Hollywood classic movie Gone with the wind which has stirred controversies even in the past for its polished depiction of slavery in America, is now in the highlight again after 81 years of its release. The movie which is based on a 1936 Margaret Mitchell novel of the same name was pulled down from the OTT platform HBO Max, after Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley wrote for the LA Times that it "glorifies the antebellum south" and perpetuated "painful stereotypes of people of colour".

Ridley's piece was published in lieu of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement which is movement against racial prejudices against people of African-American origin and has spread in the West like wildfire. While Ridley noted that Gone With The Wind 'sentimentalized a history that never was', HBO promptly responded by announcing,

"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…

 

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.”

What HBO means is that the film has been removed from its OTT listing, it might make a comeback with a disclaimer of some sorts when all the noise has died down. Set during the American Civil War (1861-65), Gone With the Wind tells the story of Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), the daughter of a plantation owner in the Southern US and her budding romance with a Southern US 'gentleman'. 

The movie had actress Hattie McDaniel, played the role of Mammy, a slave close to O’Hara which eventually gained her an Oscar, making her the first African American woman to win the award.