In my spare time and in less than a year I could write a huge Taschen coffee-table book that would carefully dismiss and cancel 80% to 90% of the great American films of the last 100 years. For failing to satisfy present-tense woke criteria, I mean. For creating and promoting patriarchal white-man myths and legends. For endorsing and popularizing sexist content. For marginalizing of women, LGBTQs, Native Americans and characters of color. You name it, I can cancel it.

What classic studio-era films, seriously, would pass muster by today’s standards? Damn few. Every John Ford film except for The Grapes of Wrath and The Informer would be subject to reconsideration, at the very least. Gone With The Wind is already toast, of course, but The Searchers would be thrown on the bonfire also. Gunga Din would almost certainly be discredited for endorsing British colonialism. Would the films of Howard Hawks catch a break because of their strong, take-charge women characters? I would imagine. 1940s and ’50s social criticism films from 20th Century Fox during the heyday of Daryl F. Zanuck (’40s and ’50s) might escape condemnation. How would the Sidney Poitier films of the ’50s and ’60s fare? It would definitely be something to look into.