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Down the memory hole? HBO Max pulls ‘racist’ movie classic ‘Gone With the Wind’, setting Twitter on fire
HBO Max has quietly deleted ‘Gone With the Wind,’ widely considered a classic in American cinema, after screenwriter John Ridley called for its immediate removal, arguing the film “romanticizes” slavery.
The 1939 film, set on a southern plantation in the aftermath of the Civil War, was removed from the HBO Max platform on Tuesday. Though the company has yet to explain the move, it comes on the heels of an op-ed in the LA Times penned by Ridley, a black screenwriter, who said the movie “glorifies the antebellum south” and ignores “the horrors of slavery.”
The decision has ignited an uproar on social media, with many critics pointing out the iconic film, despite its dated and rosy portrayal of the south, resulted in the first Academy Award for an African American actress, Hattie McDaniel.
Here is Hattie McDaniel's speech accepting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress of 1939 for her role in "Gone With The Wind." Segregation was still huge back then and, although she was let in after the film's producer made the ask, she sat at a separate table from her co-stars. pic.twitter.com/sb5bIWVuEM
— JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) June 10, 2020
For those who are citing Hattie McDaniel's win for Gone With The Wind, please also share she wasn't allowed to sit at table with her film's white colleagues and fellow nominees. They put her at a small, isolated table far away.
— Wajahat "Social Distance Yourself" Ali (@WajahatAli) June 10, 2020
Fine one more... the people mad about this were never going to watch Gone with the Wind in the first damn place.
— Ira Madison III (@ira) June 10, 2020
1984 “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten...every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.” https://t.co/5fcYlRgiNA
— Christina Sommers (@CHSommers) June 10, 2020
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