Megyn Kelly, the woman who doesn’t understand why it’s racist to dress up in blackface and who wants kids to know that Santa is white, is now outraged over the temporary removal of Gone With the Wind from HBO Max’s library.
In case you missed the brouhaha, The New York Times explains:
[O]n Monday — amid intense reflections on depictions of race and policing in popular culture after protests about police brutality — the filmmaker John Ridley wrote an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times pleading with HBO Max to remove “Gone With the Wind” from its streaming library. “It is a film that glorifies the antebellum south,” wrote Ridley, who won an Oscar for the “12 Years a Slave” screenplay. “It is a film that, when it is not ignoring the horrors of slavery, pauses only to perpetuate some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color.”
On Tuesday night, the service temporarily pulled the film from its catalog, citing the need for “an explanation and a denouncement” of the movie’s depictions of race relations — presumably something similar to the “outdated cultural depictions” disclaimer offered on some titles on Disney Plus.
Got that? It was temporarily removed. But Kelly, went into a paroxysm of snark and sarcasm:
Are we going to pull all of the movies in which women are treated as sex objects too? Guess how many films we’ll have left?Where does this end?? https://t.co/Bh8mqpv0l3
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 10, 2020
Ok @hbomax - let’s do this - every episode of “Friends” needs to go right now. If not, you hate women (& LGBTQ ppl,
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 10, 2020
who also don’t fare well on “Friends”). Obviously Game of Thrones has to go right now. Anything by John Hughes ... Woody Allen... could go on & on... & on...& on... https://t.co/dVXWssnFKF
Totally. Forgot those guys. Let’s keep it going until all we have left is The Queen and Captain America. https://t.co/KNibMQXhEv
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 10, 2020
As a former librarian, I am almost unconditionally against the removal of material from the public sphere. However, I can't get worked over a temporary removal, especially when the country is on edge over the issues that are falsely portrayed in the book and movie. More importantly, it wouldn’t kill Kelly to take a moment to think about how the film might be especially hurtful to African Americans right now, rather than mock their pain.
The View’s Sunny Hostin nicely put Kelly in her place today. Let’s hope she was watching.
HOSTIN: You know, my biggest concern right now isn’t the availability of Gone with the Wind on HBO but a spokesperson for HBO Max has already explained that the film is going to return to HBO Max along with additional content to provide that context that you just described because the movie does, in a sense, you know, glorify the Confederacy and the antebellum south and it doesn’t provide the true horrors of slavery…
Nobody, I think, on this panel is in favor of censorship but again, this is – and what I find interesting is that someone like Megyn Kelly spent all morning tweeting about this. I’d like to see that same energy from people on the right rather than talking about this issue, talking about the voter suppression that happened yesterday in Georgia, talking about the 112,000 Americans that are still dead from Covid. You know, discussing things like that rather than putting Gone With the Wind in context. I think this is much ado about nothing and I think this is a big distraction.
You can watch Hostin shred Kelly below, from ABC's June 10, 2020 The View.
(H/T Mediaite)
(Kelly image via screen grab)
