Netflix Sparks Outrage Over ‘Gone With the Wind’ Description
Give me a break.
Back in 2020, Gone With the Wind experienced ultimate shame amid the Black Lives Matter movement.
You know, even though Hattie McDaniel, the daughter of two former slaves, became the first black woman to win an Oscar for her portrayal as Mammy.
Netflix doesn’t offer the movie on its platform, but the title page remains inactive on its website:
Holy crap. I just checked. It's real. This is the Netflix summary for Gone With The Wind: pic.twitter.com/WIQts84woi
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 15, 2026
HBO Max offers Gone With the Wind.
The description: “A strong-willed Southern belle struggles to save her beloved home and find love against the backdrop of the American Civil War and Reconstruction.”
However, HBO Max pulled Gone With the Wind in 2020 since it “glorifies the antebellum South.”
At the time, the platform said the movie would “return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions but will be presented as it was originally created because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”
I don’t know when HBO Max returned to reality.
According to Google, Pan Macmillan, publisher of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, still has a trigger warning on it.
“Gone with the Wind is a novel which includes problematic elements including the romanticisation of a shocking era in our history and the horrors of slavery.
“The novel includes the representation of unacceptable practices, racist and stereotypical depictions and troubling themes, characterisation, language and imagery.
“The text of this book remains true to the original in every way and is reflective of the language and period in which it was originally written.
“We want to alert readers that there may be hurtful or indeed harmful phrases and terminology that were prevalent at the time this novel was written and which are true to the context of the historical setting of this novel.
“Pan Macmillan believes changing the text to reflect today’s world would undermine the authenticity of the original, so has chosen to leave the text in its entirety.
“This does not, however, constitute an endorsement of the characterisation, content or language used.”
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Comments
As usual, the mainstream media (I include Netflix in this group) is historically illiterate both in their view of the antebellum south and of film.
First, you cannot expect a motion picture to be the definitive take on any historic event. Two hours is not nearly enough. It took Shelby Foote over a million words to describe it.
Second, I don’t think it glorifies the antebellum south at all. Quite the opposite. Even Rhett Butler describes the inevitability of defeat to a more populous and industrialized north (once the north stopped stepping on its **** that is). The outcome of the war was decided every bit as much by economics as by armed combat.
Cotton and slavery are part of our national DNA. We should not be proud of our slaveholding past but we should not be canceling it either.
After 700,000 deaths, the assassination of a president, reconstruction, Jim Crow, etc., etc. we have paid an awful price for that aspect of our founding that the founders could not resolve.
I for one don’t wish to diminish that struggle.
Nor engage in ‘slavery’ by other means and names.
“Reconstruction” was no such thing. It was a euphemism for keeping the North’s boot heel on the throat of a defeated nation they considered inferior in order to feel superior. Sherman was a terriorist. People starved after the war because he burned their fields and killed their livestock.
Life is filled with defining moments. In the 1970s I actually had a man look me in the eye and say, “You know, we all know you’re from Alabama but you seem really intelligent.” Hilarious, not.
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So, would Sherman have done what he did had the Democrat slaveholders in the South not seceded?
At the time of his actions, we were at war to save the Union. Following that war, Lincoln did everything he could to bring the country back together. Sure, the scars of that war remained for some time, but they were ultimately the fault of the Confederate South.
I wonder if any shooting war would have been necessary if Beauregard had not opened fire on Fort Sumter? We’ll never know.
Barring any other such instigation, probably not. There was, up until that time, no sentiment for war in the North. The people’s attitude was “Let them leave.” As far as they were concerned the Union was a voluntary assembly of States that had as much right to secede from the Union as the 13 colonies had to secede from the Crown. Fort Sumter was but a single potential flashpoint, created by Lincoln. He refused to negotiate with the Confederacy over federal possession that were then within Confederate states (that had been insular federal possessions within Union member States). Lincoln needed a violent act to change the North’s complacency into a desire for war. He got exactly what he wanted. The war could have been avoided if Lincoln had negotiated, but he didn’t because he claimed the Confederacy and its government were not legitimate sovereign entities. In other words, he repudiated the legitimacy of the United States itself.
