Margaret Mitchell’s epic historical romance novel Gone with the Wind (1936) has become the latest target of racial controversy as the novel’s publisher is adding a ‘trigger warning’ to the new editions of the book.
Trigger Warning about ‘Racist Depictions’
Fox News along with other mainstream news sources reported early this month that Pan Macmillan, the publisher of Gone with the Wind, has added a trigger warming to the latest edition of the novel printed in 2022. The warning says that this book contains “contains ‘racist’ depictions and content that may be ‘hurtful’ to readers.” Other negative features attributed to the novel in the trigger warning text include: unacceptable practices, problematic elements, harmful phrases and terminology, and troubling themes, characterization, language and imagery.
The warning also tries to clarify why the publisher has chosen not to omit any of the original text of the book:
“This does not, however, constitute an endorsement of the characterization, content or language used.”
HBO’s Removal of the Movie
In summer 2020, HBO temporarily pulled the classic Hollywood movie Gone with the Wind (1939), an adaptation of the novel, due to the left’s political protests in wake of the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by Minnesota police as he resisted arrest. The protests were used to reignite the left’s narrative of racism in America.
The move came after screenwriter John Ridley wrote an op-ed in Los Angeles Times and called on HBO for removal of the movie because he believed the movie glorifies the antebellum south and ignores the horrors of slavery.
Gone with the Wind returned to HBO in a few weeks with a disclaimer saying the movie “denies the horrors of slavery.”
Alternative Trigger Warnings Suggested
Johnny Oleksinski of The New York Post lightheartedly brushed off the trigger warning added to Margaret Mitchell’s novel. He wrote:
“Um, duh! It’s a Civil War story that’s pro-Confederacy.”
Oleksinski listed some of his own trigger warnings that he’d like to affix on some movies as well as on Prince Harry’s “unhinged” memoir Spare.
