Gone With the Wind has been considered one of the classics, alongside movies like Casablanca. And the iconic line “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” has been named number one on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Quotes. But, the movie has now been pulled from the HBO Max library due to “racist depictions”.
This follows an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times by the 12 Years a Slave writer John Ridley. In Ridley’s article, he criticizes the racist depiction of people of color, saying:
“When it is not ignoring the horrors of slavery, pauses only to perpetuate some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color.”
Gone With the Wind has been removed temporarily and will return with a contextual message in regards to the themes that are featured in the film. A representative from WarnerMedia stated:
“Gone with the Wind is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society. 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.”
They continued:
“These depictions are certainly counter to WarnerMedia’s values, so when we return the film to HBO Max, it will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions, but will be presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”
HBO Max and Disney+ have a library full of older movies that have additional messaging to provide context of the themes in films produced during a much darker time in American history. Warner Bros. had done this when releasing popular 1940s cartoon Tom and Jerry on DVD, as well as in 2014 when the cartoon was available on Amazon Prime Instant and iTunes.
What do you think about WarnerMedia’s decision to temporarily pull Gone with the Wind from its library?
Source: The Verge
Make sure to check out our podcasts each week including Geek Vibes Live, Top 10 with Tia, Wrestling Geeks Alliance and more!
A girl with too many fandoms to count.
