‘I cringe at the slave portions’: How fans of Gone with the Wind negotiate anti-racist criticism

Abstract

In recent years an increasing number of cultural products have come under fire for moral or political reasons, such as racist or sexist content, in the mainstream (White) public sphere. An outstanding example is the classic 1939 film Gone with the Wind (GWTW), which is loved by many but also strongly criticised for glorifying the American Antebellum South and ignoring the inhumanity of slavery. This case study explores how fans of the film (and the novel on which it was based) negotiate their appreciation of GWTW and these controversial issues. Using an open-ended survey and follow-up interviews, we explore two dominant narratives among the film's predominantly White fans: one that fiercely defends the film against criticism and one that expresses increased feelings of ambivalence and awkwardness. Thus, we add a more self-reflective and dynamic approach to scholarship on cultural taste, audience reception, and fan studies.

A classic film under fire

In June 2020, Warner Media's newly launched streaming service HBO Max included the 1939 Hollywood classic Gone with the Wind (GWTW; Fleming, 1939). Though legendary for its epic length of almost 4 hours, its lush costumes photographed in Technicolor, and its – at the time – record number of eight Academy Awards, it is also highly controversial. Set on a cotton plantation near Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1860s, it centres on the story of Scarlett O’Hara, a young spoiled White woman who rebuilds her plantation and status after she lost nearly everything during the Civil War (1861−65). In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, filmmaker John Ridley (2020) criticised the film's glorification of the Antebellum South, its ‘ignoring [of] the horrors of slavery’, and its perpetuation of ‘painful stereotypes of people of color’. Also, considering the timing of HBO Max's launch, right after George Floyd's murder refuelled the Black Lives Matter movement, Ridley demanded the film's temporary removal and later re-introduction in a broader context on slavery and the Confederacy. Following this op-ed and social media protests, HBO Max withdrew the film, only to re-release it a few weeks later, accompanied by an introduction by African American film scholar Jacqueline Stewart. She reflects on its distorted depiction of history and the ‘uncomfortable, even painful’ feelings it elicits among many viewers, but she also argues for the availability of this cultural heritage in the public domain (Turner Classic Movies, 2020).

GWTW is one example of the recent rise in politically progressive moral objections against works of art and popular culture in the mainstream media. For instance, anti-racist criticism on the use of blackface on TV shows like Golden Girls and The Office and Black stereotypes in Disney films such as Dumbo led to added disclaimers and the removal of scenes and episodes from streaming platforms. Such objections – often dismissed by critics as ‘cancel culture’ (Clark, 2020) – may also target, for example, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, ableism, the propagation of violence, or unhealthy habits. Though it is often contemporary works that are under fire, works from the past are also increasingly targeted.

Our case study, Gone with the Wind, is a prime example of the latter. It is based on a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell, an Atlanta native who drew upon both historical research and her family's nostalgic stories about her ancestry (Mitchell, 1936; Taylor, 1989). Both the novel and the film are hugely popular among several generations of (predominantly White) women, not only because of the storyline of a passionate but troublesome romance but also due to its strong female protagonist (Taylor, 1989). Many White women saw Scarlett as an early feminist role model despite – and perhaps also because of – her unscrupulous character (Taylor, 1989). However, already at the premiere, the film sparked strong protests by Black people due to its depiction of slavery. At cinema entrances, they protested with banners (Leff, 1999), ¹ while reviews in Black newspapers were divided (Stevens, 1973; Tracy, 2001). Even though the producer, David O. Selznick, had intended to portray Black people in a positive way, instilled by both his liberal beliefs and pressure from the civil rights organisation the NAACP, the eventual result is a film in which slavery is almost erased. Selznick's perhaps noble efforts to reduce the novel's overt racism resulted in a relatively more covert type of racism (Williams, 2001). In the following decades, many film scholars and other academics scrutinised GWTW's racist aspects (e.g. St John, 2001; Vera and Gordon, 2003; Wallace-Sanders, 2008). Mainstream White audiences largely ignored this debate, although Taylor (1989) showed that already in the 1980s, many British GWTW fans – particularly younger generations – had problems with its racial stereotyping when prompted. However, she did not dive further into the issue.

