As Civil Battle monuments fall across the nation, so does one which was rendered in movie. Gone With the Wind is likely one of the hottest movies in historical past—however its upbeat depiction of slavery, racist stereotypes, and different outdated features of its story has made it too poisonous to face alone.
That was the willpower of HBO Max, which eliminated the movie from its streaming service Tuesday night time amid the protests in the US over racial injustice, sparked by the killing of George Floyd beneath the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. His loss of life has led to widespread demonstrations and a reckoning over longstanding wrongs all through all corners of the tradition.
The movie is not going to go away ceaselessly, although. It’ll return with new materials framing its shortcomings in historic context.
“
Gone With The Wind is a
product of its time and depicts
a number of the ethnic and racial prejudices
which have,
sadly, been commonplace in American society,” HBO Max
stated in
a press release. “These racist depictions
have been mistaken then and are
mistaken at present, and we felt that
to maintain this title up
with out an evidence and a denouncement of
these depictions
can be irresponsible. These depictions are
actually counter to WarnerMedia’s values.”
Not one of the movie’s important solid remains to be alive, apart from Olivia de Havilland, who’s 103 and has withdrawn from public life in recent times.
Primarily based on Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel about life on an Atlanta plantation earlier than, throughout and after the Civil Battle, Gone With the Wind stays the very best grossing movie in historical past when box office is adjusted for inflation. In at present‘s {dollars}, it will have earned at whole of $3.7 billion in ticket gross sales, placing it forward of 2009’s Avatar‘s $3.2 billion. Its recognition has endured for many years on account of its sweeping romance, epic visuals, and emotional performances, at the same time as its depictions of slaves and its rosy view of their servitude has grown more and more disturbing.
The choice to take away the movie from HBO Max got here after 12 Years a Slave screenwriter John Ridley, who received the most effective tailored screenplay Oscar for his work on the most effective picture-winner, penned a column within the Los Angeles Instances saying it shouldn’t proceed to be proven. The headline learn: “Hey, HBO, Gone With the Wind romanticizes the horrors of slavery. Take it off your platform for now.”
Ridley acknowledged that many movies age poorly as social norms change. “Gone With the Wind, nonetheless, is its personal distinctive drawback. It doesn’t simply ‘fall brief‘ with regard to illustration. It’s a movie that glorifies the antebellum south. It’s a movie that, when it’s not ignoring the horrors of slavery, pauses solely to perpetuate a number of the most painful stereotypes of individuals of shade,” he wrote.
He went on to say that the 81-year-old movie does actual hurt at present by romanticizing the Confederacy and legitimizing the notion that secession from the Union in an effort to defend slave possession was a noble trigger: “It continues to present cowl to those that falsely declare that clinging to the iconography of the plantation period is a matter of ‘heritage, not hate.'”
Ridley didn’t name for the film to be eliminated ceaselessly, as Disney has carried out with the equally troubling Music of the South. “Let me be actual clear: I don’t imagine in censorship. I don’t assume Gone With the Wind must be relegated to a vault in Burbank. I might simply ask, after a respectful period of time has handed, that the movie be re-introduced to the HBO Max platform,” Ridley stated, saying it must be paired with movies that depict the slave period extra precisely, or be positioned in context that acknowledging the damaging features of the film.
That’s precisely what WarnerMedia stated it will do.
“After we return the movie to HBO Max, it’ll return with a dialogue of its historic context and a denouncement of these very depictions, however will probably be introduced because it was initially created, as a result of to do in any other case can be the identical as claiming these prejudices by no means existed,” the corporate stated in its assertion. “If we’re to create a extra simply, equitable and inclusive future, we should first acknowledge and perceive our historical past.”
Sarcastically, the film was liable for what counted as progress in Hollywood on the time, with Hattie McDaniel, who performed the slave Mammy, successful the Academy Award for finest supporting actress—the primary Oscar ever to go to an African-American. She was additionally the primary to ever be nominated.
The subsequent black actor to be nominated was Ethel Waters ten years later for the movie Pinky, and the subsequent to win can be 24 years after McDaniel’s victory, with Sidney Poitier claiming finest actor for 1963’s Lillies of the Discipline.
