boycotts is immense.

Moreover the outcry can go global in an instant - as the current situation illustrates.

The Chris Lilley episodes were taken off the air quietly with no announcement or explanation. UKTV is not giving a reason for pulling Fawlty Towers.

HBO Max said: "Gone With The Wind is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society. These 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."

The film is only making a temporary disappearance while executives rethink how to present it. The Chris Lilley programs with "blackfacing" are unlikely to come back.

Neither Gone With The Wind nor Fawlty Towers can be re-edited to make them "safe".

The black maid in Gone With the Wind is a central character. And the "offending" scene in Fawlty Towers is the highlight of the episode - and some would argue of the series and even of the whole of British comedy.

That we don't know. This fevered atmosphere is not going away so more films may now be deemed wrong for our times.

The final scene of the gentle, Oscar-winning classic My Fair Lady involves professor Henry Higgins telling Eliza Doolittle to fetch his slippers. Is that an acceptable role model for our times?

The ABC is conducting a "harm and offence" audit of "our content to ensure it meets current community standards".

They do not.

On Gone With the Wind, the Los Angeles Times said: "It's as if we have suddenly descended into a satire about civil unrest where banishing films passes for change. Gone with the Wind has been around for eight decades - and it's been a fusty period piece for at least half that time.

"Relegating it to the cyber void is not like toppling Confederate statues into a river. And in no way does pulling the movie cleanse Hollywood or the entertainment industry of racial bias and inequity."

Here in Australia, the Gamilaroi and Gomeroi journalist Brooke Boney said on Channel Nine's Today: "There is a problem with representation of people of colour on our screens - we know that. We also now know that blackface is inappropriate, there's no question about that, either."

Few would disagree.

But she added: "Does going back through the archives and tearing down art that's been made in the past really help us move forward?

"If I have children, I don't want them to see and to think that that is how they fit into the world, but I'd also like to be able to show them how poorly our people were thought of and treated in the past."

Firstly, we need to distinguish between different situations, according to Dr Daryl Sparkes, a senior lecturer in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Southern Queensland.

He said the case of "blackfacing" in contemporary programs was clearly wrong. He thought it was right that Chris Lilley's programs were pulled.

They made fun of black people and that was deeply offensive.

"Comedy is supposed to punch up at the people in power. Comedy is not meant to punch down and make fun of people who have no voice," Dr Sparkes said.

But he felt that this contemporary case was different from films from the past like Gone With The Wind.

He wondered if a new censorship category should be introduced where such films were presented as "historical" with explanations and context.

"We look with our 21^st century eyes and say they were racist but that period happened. We need to educate people around the issues. But instead of trying to hide, we should be enlightening people about why it was wrong."

Dr Sparkes can't understand why that was pulled.

It's actually a comedy directed at Basil Fawlty and against the Brits for their obsession with the war rather than at the Germans (many of whom, by the way, love the series).

"It seems to be getting out-of-control. In our rush to deal with these issues, we are losing sight of what the real issues are," he said.