The more recent proliferation of anti-racist criticism in mainstream media across the Global North – to which the film's temporary removal by HBO Max contributed – raises the question of in what ways fans respond to criticism beyond the polemical battles on social media. How did they get acquainted with these objections, and how do they negotiate between their appreciation of the work and their own or other people's criticism? This study builds on Hall's (1999 [1973]) model of the different possible ‘decodings’ of an artwork to explore such processes of evolving readings and encounters with opinions different from one's own. Thus, it aims to move beyond a mere comparison between such divergent readings, as sometimes practised in reception studies (e.g. Jhally and Lewis, 1992). Indeed, ambivalent, negotiated readings of a singular cultural product are frequently reported but remain underexplored issues in fan and reception studies (e.g. Driessen, 2020).

We conducted an open-ended survey and several follow-up interviews to answer the research question: How do fans of Gone with the Wind experience and evaluate the film and/or novel in the light of anti-racist criticism, and how did their experiences and evaluations change over time? We will first relate scholarly literature in critical humanities, audience reception, and fan studies to Hall's (1999 [1973]) encoding-decoding model. After a brief reflection on the methods used, we will explore the two opposite narratives to which our respondents resorted: they either expressed increased ambivalent feelings or presented defensive arguments. We will conclude with suggestions for further research into comparable cases.

Studying moral decodings of popular culture

Stuart Hall’s (1999 [1973]) encoding and decoding model provides a valuable approach to studying divergent and ambivalent readings of cultural products. According to Hall, producers – consciously or not – encode meanings in a cultural product, which audiences, in turn, decode. Although the producer's encoded or preferred meaning cannot be deduced by later scholars, a pattern of preferred readings can be approximated by contextual information, in this case, Mitchell's nostalgic view of her ancestry and Selznick's efforts to reduce the racism as depicted in the novel.

Not all audiences operate within the parameters set by this presumed encoding. Next to identification and approval (which Hall labels as the ‘dominant or preferred reading’, regardless of whether this reading actually dominates), audiences can also disapprove and reject this reading (an ‘oppositional reading’) or misidentify it (an ‘aberrant reading’). A fourth option is a ‘negotiated reading’, which refers to a more ambivalent position between recognition and opposition, usually involving contradictory justifications. The type of decoding depends on one's ‘framework of reference’ and is influenced by personal characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, and nationality, but it can also change over time. Our study aims to identify contemporary, mainly White audiences’ decodings of GWTW, particularly their responses to others’ oppositional – anti-racist – readings: either in a defensive way, by holding on to the preferred reading, or by shifting towards a more oppositional or negotiated reading themselves.

There is no dearth of scholarly critical readings of works of art or popular culture deemed racist. Literary and cultural studies, for instance, have paid attention to issues such as stereotypes of Black people in novels (Brown, 1933), the cinematic tradition of ‘White saviours’ who rescue non-White characters from unfortunate circumstances (Hughey, 2010; Vera and Gordon, 2003), the racialised reception of films by mainstream reviewers in the Black and White press (Martin, 2021), and the ‘oppositional gaze’ which Black female spectators developed about mainstream – read: White – films (hooks, 1992). However, empirical studies on audiences’ oppositional readings are scarce, particularly regarding issues such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. Studies on the readings and reflections of audiences from dominant rather than subordinate groups on such issues, in this case, White audiences on racism in film, are even scarcer. Both quantitative and qualitative mainstream sociological studies on cultural taste in general tend to ignore moral or political criticism but focus on aesthetic valuations or emotional responses instead (e.g. Bennett et al., 2009; Bourdieu, 1984; Van den Haak, 2014). There are some rich sociological studies on art controversies (e.g. Heinich, 2000; Tepper, 2011), but these predominantly discuss oppositional readings by political conservatives, for instance, on nudity and sacrilege.

