‘Gone With The Wind’ reinstated into HBO library with explanatory ‘bonus features’
Gone With the Wind has been reinstated into HBO’s film library after it was removed last week due to its representation of black characters which were considered racist and out of step.
The film has been reinstated with two additional videos added, each discussing the historical context of the classic movie.
In the first video, film scholar Jacqueline Stewart discusses why the 1939 epic drama “should be viewed in its original form, contextualised and discussed” while a second one-hour recording is of a panel discussion, dubbed ‘The Complicated Legacy of Gone With the Wind’.
Gone With The Wind remains “one of most enduringly popular films of all time”, says Stewart. Indeed, it constantly makes it into the top 10 of ‘best movie’ lists across the globe.
What some people may not realise is that film was always being protested, dating back to the announcement of its production.
Producer David O. Selznick was well aware that African-American audiences would be concerned about the film’s underlying subject of slavery.
It’s for this reason that Gone With the Wind presents “the Antebellum South as a world of grace and beauty without acknowledging the brutalities of the system of chattel slavery upon which this world is based,” according to Stewart. Basically, so that no one would complain of the hardship of the truth.
This is supposed to be why the film presents its slave-treated characters in such goddamn chirpy guise. Something which may take a lot more than a couple of explanatory ‘bonus features’ to satisfy today’s Black Lives Matters protesters.
Antonino Tati
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