HBO Max has hasty removed “Long gone With the Wind” from its streaming library in expose to add historical context to the 1939 film lengthy criticized for romanticizing slavery and the Civil War-period South
By
JAKE COYLE AP Movie Author
June 10, 2020, 1: 57 PM
3 min learn
NEW YORK —
HBO Max has hasty removed “Long gone With the Wind” from its streaming library in expose to add historical context to the 1939 film lengthy criticized for romanticizing slavery and the Civil War-period South.
Protests within the wake of George Floyd’s death dangle forced entertainment companies to grapple with the appropriateness of every fresh and past productions. On Tuesday, the Paramount Community dropped the lengthy-working truth series “Cops” after 33 seasons. The BBC also removed episodes of “Cramped Britain,” a comedy series that featured a personality in blackface, from its streaming service.
In an op-ed Monday within the Los Angeles Occasions, the filmmaker John Ridley urged WarnerMedia to keep shut down “Long gone With the Wind,” arguing that it “romanticizes the Confederacy in a system that continues to give legitimacy to the belief that the secessionist movement became something extra, or better, or extra noble than what it became — a bloody revolt to retain the ‘factual’ to dangle, sell and take away human beings.”
In an announcement, the AT&T-owned WarnerMedia, which owns HBO Max, called “Long gone With the Wind” “a manufactured from its time” that depicts racial prejudices.
“These racist depictions were inferior then and are inferior nowadays, and we felt that to retain this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible,” said an HBO Max spokesman in an announcement.
The corporate said that after “Long gone With the Wind” returns to the now no longer too lengthy ago launched streaming service, it would come with “historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions, but will be introduced because it became within the origin created, as a result of to realize in any other case would be a lot like claiming these prejudices never existed.”
In keeping with a 1936 e-book by Margaret Mitchell, “Long gone With the Wind” is a historical yarn about a romance between Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), the daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a gambler who joins the Confederacy.
“Long gone With the Wind” has lengthy been denounced for featuring slave characters who remain real to their outdated owners after the abolition of slavery. It stays the best-grossing film of all time when adjusted for inflation. It obtained eight Academy Awards including most efficient image and most efficient supporting actress for Hattie McDaniel, the first murky actress to be nominated or keep shut an Oscar.