Some audience reception studies of particular works do discuss divergent readings by dominant groups, such as Vidmar and Rokeach's (1979) quantitative study on the sitcom All in the Family, featuring an openly racist protagonist that can be laughed at or laughed with. An interesting example of qualitative research is Jhally and Lewis (1992) study on The Cosby Show, the immensely popular 1980s sitcom about a Black upper-middle-class family, which audiences simultaneously praised for its realistic and non-stereotypical portrayal of an African American family and criticised for its unrealistic depiction of race and class relations. As they argue, the show functioned as an apology for a racist system that disadvantages most Black people, allowing White people the luxury of being both liberal (watching, enjoying, and identifying with the show and its characters) and intolerant (feeling suspicious of any Black people other than the protagonists). Although Jhally and Lewis address divergent and ambivalent readings of The Cosby Show, they do not inquire into potential changes in individuals’ valuations over time, nor do they confront respondents with readings that differ from their own.

A further potentially fruitful angle is the rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field of fan studies. Though there is no fixed definition, the term ‘fan’ usually refers to a person who exhibits strong interest or admiration for a particular celebrity, film, etc. (Hills, 2002: ix; Zwaan et al., 2016: 3). Jenkins (1992) argues that fandom is built on oppositional readings. Fans’ disappointment with character development – for instance, the heteronormativity of the Star Trek characters Spock and Kirk – gives impetus to the writing and sharing of alternative stories: fan fiction. Gray (2003) proposes the useful concept of the ‘anti-fan’: a person who – often online – invests much time in criticising or ‘hating’ rather than adoring certain celebrities or works. Anti-fans often focus on the moral dimensions of a work, arguing that it might negatively affect imagined others (Gray, 2005). This concept has mainly been used to analyse conservative, misogynist, and racist responses (comparable to the ‘toxic fan’, e.g. Hills 2018). However, some scholars expanded its reach by including progressive critics, such as Black audiences criticising racist works (Wanzo, 2015). Whereas the latter group challenge the ‘doxa’ of a particular fandom – that is, the notion of taken-for-granted principles of what constitutes a ‘proper’ fan – conservative fans feel the need to defend this doxa (Hills, 2018; cf. Driessen, 2020). Such defence mechanisms against progressive moral critique have hardly been explored (Driessen, 2020). Fans often defend themselves against external hostility regarding the alleged excessiveness of their fandom as such by using ‘discursive mantras’: relatively stable discursive structures widely shared in the fan community (Hills, 2002; cf. Jensen, 1992). We will explore how GWTW fans apply such mantras in the face of oppositional readings of the object of their fandom.

Some scholarship on anti-fans discusses ambivalent fans who became disappointed in their favourite works or artists: they are ‘fans of the text as a whole yet also anti-fans of specific parts’ (Gray, 2019: 30). However, such ambivalences and dynamics, comparable to Hall's negotiated readings, are often studied among fans of continuing TV series (Hills, 2019) or celebrities (e.g. Claessens and Van den Bulck, 2016) rather than among fans of singular works such as a film. ² An interesting exception is Salter's (2020) concept of the ‘problematic fave’: a favourite person or character that one likes, despite condemning their words or actions.

By applying Hall's encoding-decoding model, this study aims to build a bridge between humanities scholarship on racism in film on the one hand and social science research on cultural taste, audience reception, and fans on the other. It explores self-narratives on changed attitudes, expressed ambivalent feelings, and encounters with divergent readings of one's beloved work.

Turning to the audience of Gone with the Wind

In order to find out how audiences of GWTW perceive criticisms of the racist character of the novel and film, we conducted a survey and interviews. Besides some closed questions on, for instance, viewing frequency, the survey mainly consisted of open questions that invited respondents to share their stories on their first encounter with GWTW (novel and/or film) and reflect on potential changes to their opinions over time. Apart from a brief introductory text on the film's removal from HBO Max, we did not explicitly mention racism ourselves. This narrative approach is uncommon in survey research but can yield rich stories that move beyond open questions with limited space (Sools, 2020) while providing a platform for a more collaborative approach than interview research does. The survey was posted online in English and Dutch in November 2020 and was promoted via our university's and personal networks. We also contacted the moderators of several GWTW fan pages on Facebook, but they either did not reply or expressed hesitance to ‘invite politics’ in discussing their favourite film. However, one member of a smaller fan group, who discovered the survey by herself, did share it with her group members, which resulted in an increased response from that particular fan community.

