NY Post Critic Says GWTW is Undeniably Racist

The New York Post’s film critic, Lou Lumenick is calling for the 1939 film “Gone with the Wind” to “go the way of the Confederate flag.” The film, he says, “isn’t as blatantly and virulently racist as D.W. Griffith’s ‘Birth of a Nation’ but is “in some ways more insidious, going to great lengths to enshrine the myth that the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery— an institution the film unabashedly romanticizes.”

GWTW is, as the trailer says, “a love affair you will never forget… filled with all the fire and fury of the times in which it happened.” But Lumenick says that when he reviewed “12 Years a Slave” in 2013, he noted that “It will be impossible to ever look at ‘Gone with the Wind’ the same way.” Lou is 65 years old. Surely, “12 Years” isn’t the first film he’s seen showing the brutality of slavery. The award-winning TV miniseries “Roots” came out in 1977. It took him another 30-something years to decide that GWTW is “undeniably racist”?

But, don’t get us wrong, we’re not intending to mount a defense against his opinion. We’re just wondering how many people will agree with it and what far-reaching effects it might have. There’s a ton of GWTW memorabilia out there – from Madame Alexander dolls to playing cards. Turner Classic Movies has a shop devoted to it. The film has been the subject of countless Jeopardy! clues. It has 3 quotes in the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Film Quotes of all time.

The No. 1 quote of all time is: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” What’s ironic about that is if Lumenick’s call to action gets that quote knocked out of the No. 1 spot, the No. 2 quote is “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse,” from “The Godfather”, a film that has been attacked for glorifying organized crime, and here’s a racist remark (around 3:00) that needs be deleted from that.