If you can tell I don’t hold Lincoln in high regard, you’d be correct. I’ve read too much about the run-up to the war. The historical situation doesn’t even have the question marks that hover over FDR’s knowledge of the coming attack on Pearl Harbor. Lincoln refused to negotiate with the Confederacy because he presumed, correctly as it turned out, that he could get the South to start a shooting war. He did not see the hypocrisy involved in denying the legitimacy of the Confederacy.
Suggested reading:
Lincoln Unmasked, Thomas J. DiLorenzo
BTW, I get my books from Abe Books, a clearinghouse for used book stores across the US (and Britain). Delivery is a little slow, but prices can be quite low, esp. if you’re willing to accept something a bit battered (as the condition of all books is noted).
Union. NOT “country.”
“State” is fungible with “country.” Was in 1776 and is today. Unions are voluntary associations, and can be withdrawn from without a ripple, as when BREXIT occurred.
THE North had spent itself into penury during the Industrial Revolution, building railroads and canals ( none in the South) to expedite the effects of that revolution. The “Tariff of Abominations,1828,” was the seminal cause of the ( by international law legal) Southern secessions.
Nonsense. If losing an election has consequences, losing a war has much more even more so.
Especially when you are the one that started the war.
The mindset that slavery was A Good Thing was on the spectrum of memes such as belief the Nazi Ubermench and the Marxist “Eat the Rich” ideology.
You can argue that American slavery wasn’t the only reason for the civil war, but it certainly was the main one for lighting the fire.
Post defeat the idea that American blacks needed to still be subjugated was as toxic as slavery itself, and needed to be stomped on with both feet. The (short) era of Reconstruction was that stomp, even if sadly the unreconstructed politicians (mostly (D)s, BTW, even if all too many of the rest of us still bought into racial superiority) betrayed those who had died stomping it out with the rise of Jim Crow and other betrayals (such as the new gun laws passed specifically to disarm freed slaves).
After the brief period of reconstruction, it would take a century before we again had southern blacks commonly being free to vote and being elected to high office.
As to Sherman, war is not a sports game with polite rules, there ARE consequences to starting one, and they are often terrible. If you had psychic powers, you could ask the huge numbers of Japanese (and some German) civilians who died of starvation during and post WW II.
ChrisPeters and BobM, I suspect you weren’t born and raised in the Old South. You are illustrating my point. Sherman’s scorched earth policy was unnecessary. The South *knew* it was defeated before the war was half over. And the attitudes of many Northeners still continue in the form of stereotypes of Southerners all being Gomer Pyle. No, we’re not, but we’re still made to look that way.
If you haven’t lived it you aren’t able to understand. Reread the second paragraph of my post above and imagine yourself in my place. You wouldn’t like it, either.
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DS, yup, raised in upstate NY. Specifically Syracuse area, which historically was a hotbed of antislavery (and also female emancipation) sentiment in the 1860s. However, certainly none of that’s to my personal credit – just as (say) being born white in the 1960s doesn’t / shouldn’t make you guilty or liable for slavery a century before you were even born.
However, to a point in your 1st paragraph, if “The South” “knew” they had lost 1/2 way thru the war – why did they keep fighting?
Imho I thing. because either they knew no such thing, or their loyalty / pride / hubris over-rid their knowing, or – and this is I think the main thing – they thought killing enuf northern soldiers would make the north give up.
AFAIK, the south made no serious effort or attempt to just peacefully sever from the north.
There was no asking for negotiation as to what to do with US federal property within the boundaries of the Confederate states.
Like an abusive spouse, they just assumed joint property went to themselves. And resorted to force, in the anticipation no consequences would result.
Failing an initial negotiated separation of assets, bombarding Sumpter or any other installations still under Federal was not the only option. It was unnecessary – like Hitler declaring war on the USA just after PH it was also a mistake, a bad one.