Although the response was based on self-selection and we were unable to target specific audiences, our method satisfied our aim of studying different narratives. thirty-eight people responded, ³ including twenty-nine women and eight men (one person did not disclose their gender) born between 1939 and 2000, with more than half born in the 1960s or 1970s. Fifteen of them were born in the US, twelve in the Netherlands, and ten in various other countries (one person did not specify). Because race and ethnicity are dynamic social constructs shaped by geographic, cultural, and socio-political forces, and because of large differences in international terminologies and practices, ⁴ we did not directly ask for respondents’ race or ethnicity. Instead, we left an open question asking for additional relevant information. In hindsight, we missed relevant data when analysing stances on race and racism. Nevertheless, analysis of the content of the narratives gives us reason to believe that the vast majority can be identified as White.

From our survey, three main narratives emerge. First, seventeen respondents did not reflect on the film's treatment of race at all, or only highly implicitly. It is unclear whether a lack of awareness or deliberate avoidance causes this non-reflexivity. A second group of seven respondents showed awareness of race issues but defended the film; they held on to the presumed dominant reading. In both groups, American, female, middle-aged, devoted fans are over-represented. ⁵ The third, more diverse group consists of fourteen respondents and is more ambivalent, trying to negotiate both readings: most of them still like the film, but they ‘cringe at the slave portions’, as Lisa ⁶ puts it.

Twenty-one respondents left their email address for a potential follow-up interview. The first and third authors conducted these interviews online with seven people in June and July 2021. These included five women and two men, born between 1963 and 1990. Four respondents were American, one was British, one French, and one Indian. The interviews were semi-structured and ran between 34 and 80 minutes (median: 49). We attempted to interview three people from each group. However, whereas most respondents we contacted from the ambivalent and the defensive group were eager to discuss the film further, the ‘non-reflexive’ group was less easy to convince. From this group, we interviewed only one person, who appeared to be highly ambivalent, too. We asked the interviewees to reflect specifically on issues of race regarding the film and novel, and how their readings and feelings had changed over time. To explicitly present our interviewees’ divergent sides of the debate, we concluded each interview with the same five statements, culled from the survey answers. In this way, we encouraged them to reflect on the issue from different angles without giving the impression that we were pushing our own opinions or instigating a debate between interviewer and respondent. At the same time, we remained aware of our identity as White European academics, as it plays a role in the self-presentations that respondents give to us and in our interpretations (Pande, 2020).

‘I wanted TO BE Scarlett’: on fans’ attraction to the film

To contextualise our respondents’ comments on race in GWTW, we show how important the film is to many of them, who identify as fans of GWTW or film enthusiasts who also like this particular film. While one person indicates never having seen the film and five more respondents saw it only once, fifteen respondents say they have seen it between two and five times, and seventeen even six times or more. Several respondents added to the open questions that they saw it dozens of times or rewatch it at least once a year. Twenty-six respondents had also read the novel, of whom six had read it six times or more. Many became acquainted with the novel and/or the film at a young age, often via their mother, sister, or other female relation. As befits fans, several respondents also read books about GWTW, collected memorabilia, or visited tourist attractions such as Margaret Mitchell's house in Atlanta. One respondent had even named her daughters Scarlett and Vivian (after the actress Vivien Leigh – though spelt differently – who portrays Scarlett).

Many write and speak passionately about GWTW. While they love the romantic melodrama, the humour, the film's imagery, and the costumes, two aspects stand out. First, several women and a few men strongly identify with the main protagonist: ‘I wanted TO BE Scarlett’ (Donna). Benjamin explains: ‘The character of Scarlett O’Hara really spoke to me, because she is at odds with the time and circumstances she lives in, which I, as a closeted gay kid, was also, at that time.’ This identification occurs despite – and sometimes even because of – her vile character, which does not go unnoticed: ‘The fact that she's a[n] antiheroine; a vain, selfish monster, a terrible mother, the list goes on, but that, as reader, you still root for her’ (Benjamin). Yet, it is her survival instinct through her ‘autonomy […] inventiveness and resoluteness’ (Hilda, translated from Dutch) that makes her a sort of feminist role model after all. This directly impacts some of our respondents’ lives, helping them ‘through tough times’ (Ruth). Kate is the most outspoken on this impact, which she actively seeks:

Throughout each portion of my life, GWTW has changed. For example, as a new mother, I remember reading it just to read about Scarlett's mothering (or lack of). […] When I lost my mother, I remember reading about Scarlett returning to Tara [the estate] after the fall of Atlanta. As the years have gone by, it has become my touchstone.

