Gone With The Wind removed from HBO Max, as mass fights against bigotry and police ruthlessness brief television networks to reconsider their offerings.
The different Oscar-winning US Civil War epic released in 1939 remains the most grossing film ever balanced for inflation, however its portrayal of mollified slaves and brave slaveholders has gathered criticism.
“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 said in a statement to AFP.
“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.”
Demonstrations have cleared the United States since the May 25 killing of African American George Floyd while in police custody, with calls developing for police change and the more extensive expulsion of images of a supremacist inheritance, including landmarks to the slave-holding Confederacy.
Floyd died a month ago as a white Minneapolis official pressed a knee into his neck for around nine minutes. The official has been accused of second-degree murder.
12 Years A Slave writer John Ridley said in a Los Angeles Times op-ed Monday that Gone with the Wind must be removed as it “doesn’t just ‘fall short’ with regard to representation” but ignores the horrors of slavery and perpetuates “some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color.”
The film will be aired again sometime in the future, alongside a discussion of its historic context, the company said.
No edits will be made, “because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”
“If we are to create a more just, equitable and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history.”
The show followed real-life US officers on duty for over three decades, but had been accused of glamorizing aspects of policing and distorting issues such as race.
“‘Cops is not on the Paramount Network and we don’t have any current or future plans for it to return,” a network spokesperson told US media Tuesday.
Police shows, both reality and scripted, are among the most-viewed on US TV yet have gone under scrutiny.
“For 30 years, #COPS has normalized injustice and misrepresented crime, policing and race,” tweeted president Rashad Robinson.
“But it’s far from the only crime TV show to do so.”
Dan Taberski, whose podcast Running from Cops claimed the show allowed police to remove unflattering material during editing, said he was “hopeful its cancellation 31 years later is a sign of positive change to come.”
Popular reality cop show Live PD has also been removed from schedules, while Jessica Alba-starring scripted procedural LA’s Finest saw its season premiere delayed Monday.
