Being “woke” has become an insult. Yet, the word’s original intent was to praise those people who have “woken up” to the inherent racism, antisemitism and misogyny in our society.

Welcome to another lesson about the reality of progress — one step forward frequently causes two steps back.

But we have progressed. Witness the cringe-inducing message of many “classic” movies. I didn’t invite this lesson into my life, but binge-watching old movies on a winter’s night drives the point home.

Take the oft-rebroadcast Breakfast at Tiffany’s, starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly and George Peppard as Paul Varjak. Their relationship is not the lesson; the story and their characters are charming and inoffensive — lighthearted.

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When it was filmed in1961, seemingly nobody questioned the role played for “comic” relief by Mickey Rooney as Holly’s upstairs neighbour, Mr. Yunioshi. In essence, the actor is in “yellow-face,” with buck teeth, a thick accent and glasses.

Try watching the movie today and I guarantee you, too, will gag at the actor’s portrayal of a “funny” Asian. It does not escape notice that there is no warning issued when the movie is shown. Why?

Movies depicting racism against Blacks — think Gone With The Wind — have warnings, because without it, there can be no movie about the antebellum southern states and the American Civil War.

It is easy to assume the charm of Audrey Hepburn would overshadow the racism. One must only presume that because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into the Second World War, Hollywood decided blackface is dreadful, but yellow-face is acceptable.

The movie may be a classic, but what film buff could ignore the overt racism?

If Breakfast was an outlier, the racism and sexism could be explained away. (The response to such comments about prejudices always seems to be: “Gee, can’t you feminists take a joke?” The proper answer? “I just didn’t find it very funny.”)

But the movie falls into line as just one more ignorant world view that started with the first full-length movie and endures today. Here’s where “woke” comes in, and too often is twisted until even the most liberal-minded will cry “enough.”

I thoroughly enjoyed watching The Devil Wears Prada and the stunning performances of Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci and Anne Hathaway without once considering the movie was sexist, until someone wrote that Hathaway’s character Andy is constantly referred to by her dress size.

Do moviegoers have to admit the scene in Gone With The Wind, when Clark Gable’s character, Rhett Butler, sweeps Scarlett O’Hara up the long flight of stairs, is a “rape” and not a romantic scene? Each of us can decide, but such commentary jars the emotions.

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That movie carries a warning about racism, but all of that is overshadowed by the reality of racism: that Hattie McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Mammy, could not attend the premiere of the film in Atlanta because she was Black and the state of Georgia had strict segregation laws.

Neither could she be seated with her co-stars at the Academy Awards in California, considered the home of liberalism.

The much-hated — and rightly reviled — 1915 film The Birth of a Nation is granted legend status because it heralded the beginning of a film age. Yet, it glorified the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy, and opined that Blacks were savages. This film is hailed as D.W. Griffith’s masterpiece. Ironically, it follows on the heels of the director’s 1908 film on Shakespeare’s “comedy,” The Taming of the Shrew, written more than 400 years ago.

While it represented the cultural values of the time, that doesn’t take away the cringe-inducing speech by the “tamed” Katherine as her soliloquy begins: “I am ashamed that women are so simple.”

And, yes, it is still performed at the Stratford Festival as late as 2015.

Dozens of other films would be consigned to a graveyard if seen through the eyes of those whose sensibilities are too finely honed.

Let the rest of us have our own opinions.

Catherine Ford is a regular columnist.

© Calgary Herald