I was asked by HelloGiggles to offer some thoughts on a recent (and unnecessary) controversy surrounding a classic film.
On Wednesday, HBO Max temporarily removed Gone with the Wind from its library, citing the film’s distasteful depiction of black people and cringeworthy discussion of slavery as the reason. The move was likely prompted in part by the protests that have been occurring worldwide in the wake of yet another unjust killing of a black man by a white police officer, as well as by a widely-read Los Angeles Times op-ed by 12 Years a Slave screenwriter John Ridley published earlier this week. In the piece, Ridley argued that the 1939 film’s version of pre-Civil War Southerners as people who simply wanted to preserve their way of life—which was built on the backs of enslaved black people—is no longer appropriate for today.
Now, Ridley wasn’t asking for censorship or erasure of Gone with the Wind; he just wanted HBO Max to be cognizant of its black subscribers, whose mental health could be further damaged upon seeing the movie’s harmful stereotypes. And it would seem HBO Max agreed, as the streaming service announced that it would shelve the film until it could determine a better way to address its offensive depictions. There will be no alterations made to the movie’s content; instead, when it eventually returns to HBO Max, it’ll be alongside “a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions.”
