Former Fox News anchor and failed morning show host Megyn Kelly had a truly epic Twitter meltdown this morning after learning that HBO Max had temporarily removed Gone With The Wind from its platform for glamorizing slavery and promoting white supremacy.
In a statement, the network said:
Gone with the Wind is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society. These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible.
Evidently, however, this didn’t sit well with Kelly who, as you may recall, was canned from NBC in 2018 after she defended wearing blackface.
“Are we going to pull all of the movies in which women are treated as sex objects too? Guess how many films we’ll have left? Where does this end??” she raged on Twitter at 5:57 this morning.
Are we going to pull all of the movies in which women are treated as sex objects too? Guess how many films we’ll have left?Where does this end?? https://t.co/Bh8mqpv0l3
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 10, 2020
Kelly, who believes Jesus and Santa are white, then expressed her outrage over COPS being canceled and Live PD being put on hold in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, saying, “If you don’t like it, don’t watch.”
‘Live PD’ is consistently one of the highest rated shows on cable. But now it may go away bc even watching a police show is somehow offensive to some. (Secret option #2: if you don’t like it, don’t watch.) https://t.co/CKmlcoZxnN
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 10, 2020
Oh, but it didn’t stop there.
Next Kelly, who believes businesses should be able to discriminate against LGBTQ people on religious grounds, demanded HBO Max also remove Friends because of how it depicts women and LGBTQ people, as well as several other shows that she feels are problematic.
Ok @hbomax – let’s do this – every episode of “Friends” needs to go right now. If not, you hate women (& LGBTQ ppl,
who also don’t fare well on “Friends”). Obviously Game of Thrones has to go right now. Anything by John Hughes … Woody Allen… could go on & on… & on…& on… https://t.co/dVXWssnFKF— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 10, 2020
Kelly, who believes “All Lives Matter”, concluded her Twitter tantrum by saying a person can be opposed to racism, sexism, and homophobia without “censoring” it… because how dare people be intolerant of other people’s intolerance!
“For the record, you can loathe bad cops, racism, sexism, bias against the LGBTQ community, and not censor historical movies, books, music and art that don’t portray those groups perfectly,” she tweeted.
Then, without any sense of irony, she added, “Ppl understand art reflects life… as we evolve, so do our cultural touchstones.”
For the record, you can loathe bad cops, racism, sexism, bias against the LGBTQ community, and not censor historical movies, books, music and art that don’t portray those groups perfectly. Ppl understand art reflects life… as we evolve, so do our cultural touchstones.
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 10, 2020
Related: Blackface apologist Megyn Kelly deserves the hell she’s getting–and much more
Smith David
As an African-American male, I can agree that she makes several valid points. However, in this moment, in this current America with all that’s going on……guuurl, I could careless about your princess problems. How about we start rallying around to get folks educated about the vote for change come November’ 2020.
ScottOnEarth
Great comment, David! 🙂
sonic_source
LOL!! “Princess problems”…I’m stealing that one 🙂
IanHunter
Thank you for winning the comments section. Perfectly said.
Cam
Nothing enrages racists more than the thought that racism may actually have a consequence.
donknightner
Very well said Cam.
Jake123
While I really don’t like Kelly. This Gone with the Wind business is a little ridiculous.
pym_sd
Who is she again ? Girl Bye!
ciasteczek
The gone with the wind thing is the most ridiculous thing i read whole week
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
From the article: ““For the record, you can loathe bad cops, racism, sexism, bias against the LGBTQ community, and not censor historical movies, books, music and art that don’t portray those groups perfectly,” she tweeted.”
