Gone With the Wind is just over 80 years old but is still revered as one of the most decorated pieces of American cinematic art.
As it stands though, HBO Max temporarily removed from the 1939 Oscar winning film from its catalog on Tuesday night, following a public outcry asking for the film to be pulled, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
While the film has always been celebrated as one of the greatest pieces of cinema in America’s history, it’s also wholly problematic. It casts aside the horrors of slavery while romanticizing the Confederacy and glorifying pre-Civil War America.
The streaming service pledged to eventually bring the film back “with a discussion of its historical context.” There’s no current timetable for when the film could return to the platform.
Proponents of the film will point out that actress Hattie McDaniel, who played “Mammy” in the film, became the first black person to win an Oscar, when she won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award in 1940.
But her character was completely based on a stereotype of black women in the Jim Crow South. She was a caricature and acted as one of the most painful black stereotypes in film.
By the way, she wasn’t even allowed at the film’s premiere.
Ah yes, but tell the whole story, sans omissions: About Hattie McDaniel not being allowed at the film’s premiere; or about the Oscars being held at a Whites-only motel; or how she stacked reviews from her performance in front of the film producer just to have her name submitted. https://t.co/jmrVKMcEk7
— Brad Smith (@thebradsmith) June 10, 2020
John Ridley, the screenwriter for 12 Years a Slave, perfectly explained why the film needed to be removed in a column he wrote in the LA Times explaining his position.
“It is a film that, as part of the narrative of the “Lost Cause,” romanticizes 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.”
If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that slavery was bad.
This film does nothing in the way of depicting that. Sure, it was a product of its time. But we live in a time where black lives are under attack. In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, films like this have to be admonished and revisited in their proper context.
This is no different than calling for the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue or any other different Confederate memorials erected across the nation.
HBO did the right thing here, but this is just the beginning. They can follow up on this by committing themselves to inclusion by hiring more black creators. That’s meaningful change.