The Progressive Scarlett O'Hara

In the summer of 2020, HBO removed Gone with the Wind (1939) from its streaming service. The move came in response to an op-ed by John Ridley, screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave (2013), which charged that the film “glorifies the antebellum south,” “romanticizes the Confederacy,” and perpetuates the myth of the Lost Cause. Progressives rushed to denounce the film, and conservatives rose up in its defense. The controversy was not bad for the film’s sales (Gone with the Wind promptly shot to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list), but it had the unfortunate effect of perpetuating a false idea of its source material, Margaret Mitchell’s novel of the same title, which is less reactionary, and more progressive, than the polemics around it suggest.