I expected my column on the problematic racial politics of the wildly popular “Gone With the Wind” would generate some controversy. But I never in my wildest dreams could imagine this would somehow turn the 75-year-old movie into the top seller in the nation today.
As of 9 a.m. Friday, “Gone With the Wind” was the overall best-selling Blu-ray feature film on Amazon’s US website, amazingly outselling such new releases as “Fifty Shades of Grey” (which it displaced at the top of Amazon’s romance-films list) and “American Sniper” (ditto in the military/war category).
How did this sudden burst of popularity happen to a movie that has been widely available in numerous editions on video since 1985? It seems a lot of people who ran to Amazon’s virtual store are actually afraid that the film will be banned or pulled from circulation due to my column. And they haven’t been shy about telling me about this concern in dozens of angry tweets and emails, no matter how many times I have tried to correct this erroneous impression on social media.
So here it goes again: I stopped very well short of calling for a ban in my column posted on The Post’s website Wednesday, which also appeared on the cover of Thursday’s paper. I do not believe in censorship, even for the more blatantly racist “Birth of a Nation.” By arguing that “GWTW” may be more appropriate to see in museums than in multiplexes, I was trying to encourage readers to examine the Oscar-winning film’s ideas — the offensively sympathetic portrayal of slavery and enshrining the falsehood that the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery — in the wake of the Charleston church slaughter. An event that, of course, has resulted in removals from some public spaces of the same Confederate flag so prominently featured in one of the most famous scenes in “GWTW.”
But that didn’t stop the hard-right site Breitbart from painting me as a politically correct, censorship-advocating, flaming socialist fanatic, complete with an inflammatory still of a book-burning scene from the film version of “Fahrenheit 451.” This sensationalized spin on my position was picked up by more reputable outlets like the Guardian and the Wrap. And voilà — there was, suddenly, a growing panic in America about the possibility of “Gone With the Wind” going, well, with the wind.
Warner Bros., which has owned “Gone With the Wind” (which has sold more theater tickets than any other film, ever) since 1996, is a politically progressive company, sensitive and socially responsible enough about outdated racial attitudes to have placed disclaimers on some older films and cartoons. Still, they are a company with stockholders, and there’s no way they are going to completely withdraw a film as lucrative as “GWTW” from circulation just because I think it’s racist (though it’s incredibly flattering that people think I wield that kind of power). But I’d argue a similar disclaimer on future editions would be entirely appropriate.