Instead of continuing their hissy fit on losing an election, they could have been patient, starved out Sumpter et Alia, appealed to those northern states that had earlier themselves gone on record as believing states could leave the union.
They chose poorly.
Then why didn’t the Confederacy fold after Gettysburg and Vicksburg? The Confederacy fought tooth nail for nearly two more
years after those twin defeats.
At one point a few years back I was on the job market and had looked at NFLX for some roles there were good fits. One of my areas of experience and expertise is managing outsourced IT engagements contracts.
Not far into the application process they hit you with a swarm of highly inappropriate questions about your gender, your sexual preferences. The application was a filter for woke. These are the very comrades of the souls who published the article that Tennessee was the worst place to live in the country.
I would hope Normies would start cutting the subscription. It takes a degree of tech expertise to create a home library of moves on a NAS server, but that’s the path I took a few years ago.
Netflix directing people to a racist communist group for further information. That pretty much tells all.
Ridiculous. The slaves portrayed were necessary for the story. Without them, there was little need for the book let alone the movie. ‘Gone’ covered several subjects and not just slavery.
Yup. GWTW was certainly not a hagiography of the Confederacy, if anything the opposite.
Besides that – even (say) Rise of a Nation – arguably an ACTUAL piece of racist propaganda – shouldn’t be banned. It’s part of our history, and instead of erasure imho the proper response should be providing context and framing it as what it was – a good film serving a bad purpose.
Thank you for my new word of the day !
The Communists pushing this could not care less about slavery, genocide, etc. When was the last time they went after China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, and Iran? The goal here is to rewrite the past to justify (1) the Communists’ monstrous worldview, and (2) the extermination of “racists” (read: anyone who gets in their way).
Nor is “Gone With The Wind” the only target of Communist erasure:
https://instapundit.com/810045/
When one sees how the leftards whining about these things cheer at the death or murder of people they disagree with, one cannot deny that if they could they would load us all into cattle cars in a trice.
A country’s history and heritage is always the communists’ prime targets. If you can unhinge a people from their history and heritage, it becomes a simple matter to substitute a false narrative that guides them in the “correct” direction.
I wouldn’t know. I cancelled them last year.
Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen provided exceptional examples of acting talent.
Well Fiddle dee-dee!
I had a great aunt that would say that sometimes. My grandmother would say ‘fiddle sticks’. I tend to say much worse.
There may be hurtful or indeed harmful phrases and terminology that were prevalent at the time this was written and which are true to the context of the historical setting.
But if we were to reproduce it today, we would eliminate all of that and make it look like Wakonda.
I was driving through north central Washington a few years ago and noticed a sign indicating I was entering a town. I stopped and took a photo showing the sign and its environs, grassy pastures and woods. I texted the photo to several friends (yes, I have friends), with the text “No sign of advanced technology, not a black person in sight.” The town was Wauconda.
I could never convince myself to subscribe, or even watch, Netflix, going back to the beginning before it was generally known what a crappy organization it is.
I’m so glad I’ve never given it one cent of my money or one moment of my time.
My favorite movie to stream is 1955’s The Dam Busters. The black Labrador’s name has not been censored. “Come here, you little ……”
Hattie’s parents were born slaves
Wonder if they were alive to see her rise to fame and achievements
Unfortunately,
SHE MADE HISTORY BUT WASN’T ALLOWED TO SIT WITH HER CO-STARS. HATTIE MCDANIEL’S OSCAR WIN CAME WITH A
CRUEL, UNFORGETTABLE INJUSTICE.
She wasn’t allowed to sit with the other film actors, she and other Black actors were placed in a hotel, where she was given her Oscar
Back when the George Floyd riots and BLM were hot and heavy, I purchased Gone with the Wind as even then I could see that someday, TPTB would remove it from history. I also got my copies of Idiocracy and Blazing Saddles as the woke censors would be after them as well.
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