Gone with the Wind is now gone from HBO Max. The streaming service pulled the classic 1939 film this week after an Op-Ed appeared in the
Los Angeles Times from screenwriter John Ridley, who argues that the film romanticizes slavery and everyday life for Black people in the South during the American Civil War.HBO Max announced on Wednesday that it had decided to temporarily remove the film from its streaming platform. A spokesperson from HBO Max spoke to CNN and confirmed the film’s removal."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
spokesperson said. Alluding to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests in the US and Canada, the spokesperson called
Gone with the Wind "a product of its time” that “depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society."The spokesperson noted that
Gone with the Wind will be available for viewers on the platform in the future “with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions," and will be presented "as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed."HBO Max’s decision to pull the film came just two days after
Ridley’s article, which describes
Gone with the Wind as “…a film that glorifies the antebellum south. It is a film that, when it is not ignoring the horrors of slavery, pauses only to perpetuate some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color.”Ridley, who won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2014 for
12 Years A Slave, points out that the film idealizes the Confederacy “…in a way that continues to give legitimacy to the notion that the secessionist movement was something more, or better, or more noble than what it was—a bloody insurrection to maintain the 'right' to own, sell and buy human beings.”[video_embed id='1974202']RELATED: The Instagram takeover giving Black voices a massive, much-needed platform [/video_embed]Based on Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel,
Gone with the Wind was directed by Victor Fleming, starred Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable and remains the highest grossing film of all time (adjusted for inflation). The movie took home 10 Oscars at the 12th Academy Awards, including Supporting Actress for Hattie McDaniel in her role as Mammy, making her the first African American to win an Oscar (the second Black woman to win an acting Oscar was Whoopi Goldberg 50 years later for
Ghost).McDaniel had one of the most successful careers for a Black entertainer of her time, but in addition to rampant prejudice and racism from white Hollywood and society at large, she
was also criticized by members of the Black community, including the NAACP, for taking roles they believe perpetuated negative stereotypes about Black people.In his article, Ridley is clear that he does not believe in censorship and states there is a still a space for the film, but argues that
Gone with the Wind should be reintroduced along with other titles that help provide a more well-rounded and historically accurate account of the Confederacy and slavery.“I know taking down a film—particularly a classic Hollywood film—seems like a big request. But it’s not nearly as big a demand as when your children ask whether they can join protests in the streets against racial intolerance, or when they come to you wanting to know what you did to make the world a better place,” writes Ridley. “At a moment when we are all considering what more we can do to fight bigotry and intolerance, I would ask that all content providers look at their libraries and make a good-faith effort to separate programming that might be lacking in its representation from that which is blatant in its demonization.”[video_embed id='1974196']BEFORE YOU GO: Kerry Washington’s wise words about the Black Lives Matter movement [/video_embed]