For once I think she makes sense. As for the movie Gone With the Wind it is inconceivable to believe that movies glorifies slavery when not only is it about a war that claimed more lives than any other in American history is main character, Rhett Butler (brilliantly portrayed by actor Clark Gable) a southerner, argued against going to war and could not for the life in him convinced those ignorant btards that it was useless to fight a power that had the industrial might that the north had. For every ONE factory the south had the north had FIVE and he pointed that out to them but they shouted him down. It is a dramatization of horrific time and its also a damn good movie. It shows how ignorance and greed won over common sense. Its almost as if the powers that be would prefer that todays present day ignorant not be able to put two and two together to see how an undivided nation becomes unglued and can easily lead to its own destruction. Yes kiddies, there just might be more to the removal of that movie than you are able to decipher thanks to numerous obstacles thrown at you to obstruct common sensible thinking. Think about it for minute.
Creamsicle
Just because it’s no longer available on HBO’s streaming services, does not make it impossible to view the film. There will be ways to access the film for years, but no business has a responsibility to deliver it on their platform.
If Megyn Kelly feels so strongly about it, then maybe she should buy the distribution rights to the movie and to Cops. Then she can make her brand by streaming Cops on twitch and commenting on it.
Actually…any indication they’re looking to dump the show as a property? It might actually be a fantastic idea for BLM to purchase the rights to Cops, so they can license content creators who want to use clips from the show to pick apart examples of systemic racism in policing and critically evaluate the way that media builds false narratives to convince us that we need violent policing.
trsxyz
Pulling the classic film Gone With The Wind?? Yeah… that’s ridiculous.
Cam
Some of the same people on Twitter screaming that not showing Gone with the Wind is the end of the world, were the same accounts freaking out because black people dared to call some women “Karen”.
donknightner
Again Cam, Brilliantly said….
radiooutmike
Oh, good grief. They pulled a movie from their service at particularly incendiary time. It’s not like they’re burning celluloid and erasing digital files.
Bob
I can see the management running around in circles with their hands up panicking about being protested against. This is just an attempt to get out of the way.
Brian
Of course, she was proven completely right about blackface. When she was a kid it WAS considered no big deal, as evidenced by resurfaced yearbooks, pictures and videos that nobody cared about until now. Even NBC, the network who fired her for her comments, ran a Jimmy Fallon blackface SNL skit.
And she’s right about this too. There is no shortage of problematic material in entertainment that would never fly today. To single out one 80 year old movie, only because race is a hot button topic right now, is the worst kind of pandering. What, nobody knew about Gone With The Wind when HBO Max launched LAST MONTH?
pym_sd
I never paid attention to the comment section until recently but you are for sure a REAL TROLL !!
Cam
Except that’s a lie. Megyn Kelly graduated around 1990. In 1993 Ted Danson was raked over the coals for doing a comedy routine in blackface at the Friars club, even though his girlfriend at the time was Whoopie Goldberg. The response was immediate.
So no, it wasn’t “Ok” when Megyn was younger. Unless you were racist. Or the kind of person who goes into a rage at the idea that Santa might not be white.
Brian
Wrong, as usual. It was considered so harmless that it was included in high school yearbooks. I don’t even remember who it was, but I remember two of them surfacing a couple of years back. I think one was Justin Trudeau? He’s younger than Megyn.
Bananarama’s I Want You Back video from 88. The movie Soul Man from the mid 80s. Jimmy Fallon on SNL in 2000. Robert Downey Jr in Tropic Thunder and Sarah Silverman on her Comedy Central Show in the 2000s. And those are just of the top of my head, a little googling would give me 50 more modern era examples that nobody cared much about at the time.
Scout
This removal of a classic film is just one example of a dumbed down public education where children are not taught American historical eras in context of their time. We now have a generation of ignorant adults who cannot accept or understand that what went on back in the 1800’s was caused by previous events and attitudes. Thus, the reaction becomes emotional rather than one of rational comparison, and all that happened back then that does not meet our current moral values should be destroyed and vilified.
Cam
Acting like a not being able to get a Pop culture movie off of Amazon is the “Dumbing down of America” is ridiculous.
If people were asking for more funding for education with as much effort as they are complaining that Amazon decided not to run a movie based upon a book glorifying the Confederacy, THEN I would believe they cared about education.
