NPR's Rachel Martin talks to film scholar Jacqueline Stewart, who provided a new introduction with historical context to the film Gone with the Wind for its re-release on HBO Max.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACQUELINE STEWART: From its prologue, the film paints the picture of the antebellum South as a romantic, idyllic setting that's tragically been lost to the past.
For too long, I think we have been presented this film in a way that focuses on it as a fiction, as a fantasy, but not as a text that also teaches us something about the history of Hollywood filmmaking and the ongoing impact that many of these narratives have had in the - not just American, but in the global imagination about slavery and the Civil War.
MARTIN: "Gone With The Wind," for all its problems, was groundbreaking in that it made actress Hattie McDaniel the first African American to win an Oscar.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAQUELINE SCHWAB'S "BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM")
NOEL KING, HOST:
That was our co-host Rachel Martin talking to film scholar Jacqueline Stewart.
