‘Gone With The Wind’ To Get Trigger Warning For “Hurtful Or Harmful” Aspects Of 19th-Century Slavery
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Gone With the Wind will now come with a trigger warning for those affected by descriptions of 19th century slavery in the Deep South.
The Daily Telegraph in the UK reports that publisher Pan Macmillan has decided readers could find depictions of the era “hurtful or indeed harmful,” and is adding a warning to new editions of Margaret Mitchell’s classic novel – published in 1936 and brought to the screen in 1939 starring Vivien Leigh and Clarke Gable as southern belle Scarlett O’Hara and her husband Rhett Butler.
In contract with recent issues ofAgatha Christie works – which have been edited to remove content considered objectionable in 2023– Mitchell’s copy has not been altered, but the warning gives notice of “shocking elements” and “the romanticization of a shocking era in our history.”
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It adds: ‘The novel includes the representation of unacceptable practices, racist and stereotypical depictions and troubling themes, characterisation, language and imagery.”
The new editions of the novel will also include a foreword by historical fiction writer Philippa Gregory, explaining the “white supremacist” aspects of the story.
The Telegraph reports the publisher asked Gregory, a white writer, to provide the essay, “in order to avoid inflicting emotional labour on a minority writer.”
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43 Comments
- Julianne Remley
I am from the north by my family is from the south.
- Anonymous
What about the movie Amistad? Are they going to try and erase that from our history?
- Mike H.
This is not a trigger warning. It’s a content warning. Trigger warnings are for things that can trigger someone’s PTSD or other similar mental health issues. This just tells people that there are depictions of slavery and that it romanticizes the era.
Also, a lot of the comments complain about changing things. Nothing is being changed. It’s just an added disclaimer at the beginning.
- Anonymous
We’ve become so weak.
- Ronnie
You can’t change the ugliness of slavery. You can be offended by it, as nearly everyone is, but by not depicting how it truly was is disingenuous. What’s next? Are they going to ban the miniseries of Alex Haley‘s Roots because it’s triggering? There was much brutality in that storytelling but when it first came on, almost everyone in the country watched it and decided to look up their family history more than being offended by its violent and realistic depictions.
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