Creamsicle
How is a movie being pulled off a streaming site “dumbing down America?” Sure, the movie has a significance from a film history perspective (as in the history of film), but the story and the depictions of the Antebellum South have nothing to do with an accurate depiction of life in the era.
If someone wants to learn about the Civil War and the Sherman’s March to the Sea, there are history books and historical documentaries that explore that from a variety of perspectives without squarely sympathizing with slave owners and ignoring the violent, exploitative horror of slavery.
WSnyder
I think we’re mature enough to recognize a ‘period piece’ and accept it for what it is. It would also be a good idea to add a simple statement ahead of the movie for actions or depictions that occur and identified as such. Example: ‘This movie depicts slavery and racism which was prevalent at the time period portrayed by this movie’. Or ‘This movie depicts slavery and antisemitism which occurred during the period portrayed in this movie’ [for movies like Ben-Hur and the 10 Commandments]. The WORST thing a studio could do is ‘sanitize’ the history pieces for horrible things that were occurring during those times. History should be portrayed accurately so that we recognize it for what it was and understand.
As for ‘Cops’? Great, glad it’s gone. Too often anyone with some Law Enforcement knowledge would identify it’s inaccurate and prejudiced approach. Like many ‘Reality’ shows it dramatized situations and vastly overplayed interactions to depict tension and suspense when there was none. It fed a false narrative that minorities were the violent bad guys, the white criminals were just losers and comic relief and the white male cops were always the heroes. That show did more to hurt race relations than most any other over the past decade.
Bob
I’ve heard that the show went to black neighborhoods on purpose, for ratings and less people afraid to be shown. Stupid white boys with powerful daddies usually don’t want to be shown there.
karl61058
Think that I remember something at the beginning of “Gone With The Wind” is just such a disclaimer. Don’t have a copy of it right now and can’t go to the library because they are all closed. But, somebody take a look and see-for the betterment of everyone here.
And just a side note-what happened to punctuation? It would make something more readable.
Thanks.
Spidey137
While I agree with her, if you’re outraged about this and not what’s happening right now, you may be part of the problem.
A lot of people this past week were outraged about riots. I kept asking them where is their same outrage or passion for the Black Lives Matter movement.
I love “Gone With the Wind.” Vivien Leigh was phenomenal. However, I think we can all live not watching the movie at this moment when real work needs to be done in this country.
Kangol2
Megyn Kelly is trying to find something to boost her relevance, but she’s the one who threw away her attempt at a mainstream career, so goodbye, good riddance. As films go, I personally detest Gone With the Wind, which is an overtly racist, pro-slavery film, full of racist stereotypes, with excellent acting. Margaret Mitchell’s novel on which the film is based is actually far worse, though, and brimming with the n-word.
If people really want to know about the US Civil War, there are a number of excellent documentaries and even popular historical studies that are sound and enjoyable to explore, but GWTW has about as much relation to the reality of the extremely brutal and unglamorous US Civil War as Apocalypse Now had to the Vietnam War, and it too is a thrilling film, but skewed in its history.
CityguyUSA
I’m a bit concerned. It’s when you remove these things from society that society doesn’t know it’s history and repeats it. They have a place in our society as reminders. I’m not as concerned about cops because Hollywood won’t exist without crime shows.
pym_sd
Do you need to read mein Kampf to know that Nazis and Jewish population was exterminated in camp ? Do you need a statue of a confederate general to remember Civil war ? Do you need gone with the wind to remember Slavery ??? lets be serious here … u do not need those to remember … u need a history book !!!
Cam
Remember, the goal of the right wing is to create faux outrage to deflect from the fact that people are protesting innocent black people being murdered and abused by police officers.
Creamsicle
If Kelly truly feels this way, she can use her considerable resources to put her money where her mouth is. She should offer to purchase the rights to distribute Gone with the Wind, and acquire the production company behind COPS, and set up a streaming company dedicated to all the media she believes is under attack.
Bob
Does she have any more money?
Bulovaboy
This is even more Racist then racism. Whats next the munchkins from Wizard of OZ? Seriously, a Classic film, You people are Effin nuts.