‘Gone with the Wind’ DVD is No. 1 on Amazon after HBO Max stops streaming the film

The film “Gone with the Wind” shot to the No. 1 spot on Amazon’s list of bestselling movies and television Wednesday after it was removed from HBO Max due to racist depictions of black people.

HBO Max dropped the 1939 Civil War film on Tuesday after John Ridley, the screenwriter who penned “12 Years a Slave,” called on the streaming platform to remove it in an op-ed for The Los Angeles Times the day before.

“As a filmmaker I get that movies are often snapshots of moments in history. They reflect not only the attitudes and opinions of those involved in their creation, but also those of the prevailing culture,” Ridley wrote.

But, he added, the film is problematic because it “glorifies the antebellum south. 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, HBO Max said it would remove the film from its platform, McClatchy News previously reported.

By Wednesday, the “Gone with the Wind” DVD had landed the No. 1 spot on Amazon’s list of bestselling movies and television shows, which is updated by hour, Amazon says. The Blue-ray of the 70th anniversary edition shot to the No. 8 spot while the DVD of the same edition hit No. 9.

The movies were quickly snatched up and resold, Deadline reported, with a new Blue-ray version priced as high as $334.01 and a used version priced at $83.48.

The film is still available to stream on Amazon’s Prime Video service.

“Gone with the Wind” is one of the most popular films of all time and is considered by many to be a classic, but not without controversy. Since its release, the film’s depictions of black people, slavery and the South have drawn a great deal of criticism.

HBO Max said it was temporarily removing the film and that it would return unaltered along with “a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions,” McClatchy reported, adding that editing the movie “would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”

“‘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, according to the New York Times. “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.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 3:51 PM with the headline "‘Gone with the Wind’ DVD is No. 1 on Amazon after HBO Max stops streaming the film."