HBO Axes Gone With the Wind

When they are done, we will have no history and very little art because, of course, it was all created by 'racists'!

From The American Catholic

By Donald R. McClarey

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(A partial repeat of a post from 2015.  This issue never seems to go away.)

True confession time:  I have never thought much of the film personally, viewing it as a fairly standard Hollywood potboiler of the time, made epic by stars, Technicolor and a huge budget.  Perhaps part of my dislike of the film is that I know too much about the period and when it rings false as to the time it purports to represent, my teeth go on edge.  However, to ban it as some sort of avatar of the Confederacy is ludicrous.

The amusing part of this farce is that one of the major themes of the movie was how foolish it was for the South to fight a  war with the North.

This theme is underlined by the scene showing a crowd in Atlanta getting the casualty lists of the battle of Gettysburg.  The sorrow of the band director, who has just learned that his son has been killed, cries out from the screen as he has his band, largely made up of boys and old men, play Dixie, and the camera pans in on a fife player who is weeping.

The portrayal of blacks of course in Gone With the Wind now strikes most Americans as offensive, but Hattie McDaniel’s role as the strong willed Mammy won her an Oscar for best supporting actress in 1940.  At the time there were some protests of the film by blacks, but far more blacks came out to see the film and appreciated the humanity and strength that Hattie McDaniel gave to a character who could easily have come across as a mere stereotype.

If we are now going to be judging Art by the sensibilities of twenty-first century Leftists, we will have precious little Art left to us, along with precious little History.