The author Margaret Mitchell is praised as a feminist icon, too, being a writer who ‘was not quite taken seriously’ (Rosa, translated from Dutch). Mitchell's research into her ancestors connects with the second main point of attraction: its relation to White American history. The storylines of individual, fictional characters are interwoven with the ‘grande histoire’ (Christine) of the Civil War and the perceived loss of a civilisation that some believe to be accurately depicted. Some respondents even relate their views on GWTW and slavery to their ancestry:

I heard stories from older family members about the hardships my own family indured [sic] b/c they were poor dirt farmers & barely survived after Sherman's March through Ga & SC [Georgia and South Carolina]. I’m a fan of civil war history & have visited many battle fields including Kennessaw [sic], Chicamaugwa & Chattanooga. (Susan)

Considering their emotional investment in the film, it is not surprising that many survey respondents find it difficult to cope with criticism of GWTW.

‘ To condemn GWTW as racist is absurd’: on defending one's object of affection

The respondents who defend GWTW against anti-racist criticism are small in number – seven in the survey, of whom three were also interviewed – but their arguments against oppositional readings that spoil their love and enjoyment of the film are lengthy. This may indicate that they draw on previously formulated defence mechanisms, such as those shared on social media, that can be seen as discursive mantras.

Two of the three defensive interviewees only became aware of the anti-racist criticism that challenges the doxa of their fandom when the HBO row unfolded in June 2020. Although some of them recognise, when prompted, a certain degree of stereotyping or agree that GWTW makes slavery ‘seem magical’ (Mary, i), they unanimously oppose even the idea of ‘cancellation’, dismissing the critics’ arguments as irrelevant or unfair, and react to the criticism with irritation and anger, indignantly turning to social media or performing consumer actions to demonstrate their anger. Mary (i), for instance, requested her cable company to remove HBO (which was not possible), and she bought another copy of the film ‘just to prove a point’. Ruth (i) did have previous knowledge of critical readings and understands that other ‘people react differently based on their life experiences’. She nonetheless protested Hallmark's cancellation of GWTW-related ornaments:

Scarlett represented an ideology that they didn’t want to have a part of anymore. And that was very frustrating to me, because then you’re saying that, to me, that somebody who looks up to Scarlett as a strong woman in a time, umm, that was devastating to our country, and her personal, you know, achievement, but those are … those don’t matter.

On the idea of Stewart's introduction (which none of them saw), their opinions range from ‘patronising’ (Daniel) to ‘balanced contextualisation’ (Christine, i).

The fans draw two lines of defence against criticism of GWTW. A first discursive mantra, used by some, is that the film as a whole should not be judged on what they consider to be only a minor part. They argue that the Black characters are not the protagonists in the love story and that the abolition of slavery is not the film's main theme. Ruth explains this argument: ‘The fact that the story is set during our nation's war […] does not endorse a political ideology … it simply is a story set during a period of history most of us would rather not acknowledge’. Hence, the story itself is valued as more important than its specific historical setting, from which they distance themselves, while the immorality of alleged ‘side stories’ can, in their view, be ignored.

This historical setting relates to the second, more outspoken mantra that all seven defensive respondents use: one should place GWTW in the context of the time when the story takes place (the 1860s) or when it was written and filmed (the 1930s). These fans acknowledge the immorality of slavery and the existence of stereotypes at the time but say that, consequently, a film about that period is not necessarily racist itself, nor that it can invoke racist thoughts among its contemporary viewers:

No one reads it and comes away saying, ‘ya know what, slavery was a brilliant idea, we should do that again.’ The story takes place well over 100 years ago. It was written almost 100 years ago. About THE PAST. (Mary, capitals in orig.)

Others state that it is a period that ‘cannot be erased’ (Michelle), which means that ‘[y]ou can’t and shouldn’t attempt to change or rewrite history simply because of your current opinions’ (Donna). They believe that others’ criticisms are directed at what has happened in history as such (for which neither the novel nor the film can be blamed), rather than how this history is depicted and how this depiction is perceived, both in the 1930s and today.

