'Gone with the Wind' removed from HBO Max
June 10, 2020
The movie Gone with the Wind was removed from US streaming platform HBO Max Tuesday following mass global protests against racism and police brutality.
The multiple-Oscar-winning 1939 US Civil War epic film is the highest-grossing film of all time, when adjusted for inflation. However, it has been controversial since its release for its depiction of simple-minded, loyal slaves and heroic slaveholders.
"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," an HBO Max spokesperson told the AFP news agency.
"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 unnecessary," they added.
The movie, based on a book by Magaret Mitchell, will soon return to the streaming platform "as it was originally created" along with a discussion of the racial prejudices that appear in the film.
"If we are to create a more just, equitable and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history," they said.
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'Painful stereotypes'
The move comes after screenwriter John Ridley, who wrote Oscar-winning movie 12 Years a Slave, wrote in the Los Angeles Times that the movie should be removed.
The film "glorifies the antebellum south" and perpetuates "painful stereotypes of people of color," Ridley wrote.
The movie saw Hattie McDaniel become the first black actress to win an Academy Award for her role as domestic servant Mammy. In the movie, which takes place during and after the US Civil War, black slaves choose to remain loyal to their former owners after the abolition of slavery.
Demonstrations have swept the United States since the May 25 killing of African-American George Floyd while in police custody, with calls growing for police reform and the broader removal of symbols of a racist legacy, including monuments to the slave-holding Confederacy.
In the UK, the far more recent comedy sketch show Little Britain, which includes scenes of co-creator David Walliams in blackface, was removed from online streaming services including Netflix this week.
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