HBO Max had the script already. “Depictions in this film are representative of a different sensitivity to sensitive subjects , etc. Did they use it? Nope. And now look what happened. Disney saw it coming from a mile away and knew there could be an uproar to Peter Pan and meeting “the Indians” and Dumbo with “Jim,” the crow and other various depictions from a much less sensitive time. Like they have for years Disney skipped out completely on Song of The South. But it put the vast majority of its period content on the service out there with a disclaimer. But those who do not learn from the mistakes or even best practices of others end up hitting their thumb with a hammer instead of putting together a bench. And that is exactly what HBO Max did to itself when it unveiled the service with Gone With The Wind in tow.
I have not surveyed the entirety of the Turner catalogue but there are probably a number of scenes or movies in general where there could be objections in our current environment. For instance when it comes to women’s rights I once saw an old version of the Sea Biscuit story where a man said the women in his family basically need to be conquered by a strong man who will take care of them. In the classic War of The Worlds a woman who states that she has a masters or PHD in science (I don’t recall the specifics) is reduced to a coffee server for the men when the shooting starts and there is a Mexican man with a ridiculous stereotype accent that would get most people booted from TV now. And that’s just two right off the top of my head. Who knows how many westerns on the service feature white actors made up to look like natives.
The company should have been prepared especially considering that it put the film front and center in its promotional campaign. How was there never a board room meeting where someone said, should we do what Disney did? I don’t know how they couldn’t anticipate it. I was once on a university committee for an international food fest that got caught up in a discussion as to whether an eagle on the promotional pamphlet looked like it was trying to attack representations of other countries. And this was for an event at a rural university in North Carolina. For HBO to be in the position of having to react now is a giant miss step on top of launching a streaming service that is not available on Roku or the Fire TV.
This is a world wide media brand that should have gotten this simple thing right. One sentence might have saved a world of trouble. Oh and Peacock, you might want to think of how to approach a certain episode of 30 Rock featuring John Ham.