Such phrases also indicate that these fans believe that GWTW accurately depicts American history. A few of them, such as Christine, make this explicit: ‘I have always taken GWTW as a testimony of the society as it was.’ They believe in the truthfulness of the harmonious depiction of slavery, at least in some instances. They certainly acknowledge the horrors of slavery but claim that not all enslavers behaved badly and that not all Black people were victims. Referring to specific scenes, Christine (i) says that she does not defend racist society but argues that ‘within this society, there was also some humanity’. Mary (i) believes that – despite the atrocities, particularly further down South – ‘there were people that did have a genuine fondness for their owners’. Furthermore, Mary (i) emphasises that Black people in Africa were ‘also selling their own tribe members to America’. Clearly, such mantras are rooted in public debates on past race relations, which function as justifications for (partially) dismissing anti-racist criticism.

Two defensive respondents relate these mantras on their perception of American history to notions of their own, albeit divergent, family histories as they were recounted to them (see Barclay and Koefoed, 2021). Michelle is descended from plantation owners and uses this ancestry to prove their alleged good relationships with their enslaved servants: ‘My great, great grandmother [sic] taught them how to read and [taught them] the Bible.’ She also mentions the loyalty after the abolition of slavery in order to counter GWTW critics:

After the Civil War, they all remained on the land and raised cotton. […] My g-g-grandparents later moved back to his home state […]. The freed slaves, and I don’t like referring to them as such because they were more like family, moved with them. They settled alongside my g-g-grandparents for the rest of their lives. […] To me, the slaves were family in the movie because they were family anyway. I know that some people were not treated humanely but I do believe that most were treated as such. To condone [condemn] such a movie as racist is absurd.

She tries to corroborate the depiction of slavery in the film with stories from her ancestors, which makes them enduring mantras within her family, though probably negotiated in relation to changing national narratives and rewritten from one generation to the next (Barclay and Koefoed, 2021: 8). She believes this ‘truth’ to be ‘overruled by the false narrative’. Mary (i) puts slavery in the perspective of the treatment of other groups in American history. First, she refers to the Irish, from whom she partially descends, who were often treated ‘like trash’ precisely because they were not their employers’ ‘property’ (cf. Williams, 2001: 204−16). Second, she recalls her husband's family, who only half a century ago were ‘extremely poor’ sharecroppers and cotton pickers:

They all had terrible educations, and terrible upbringing, you know, literally starving to death, no electricity, no running water. This is in the forties and fifties! In America! So, she [her mother-in-law] gets upset, about that, you know, it's not just because you’re Black that you didn’t have great things. Not all White people grew up as planters’ daughters.

Hence, all seven defensive respondents try to connect GWTW to their perception of American history. Moreover, inscribing themselves in this history through their genealogies and family histories, some downplay the inhumanity of chattel slavery: they offer comparisons with other historically oppressed groups and point to ostensibly ‘good’ White and ‘bad’ Black people.

‘It's something that I'll have to live with’: on negotiated readings of a ‘problematic fave’

Fans who do criticise GWTW encounter different emotions. They are not just affected by the flaws but have to find a way to negotiate their contradictory opinions: still strongly liking a film they have simultaneously come to perceive as racist. Three interrelated arguments dominate among respondents who apply such negotiated readings (fourteen in the survey, four interviewees), which can also be recognised in the literature, although most respondents do not agree with all three arguments simultaneously.

The first argument concerns the ways in which GWTW ‘glosses over the inhumanity of slavery’, as Linda puts it. The relationships between the plantation owners and the ‘loyal and happy slaves’ (Hilda, translated from Dutch) are depicted as unrealistically harmonious. Some respondents contrast their current readings to their childhood ignorance. As a child, Hannah (i) did not even notice that the servants were enslaved; yet she wondered why the Black children were operating the fans for the White children. Benjamin recalls that the ‘complete casualness’ and ‘lack of empathy’ with which the novel describes slavery made him, as a fourteen-year-old reader, ‘blink’ at the scene (not found in the film) where Scarlett's father is ‘actually buying people’.

