'Gone With the Wind' Hits No. 1 on Amazon Best-Sellers Chart After HBO Max Drops Movie

[Dial H For Hero]

https://variety.com/2020/digital/uncategorized/gone-with-the-wind-amazon-best-seller-hbo-max-1234630577/

“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.”

“Gone With the Wind” stars Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Hattie McDaniel and Olivia de Havilland. The film, adapted from the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell, is described on Amazon.com’s website as “a classic epic of the American South,” set during the Civil War and the Reconstruction era.

The movie, produced by David O. Selznick, won eight competitive Oscars including best picture, best actress for Leigh, best director for Victor Fleming and best supporting actress for McDaniel, who was the first Black person to ever win an Academy Award. The American Film Institute ranks “Gone With the Wind” as the No. 4 best American movie of all time, after “Citizen Kane,” “Casablanca,” and “The Godfather.”

[milestogo]

1. It's a good movie about bad romances.

The scene which stuck in my mind when I first saw it many years ago was where the whole town square was filled with bloodied soldiers and there was nothing that could be done for most of them. I'm thinking that part was probably pretty realistic.

[Warpy]

5. Yes, there were scenes in it that were wonderful

and that one had a special sort of impact, brought home what civil war is really all about. Do not want.

The book was far better than the movie, more development of characters, a little more background in general, but still candy coated an appalling system of using people like animals in perpetuity.

[Crunchy Frog]

2. It was a move that was guaranteed to generate a surge of interest in the film.

I don't know whether the net result will be positive or negative.

[katmondoo]

3. I saw the movie when I was 14. Loved it. I fell in love with Rhett Butler.

That was a long, long time ago.

[Dial H For Hero]

4. It was one of my Mother's favorite films. She'd watch it every time it was on.

[misanthrope]

6. Want to see a troll farm? Look at the comments on the Variety page

Yeesh, not a one of them act as if the movie only getting new context (which is fair considering its fawning and odious title card). They are obviously trying to perpetuate a belief the film is disappearing forever from the face of the Earth.

[Bradshaw3]

7. Leigh hated the love scenes because of Gable's halitosis

Lesley Howard (Ashley Wilkes) thought the movie was a silly melodrama and you can look at his overacting as reflecting that, poking fun at the whole thing. And, last but not least, it reflected the values of the Lost Cause and the racism of the time. So there's that.

[LisaL]

11. Lesley Howard felt he was much too old for the role (which he was).

Vivian Leigh is stunningly gorgeous, which I notice every time they show some photo from the movie. Clark Gable certainly looked the part.

[Squinch]

8. It IS an engaging movie, but it is undeniably racist. If we're serious about

working on institutional racism, popular media depictions are a place we need to address.

HBO said the removal was temporary. I've seen people who are acting like someone is removing their left arm in response to this.

[LisaL]

10. Well, America's history is undeniably racist.

So what are you going to do? Erase history?

[Squinch]

12. Sigh. Who is proposing erasing anything?

The movie has been temporarily removed and will be returned with an explanation of the actual history.

[LisaL]

9. If you tell people they can't do something, it usually just makes them to want to do it more.

[ms liberty]

13. I was never a fan of the movie

As a poor white southerner, I grew up seeing the movie as being about a romanticized fictional version of the south and a tiny percentage of the south at that - the rich white plantation and slave owners.
I've said it before, the best thing about GWTW is that it led to a legendary Carol Burnett spoof that still makes me laugh til I cry.