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“Gone With the Wind” zipped to the top of Amazon’s best-sellers sales chart for TV and movies, a day after WarnerMedia’s HBO Max pulled the movie for “racist depictions.”
Amazon bases its rankings on sales data. The site currently offers the 70th anniversary two-disc DVD edition of “Gone With the Wind” starting at $29.55, while Amazon Video offers the movie as a digital HD rental at $3.99 and for purchase at $9.99.
Meanwhile, on Apple’s iTunes movie chart for the U.S., “Gone With the Wind” on Wednesday was in the No. 5 spot (after “The Hunt,” “Birds of Prey,” “Bad Boys for Life,” and “The Invisible Man”).
Oscar-winning film “Gone With the Wind” was removed Tuesday from the HBO Max streaming service temporarily. WarnerMedia said it plans to return to the movie to the library, along with a discussion about the historical context for the 1939 movie and a “denouncement” of the movie’s racist stereotypes.
“’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,” an HBO Max spokesperson told Variety. “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.”
I think this is the movie every director secretly wants to make. Something so iconic that 81 years later it is still hitting number 1 on charts from time to time, and people are still talking about it.
I think this is the movie every director secretly wants to make. Something so iconic that 81 years later it is still hitting number 1 on charts from time to time, and people are still talking about it.
Geesh, who in the US actually hasn't seen it yet? They show it every year on TCM.
I can't see it as censorship; they chose to take it out of the rotation at a sensitive time. Movies about certain kinds of violence have been back-roomed when real examples occur.
They're making any kind of deal out it is is pointless, though.
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Originally Posted by Bungalove
Geesh, who in the US actually hasn't seen it yet? They show it every year on TCM.
Even as a film buff, I've never seen the whole thing. Don't really care to. It's a genre that simply holds no interest for me and I don't grind through films because they are So Magnificent etc.
That the reaction is something like panic buying is hilarious, though, for both reasons above.
I can't see it as censorship; they chose to take it out of the rotation at a sensitive time. Movies about certain kinds of violence have been back-roomed when real examples occur.
Self-censorship is still censorship, and as usual, it had the opposite effect. The quickest way to make something in-demand and popular is to censor it.
Warner Brothers actually did something much smarter when they released the Looney Tunes on DVD several years ago. Quite a few of the old cartoons from the '40s were extremely racist. WB didn't nix or modify the cartoons. They included them in full and used it as an opportunity to address the issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Therblig
Even as a film buff, I've never seen the whole thing. Don't really care to. It's a genre that simply holds no interest for me and I don't grind through films because they are So Magnificent etc.
I don't like the movie. Never have. It's definitely on the list of Most Over-rated Movies of All Time.
Self-censorship is still censorship, and as usual, it had the opposite effect. The quickest way to make something in-demand and popular is to censor it.
However accurate the dictionary definition, I think you're using an overly inflammatory word to describe the action.
Quote:
Warner Brothers actually did something much smarter when they released the Looney Tunes on DVD several years ago. Quite a few of the old cartoons from the '40s were extremely racist. WB didn't nix or modify the cartoons. They included them in full and used it as an opportunity to address the issue.
I have the DVDs. And that's exactly what the studio intends to do: release it with added context.
I can't find where they publicized the withdrawal; it seems to have been simply noticed. And the WB site still contains a full page for it with "own it today!" options, with not so much as a parental warning:
I have the DVDs. And that's exactly what the studio intends to do: release it with added context.
I can't find where they publicized the withdrawal; it seems to have been simply noticed. And the WB site still contains a full page for it with "own it today!" options, with not so much as a parental warning:
I haven't actually been following the brouhaha. As far as I know, what caused all this is that HBO suddenly took the movie off the air, not the WB banned it. I don't really care. I have zero interest in watching it, and I doubt there were thousands of people out there dying to see it. But just by removing it, HBO caused sales of the movie to spike.
Which is why art --- and I use that word to describe Gone with the Wind as my eyes roll --- shouldn't be censored, even if it is offensive. First, for purely practical reasons: It has the opposite effect. But really, because even offensive art can sometimes be great, and we ought to trust people to be smart enough to make up their own minds.
I think GREASE is pretty offensive. But I wouldn't want it banned, and even I can admit that the music is pretty good.
GWTW has been my favorite movie since I was a kid and first saw it in 1961 during one of its re-releases (and my grandmother was appalled that a ticket was 75 cents!). I still watch it about every other year.
No other film had been done at such a high quality before GWTW. It was a quality job. And it's a great story.
But that's not why it's important today.
It is the best teacher for one to understand the South's failed premise, which is generally referred to as "The Lost Cause Of The Confederacy". Margaret Mitchell was from Georgia and was raised on "The Lost Cause" premise. You can read many a book on the topic, or you can just watch GWTW. It's all there, including the ugliness and sin of slavery. If it has a fault, it's that the slaves were treated so well by their masters...and that is part of the "Lost Cause" concept. And still today the South, in many areas, clings to that Lost Cause. Hence the Civil War statues issue...and much more.
So I can still enjoy the film for a variety of reasons, while still shaking my head in disbelief of the immoral principles of the era. The film is a great teacher of the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I endorse the concept of accompanying the film with a reasonably long documentary about the "Lost Cause" and slavery, and related issues. Use it to teach.
I love history, and I feel the same way about the various Confederate statues being torn down. Rather than glorifying that ugly time and the Lost Cause, those statues should be placed in a museum or on a battlefield where there are accompanying ways of putting the time and people in perspective.
I have been amazed at two countries that have -- to a large extent -- used film to put their own sordid history in perspective. A good number of films and television programs have been produced in Great Britain that show disdain for the concepts behind "The Sun Never Sets..." period of British history and the oppression it committed on other cultures where they had no business being. A number of German films have, likewise, kept the horror of Hitler and Nazism in the forefront. And these films are learning experiences.
I don't believe in general censorship. I think what Warner is doing is wise. Let's see how well they do on what they're going to attach to the film before re-releasing it to cable.
Geesh, who in the US actually hasn't seen it yet? They show it every year on TCM.
Young generations do not watch TCM. Unless you are in a hospital and that's the only channel available.
I'd have thought, Jango Unchained would have topped the charts....
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