Fans of the classic film Gone With The Wind can rejoice! After the movie was controversially (and temporarily) removed from the HBO Max streaming service due to its ‘racist depictions’ of Black characters and of the antebellum South in order for HBO to find a way to provide context for these scenes, it has been added back with some extras!
At the time of removing the film, HBO Max made a statement.
“ 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,” the statement read . They then justified their decision to temporarily pull the film.
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HBO explained they felt airing the movie without context would not be responsible.
“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,” the statement added.
The film has now been added back to HBO Max, less than a month after its removal.
The movie is now accompanied by a four-minute introduction and a recording of a panel discussion about the movie at the Turner Classic Movie festival last year.
Film scholar John Stewart now at the beginning of the film states that it “presents the antebellum South as a world of grace and beauty without acknowledging the brutality of chattel slavery upon which this world was based.”
“Eighty years after its initial release, Gone with the Wind is a film of undeniable cultural significance,” Stewart continues.
“It is not only a major document of Hollywood’s racist practices of the past but also an enduring work of popular culture that speaks directly to the racial inequalities that persist in media and society today,” Stewart says in the introduction of the film.
Are you glad to see the movie back on the service? Let us know!
