But here’s the thing: Gone With the Wind won’t go away anytime soon. The comparisons to McQueen’s film reared their heads again during the 2014 Oscars when the Academy awkwardly decided to celebrate the glory days of 1939 by ignoring the film that swept the awards that year – and continues to be the highest grossing film of all time – and instead paying homage to the more family-friendly and non-controversial classic The Wizard of Oz. Why then, would the BFI re-release a film that whitewashed the treatment of slaves during the antebellum era? Guardian contributor John Patterson, who completely missed the point, asked, “Are they looking to generate coattail ticket receipts from the controversy attending Steve McQueen’s harrowing and violent epic? Do they think some retirement-home demographic of faded southern belles and elderly white racists will emerge, stooped and wrinkled, to reclaim it one last time?” Finally, many said, the film business was ready to tell a story that showed one of America’s most shameful institutions in harsh and uncomfortable detail. It also coincided with the theatrical release of Steve McQueen’s critically acclaimed film 12 Years a Slave.

The event was the end cap of a successful season in London commemorating the 100th birthday of the film’s star, Vivien Leigh. In November of last year, the British Film Institute released Gone With the Wind in cinemas across the United Kingdom.

The Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind

Margaret mitchell mammy