The Southern classic Gone with the Wind will come with a warning amid concerns about its portrayal of 19th-century slavery.
Margaret Mitchell’s novel set in Georgia during the American Civil War has been a favorite of generations of book lovers since its publication in 1936.
It was memorably brought to the big screen in 1939 starring Vivien Leigh as southern belle Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable as her lover Rhett Butler.
But publisher Pan Macmillan has now decided that readers might find ‘racist’ aspects of the era ‘hurtful or even harmful’, The telegraph informs.
The novel follows the story of Scarlett O’Hara, the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, as the Confederate South went to war with the
Hopelessly spoiled but equally determined, the story follows Scarlett as she learns to survive and eventually falls for the charms of Captain Butler.
Vivien Leigh (left) as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), with Hattie McDaniel (right) playing her slave Mammy. Both actresses won Oscars for their performances.
But Pan Macmillan’s latest version notes that the novel has not been edited to remove objectionable content, unlike recent books by Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming, adding that this is not “an endorsement” of the book.
The warning about the latest edition describes the book as containing “shocking elements,” including the “romanticization of a shocking era in our history.”
It adds: “The novel includes the depiction of unacceptable practices, racist and stereotypical portrayals, and troubling themes, characterization, language, and imagery.
‘The text of this book remains true to the original in every way and reflects the language and period in which it was originally written.
“We want to alert readers that there may be hurtful or even harmful phrases and terminology that were prevalent at the time this novel was written and are true to the context of the historical setting of this novel.”
In addition, historical fiction writer Philippa Gregory was commissioned to write a new trailer in the latest version, exposing the “white supremacist” aspects of the book.
Clarke Gable (left) as Captain Rhett Butler, the rake who woos Scarlett (right) played by Vivien Leigh
Gregory writes that the novel “tells us, unequivocally, that Africans are not of the same species as whites”, adding: “This is the lie that mars the novel.”
Pan Macmillan explained that Gregory was chosen, as a white writer, to write the essay in order to avoid inflicting “emotional labor” on a minority writer.
Pan Macmillan has been contacted for comment.
Last month, it was reported how a newly discovered script for Gone with the Wind revealed the bitter fallout over the presentation of slavery in the controversial 1939 blockbuster.
The documents shed new light on arguments between production staff and writers over how he covered the race before filming it. It includes missing scenes, as well as correspondence between workers on set, who raised issues at every step of its production.
The script was now purchased at auction by historian David Vincent Kimel for $15,000, who estimated it to be one of half a dozen of its kind, according to the anklet.
It’s one of the legendary ‘Rainbow Scripts’ of the film’s production, named for the different colored pages on which the film’s obsessive producer, David O. Selznick, demanded different sections of the script to be printed.
After production, Selznick demanded that all copies of the script be destroyed. Kimel, a self-proclaimed Gone with the Wind obsessive, said the few that remain reveal the many changes the four-hour film underwent, but the copy he purchased revealed a trove of previously unknown insights into how the team dealt with his depiction of slavery. and race relations.
Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind
The newly discovered Gone with the Wind. It is said that there are about six left
Clarke Gable and Vivien Leigh play Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind
Racist names and descriptions in the recently discovered Gone with the Wind script
According to Kimel, the script revealed the many ways in which Selznick and his writers debated whether to portray slavery in brutal and honest terms, or lean toward sympathetic narratives and portray a romantic antebellum southern landscape.
The Rainbow Script he got his hands on tended to show racism in a more brutal setting, with scenes of Scarlett O’Hara being cruel to her slaves.
In a scene from the script, the protagonist threatens the slave Prissy with a beating and threatens to sell her so she will never see her family again.
I’ll sell you down the river. You will never see your mother or anyone you know again and I will also sell you for a farmhand,” the script says, according to Ankler.
Although the line was cut from the final film, Scarlett offers similar threats, and even slaps Prissy, but the harshness of the interaction was reduced considerably, according to the historian.