Shelving “Gone With The Wind”
By: Gena Vazquez
Tags: Film, Hollywood, History, BlackLivesMatter, Racism

News has broken that streaming service HBO Max has temporarily removed the most influential 1939 classic American film Gone with the Wind from its library.

Based on the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell, the 10 Oscar-winning film, Gone with the Wind is a raw moving snapshot of American History in all its glorious, bitter, and lethal culture. To this day, the banished motion picture remains the highest-grossing film of all time favored by many generations.

Gone With The Wind. Courtesy of MGM

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the network has decided to pull the film from its archives for its depiction of slavery which was part of American history of the period. Gone with the Wind was largely realistic in detailing how Caucasian and African American people had different roles on the plantation in which the film was set. In the film, Tara and Twelve Oaks serve as a social setting for their caucasian residents. The plantation houses are home to the O’Hara and Wilkes families respectively. Additionally, the dwellings serve as a place for social gatherings. At Tara and Twelve Oaks, Scarlett entertains admirers such as Brent and Stuart Tarleton. The plantation itself, however, plays the distinct role of the growing of cotton. For the African American residents of the plantation, this means forced employment or rather, slavery, for Big Sam the foreman, and the black field hands he leads, as shown in the scene where the men slave in the fields till it is “quitting time” at dusk. Not only do the slaves perform back-breaking work in the fields, but they also work in the houses. The film shows how “Mammy”, “Prissy”, and “Pork” serve their white masters at “Tara”, and other domestic servants waiting on the guests at the Twelve Oaks party. Hence, Gone with the Wind establishes the plantation as a place of great wealth and recreation for white Southerners and a place of work and servitude for black Southerners.

Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel. Courtesy of MGM.

“Faith is the black person’s federal reserve system.” — Oscar Winning Actress, Hattie McDaniels

The motion picture’s representation of the dismal state of the South is brutally honest. As was the upheaval in the status of African Americans. Their liberation shifted the racial dynamic which had given the power to Caucasian Americans. In the film, this is proved by the triumphant African American carpetbagger who sings “Marching Through Georgia” as he journeys via horse carriage along the roads of the South. While the film portrays such changes for northern blacks, it shows the southern black servants faithfully standing by the O’Hara family when Scarlett returns. Mammy scurrying about to wash the clothes of the returning Confederate soldiers and helps Scarlett to make a dress out of her mother’s portieres. Pork assists by getting the horse shod and by stirring the soap at Scarlet’s demand. The movie shows that even as northern blacks challenged the pre-war notions of black inferiority, some slaves continued to serve their masters.

The film’s portrayal of the relationship between master and slave is unrepresentative of the entire experience of Southern slavery. Circumstances of slavery on American soil varied from region to region during the era of the Civil War. Slavery remained highly diverse even within each region. Slaves worked both in cities and in rural areas. The portrayal of plantation slavery in Gone with the Wind attempted to represent the experiences of a privileged minority of Southerners.

The American period masterpiece, Gone with the Wind largely spotlights the roles of African Americans and Caucasians on plantations, the hierarchy between them, and the blowback of the Civil War on both. By contrasting the positive side of slavery and the negative aspects of reorganization, the film aides the Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War. Slaves and masters are shown to lead parallel lives, living together, contented with their station. However, in reality, black and white lives were highly disparate. If anything, the film distorts the suffering and inferiority experienced by most slaves.

Since the news broke of the HBO Max network’s decision to pull the film from its archives, most feel it is their attempt to rewrite history. As much as we wish we could return to a place in time in a world where we actually could rewrite history, it is best to leave it be. Leaving American History and the cinematic depictions in the libraries and catalogs where future generations can access them to use as a moral compass from which to grow as a society.