Spike Lee Says ‘Gone with the Wind’ “Should Be Seen” by White Audiences

By Claire Spellberg @c_spellberg
Published June 12, 2020, 12:04 p.m. ET

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HBO Max may have temporarily removed Gone with the Wind due to its racist depiction of Black people, but Spike Lee has a very different view on the issue. On Friday morning, the legendary director appeared on The View to discuss his new Netflix film Da 5 Bloods, but the conversation quickly turned to Hollywood’s recent reexamination of films and TV shows. Lee argued that despite its glorification of slavery, Gone with the Wind “should be seen,” if only to remind viewers of their inherent biases.

Lee spent the bulk of his appearance on The View taking down President Trump (or “Agent Orange,” as he calls him), but he devoted a few minutes to the reckoning happening in Hollywood in the wake of George Floyd’s death. “We’ve been having a conversation on this show about Gone with the Wind and it being pulled from HBO Max,” said Meghan McCain. “You’re obviously an Academy Award-winning, legendary filmmaker, and we just wanted to know your perspective on this.”

The Da 5 Bloods director noted that his last film, BlackKklansman, opens with a famous shot from Gone with the Wind, in which Scarlett O’Hara (Viven Leigh) walks among the dead and wounded following a Civil War battle. Lee said that he included this scene because he believes the long-criticized 1939 film should be seen, regardless of its racist depiction of Black people in the antebellum South.

“I think that one of the most racist films ever, D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, should be seen,” continued Lee. Griffith’s 1915 silent film presents its Black characters (many of which were played by white actors in blackface) as sexually aggressive and unintelligent, while also depicting the Ku Klux Klan as heroes who protect white women. “I show that film in my class. I’m a trained professor and New York University grad. I show Birth of a Nation!”

Lee has a point: if you want to put Gone with the Wind or The Birth of a Nation in context, showing Do the Right Thing will certainly do the trick.

Where to stream Gone with the Wind