HBO blacks out \'Gone With The Wind\'

The murder of George Floyd, an unnarmed African-African man at the hands of a white policeman in Minneapolis, US, has sent shockwaves around the world. Several major brands, the likes of Nike, Adidas, Google and Amazon have denounced the killing and so have the World Inc CEOs and tech moguls like Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai and Jeff Bezos.

The OTT (Over The Top Content) platforms have also been forced to rethink the appropriateness of both the present and the past productions, given the current socio-political climate. As a result, a slew of changes have been announced by OTT platforms and the most prominent one amongst these is the one by recently-launched HBO Max which dropped the 1939 film ‘Gone With The Wind’.

Agencies

Based on a 1936 book by Margaret Mitchell, ‘Gone With The Wind’, has often been criticised for romanticising slavery and the American Civil War era. HBO Max, however, has removed the film from its streaming library to add historical context to it. It all started when the film-maker, John Ridley, in an op-ed column in the Los Angeles Times asked Warner Media, the company that owns HBO Max, to take down ‘Gone With The Wind’.

Ridley had argued that the film “romanticizes the Confederacy in a way that continues to give legitimacy to the notion that the secessionist movement was something more, or better, or more noble than what it was — a bloody insurrection to maintain the 'right' to own, sell and buy human beings.”

Responding to Ridley’s op-ed, an HBO Max spokesperson called the film a ‘product of its time’. The HBO Max spokesperson, according to a PTI report, added that the racial depictions in the film were wrong then and are wrong today and to keep the title up without a denouncement of these depictions would be irresponsible.

The spokesperson, however, said that when ‘Gone With The Wind’ does return to the streaming platform, it will include, “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.”

‘Gone With The Wind’, however, is not the only title that has been removed from a popular OTT platform’s streaming library. On Tuesday, the Paramount Network dropped the long-running reality series ‘Cops’ after 33 seasons.

The BBC also removed episodes of ‘Little Britain,’ a comedy series that featured a character in blackface, from its streaming service.

‘Gone With The Wind’ has often been criticised for the depictions of African-Americans who remained loyal to their white masters even after the abolition of slavery. It won eight Academy Awards including best picture and best supporting actress for Hattie McDaniel, the first black actress to be nominated or win an Oscar.