HBO Max has temporarily pulled 'Gone With the Wind' because of the movie's 'racist depictions'

• HBO Max has temporarily pulled the 1939 movie "Gone With the Wind" from its service because of "racist depictions."
• A representative told Variety: "We felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible."
• The person said the film would eventually return to the service along with "a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions."
• The "12 Years a Slave" screenwriter John Ridley on Monday had asked HBO to make the decision, writing in an op-ed article for the Los Angeles Times that the film perpetuated "some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color."

HBO Max has temporarily pulled the 1939 movie "Gone With The Wind" following a Los Angeles Times op-ed article by the "12 Years a Slave" screenwriter John Ridley.

HBO Max pulled the movie from its service on Monday, with a representative telling Variety:

"'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. 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."

HBO Max said the film would eventually return to the service with "a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions." It will, however, be presented unaltered in its original form, as HBO Max said "to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed."

The company representative said: "If we are to create a more just, equitable and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history."

In his op-ed article, Ridley said the film, which won eight Academy Awards including best picture, "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."

Ridley, who won an Oscar for his "12 Years a Slave" screenplay, wrote: "It is a film that glorifies the antebellum south. It is a film that, when it is not ignoring the horrors of slavery, pauses only to perpetuate some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color."

Ridley added that he did not want the movie "relegated to a vault in Burbank" and instead should be reintroduced to HBO Max "along with other films that give a more broad-based and complete picture of what slavery and the Confederacy truly were."

He concluded: "I would ask that all content providers look at their libraries and make a good-faith effort to separate programming that might be lacking in its representation from that which is blatant in its demonization."

"Gone With the Wind" is set on a plantation near Atlanta and follows a man and a woman conducting a wild romance during the American Civil War and afterward. Adjusting for inflation, it is the highest-grossing domestic US film of all time.

It starred Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and Olivia de Havilland. Leigh won the Oscar for best actress for her performance, while Hattie McDaniel won the Oscar for best supporting actress, making her the first Black person to win an Oscar. She played the slave Mammy.

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