ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: December 15

The Premiere of Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind is the highest grossing film of all time, adjusted for all that inflation which is totally Joe Biden’s fault even though he wasn’t born until three years after the movie came out. Because of her performance in the film, Hattie McDaniel became the first Black person to win an Oscar, but at the December 15, 1939, premiere in Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, they said sorry Hattie you can’t attend; whites only.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: December 15, 1939--

Call me an uncultured troglodyte if you wish, but I don’t enjoy classic films. With few exceptions, I don’t like anything before the first Star Wars. The original talking ape movie was okay. That failed gladiator slave revolt against the Roman Empire was pretty good. And the Strangeloveian line “Mr. President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!” is fucking brilliant.

But I find most old movies corny as hell and I hate the way they talk and that’s why I’ve never seen this movie. And I’m not gonna recap it for you because I just don’t give a shit. Instead, let’s examine why the Black community has often said fuck this movie, and those of a colonial complexion have consistently said no let us have this it’s all romantic n’ shit.

The film was based on a book of the same name, published in 1936. The author, Margaret Mitchell, was from a wealthy family in Georgia, if that tells you anything. It was her only novel, selling a million copies in the first six months and earning Mitchell a Pulitzer. However, Black people immediately criticized the book, then criticized the film, for its perpetuation of racial stereotypes and it’s glossing over of the horrors of slavery.  

But this was 1939, and the alabastards did not give one iota of a fuck.

By the time the film version of Gone with the Wind came out, the book had sold seven million copies, and mayosapiens were breathless in anticipation of seeing the big screen adaptation. The north became Dixie-fied, with southern-themed products hot sellers at Macy’s. People embraced plantation nostalgia, viewing slaves as thrilled with being chattel with zero rights to their person. You’d act all smiley too if your life depended on it. Mitchell referred to Black people who protested her book and the film as “trouble-making Professional Negros.”

The film added much fuel to the popularity of the “Lost Cause” myth of the South, which takes historical facts of the Confederacy being racist as fuck and warps it into viewing them as honorable, just, and heroic. Barf and puke and retch.

Of course, the film cleaned up at the 12^th Academy Awards, winning ten out of its thirteen nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. As I mentioned, Hattie won Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film. Although she couldn’t attend the premiere, when it came to the Oscars ceremony the whites-only Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles said okay I guess we can let her in, but she needs to sit at a segregated table off to the side of the room.

If you want to see a great film with an accurate representation of slavery, watch 12 Years a Slave instead.

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