HBO Max removes "Gone with the wind" from its platform

[Bt1 5,213]

5 minutes ago, justhislife said:

 

 

EDIT: I didn't read the article because WSJ required money but upon researching some more I found that what I described is actually what they're doing.

Wsj says it was pulled out. Maybe they are planning to do something like that, but for the moment it seems it was removed.

[Ivy 13,822]

7 minutes ago, Florin said:

She was vilified years later for this role, which is stupid. She took the opportunities she had at that moment, which were very limited.

Really? That's sad. I guess the point should be that she did a great job with what was available and achieved something important 

[NotMyFlop 1,979]

I understand the notion of "separating art from the times". There should be place for Gone With The Wind to be preserved. However, this shouldn't be easily accessible. It helps bolster horrible ideologies and there is no excuse for that. We see older generations really cling to the notion that there were good "slave owners", and in today's time, "good cops". Openly promoting this ideology on an app that is primarily for entertainment is wrong; put it on a educational platform like Kanopy or for a museum. 

I do think HBO working on contextualizing the film is a smart move, but it needs to be done well for it to remotely justify existing on the platform. 

[Spock 20,292]

This is so stupid

This is clearly not a Disney+ Song of the South situation where the target audience won’t know that what they’re watching is not real and does not represent real life... Everybody knows the reality presented in this movie is completely ****ed up, and censuring this movie also erases Hattie’s historical Oscar win
 

How about removing Warner Bros movies like Get Hard, which are actually racist and full of disgusting racial stereotypes hidden under “comedy”

[Spock 20,292]

15 minutes ago, Adarsh said:

 Calm down. They didn’t permanently remove it. They’re filming racial commentary to go along with it and it will come back once that’s ready. This is a brilliant move as kids who will discover this movie in the future will know the real truth, not a fairytale painted by racists.

But this is kind of an unfair thing to say imo because the book was written in the 30s and the movie came out in the 40s.. it’s clearly a product of it’s time. Even if the book as some very questionable passages, the movie wasn’t made with racist intentions like Birth of a Nation. 

Of course contextualizing it is important, but it’s really silly people are suddenly popping off at this movie when there are a lot of comedies released by WB in the last decade alone that are actually racist and disgusting

[EthelDee 552]

Its a near 4 hour movie. The racial commentary HBO is adding might give me a reason to actually watch this though. 

[Guest]

My parents used to watch this movie a lot which means they made me watch it a lot when I was very young. They said they were sad they missed the good days where people had their places. They made jokes about wanting to own slaves. They made terrible jokes about how they would brutally treat Mammy by whipping her and lynching her if she ever talked back.

 I grew up believing that black people were inferior to white people, largely in part because of this movie. My parents were out of my life for a long time, but I still watched this to feel close to them. It was the only thing I had to remember them by. Most of my memories of them are too sad to discuss. When we watched Gone With The Wind they were peaceful. I had no reason to believe there was anything wrong with a movie not only my parents loved, but everyone I knew loved. This movie brought the only peace I knew as a child. 

The school I went to celebrated the confederacy. It had a confederate flag waving under the American flag. People wore confederate flag shirts every day. The gym in my elementary school had confederate flags painted on the walls. Teachers tried to justify the need for slavery. They blamed black people for being slaves.  I had no context of what the realities of slavery were. 

If it were not for Gaga and the internet I would likely be a racist who enjoys this movie a little too much. While I do not think the movie should be banned, it does need things added to it to teach people, especially children and teenagers, that the things in the movie are not okay now. It perpetuates confederate pride in a way that has influenced many people to idolize the confederacy. today It is the reason why there are still monuments to slave owners. It is why southerns still chant "the south will rise again". Watching this movie at a young age to teach out about the good old days is a southern tradition. A lot of us are raised to believe that Gone With The Wind shows the ideal America.

The dark parts of the past should never be erased. I think that would be an injustice to the people who survived those times. But I do not believe a movie that shows the idolization of that era should exist in very accessible ways without conversations that counteract and explain it more. Gone With The Wind was a love letter to the Confederacy. It did not challenge it. It did not look down on it. It glorified it. That needs to be challenged by today's standards. 

[thatfoxyfeeling 13,433]

It’s a publicity stunt, HBO Max has just launched and now everyone is talking about the streaming platform. 

[Bt1 5,213]

8 minutes ago, thatfoxyfeeling said:

It’s a publicity stunt, HBO Max has just launched and now everyone is talking about the streaming platform. 

Netflix also removed some less known titles. 

[Born This Way 1,817]

53 minutes ago, EthelDee said:

Its a near 4 hour movie. The racial commentary HBO is adding might give me a reason to actually watch this though. 

Same, I think the commentary will be way more interesting than the actual movie.

[Shadow 6,707]

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn..." One of the best ending lines in movie history... Well, this is why it pays to have a physical copy if a movie like this is what you're into. 

[i medici 1,746]

2 hours ago, Karl said:

Very mixed on this. On one hand it represents slavery in an awful way, making it seem positive. On the other, as a film graduate it's one of the best sweeping epics every made in terms of technical achievement. It suffers the same fate as song of the south, while not explicitly racist in terms of racial hatred, it's insensitive to the true realities of slavery at the time, depicting slaves as happy helpers rather than the actual reality. 

Same goes for the movies Hitlers propaganda produced. They really are technically innovative, great material for students and scientist or education. The problem here is that its broadcasted through an entertainment perspective not an education perspective. How would you feel about Nazi proaganda being available on HBO just because its a good movie?

[gabeoz 7,915]

Why are yall having such an unnecessary breakdown over this  there's no need for all this outrage, it's not even gone for good. The movie is just being taken down temporarily to add commentary on the historical context of the film and how it portrays ideals that are very much wrong. No scenes are edited/added/removed and the movie itself will stay the same. They're just adding a discussion bit like what Warner Bros did with Tom & Jerry. \/

[ode 1,534]

2 hours ago, KevinWright said:

C'mon guys.

This is too much. It's a movie. A movie from almost a century ago.

Would you be down for HBO streaming a Nazi propoganda film in which Jews are depicted in heinous ways and are shown as subservient/inferior to Germans? Would you support a major streaming service making that kind of material readily available to the hundreds of millions of people who visit their site?

 

Germany would never argue over whether Nazi films are "historically significant art" or whatever bullshit ppl wanna say about GWTW. Only America refuses to hold itself accountable for the atrocities it committed against minority groups, and that's the reason that we can continue to humor the argument that a film like G.W.T.W is suitable entertainment for contemporary audiences.

It's one thing for this kind of art to be available for those interested in history to study. It's another for a corporate giant like HBO to promote such films to mainstream audiences.

[Regina George 59,387]

It does glorify slavery and it kinda is problematic but it is actually a great movie and a good representation of how people thought of this back then. It’s most successful movie in USA if I remember correctly and it’s a piece of history. They will bring it back with explanation about the situation back then and I think that would be a great way to introduce this movie. Nothing wrong with deleting it temporarily from their service.