Hilda's quote above relates to the second argument: Black characters are portrayed in a stereotypical and caricatural way. Kate (i) particularly refers to the novel, in which she remembers the hand of the enslaved character Big Sam being ‘described as a paw, like an animal’ and Mammy's eyes ‘like a monkey’. However, a statement on this view that we presented to our interviewees (‘The Black characters in GWTW are caricatures and stereotypes’) was met with less certainty. Two out of four ambivalent interviewees argue that only a few characters in the film are stereotypes. In contrast, they perceive the main Black character Mammy, despite her initial stereotypical presence, as a strong, ‘independent’ character with ‘her own personality’ (Deepak, i), who, towards the end of the film, has a ‘very expressive and very heartfelt’ monologue ‘that we just don’t expect from any movie from that period’ (David, i). Despite their criticism, they do not recognise the mythological Mammy stereotype that scholars have identified: an enslaved woman who embraces her subordination by favouring her enslaver's children over her own (St John, 2001; Wallace-Sanders, 2008).

On the third argument, pertaining the glamourisation of the Antebellum South, respondents also try to nuance the criticism. Some survey respondents call GWTW a ‘revisionist’ take on the Civil War (Sarah) and mention the ‘glorifying of a society built on slavery’ (Benjamin). However, when we used the latter quote as a statement in the interviews, three out of four ambivalent interviewees disagreed. The film's beginning might ‘idolise’ this era, but the second part shows that ‘the suffering that came after it was deserved’ (Hannah, i). Furthermore, the male protagonist Rhett Butler ‘gets enough dialogue to showcase the fact that the South was delusional’ (Deepak, i). Respondents agreed that the war caused a way of life to disappear but disagreed on whether GWTW presents this as something to applaud or to regret.

By itself, the presence of negotiated readings by predominantly White audiences is not surprising. Going beyond signalling their occurrence, two important questions arise on the move towards and the emotions behind their ambivalence; angles that were neglected in previous scholarship. First, when and why did these respondents change their minds about GWTW? Most of the ambivalent respondents say they became aware of problematic aspects of the film only later in life but before the protests against HBO Max in June 2020. In retrospect, they call their younger selves ‘very naïve’ (David) or ‘ignorant’ (Deepak) and their self-acclaimed awakening ‘fairly late’ (Deepak) or after ‘a really long time’ (Hannah, i). The latter adds that ‘I suppose I should have seen’ that Mammy's caring was ‘to a certain extent forced’, while David (i) reflects that he did notice ‘flagrant insensitivity’ in certain scenes, but ‘in terms of this being offensive, you know, wrong, the morality of that […] had not sunk into my brain’. They seem to regard their current opinions on racism and readings of the film as self-evident, which causes embarrassment towards the researchers about how they could have ever – and for such a long time – thought differently.

The roots of this naivety and the routes towards their changed mindsets are diverse, but respondents often relate their past views to their social backgrounds. This can be geographical, such as David (i), who claims that he grew up in a de facto segregated area without much contact with people from different ethnic groups. Others refer to upbringing: Hannah claims to have been raised in the 1980s by a strongly anti-racist mother with a colour-blind attitude. The problem with such a seemingly noble vision, she says she realises now, is that ‘not recognising race means that one also doesn’t recognise racial inequalities’.

In the interview we later had with Hannah, she explained that having conversations with Black people made her look at racial relations, and hence, GWTW, differently:

One of my classmates as a grad student at [name university] was an African American woman from [a Midwestern state]. And she really helped me to understand many things in a totally different way. […] I felt marginalised in academia, because I grew up on welfare, right? Umm, and I couldn’t understand how her marginalisation was different from mine […] because she came from, you know, a well-to-do family in [state], but of course, had a whole different set of challenges. And so, we had some really productive conversations […] how can we make distinctions between poverty and race? You know, in what senses do those things overlap?

About GWTW itself, Hannah (i) claims that she started looking with a little more ‘balance’ after her mother told her about a forefather who had fought in the Civil War on the Northern side – in the film derogatorily depicted as butchering Yankees. Some non-American GWTW viewers were less conscious of the historical and racial context of the film. They became more aware due to the opinions of Black cast members they encountered (writes Patrick from France), news coverage on wider social change (such as the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, alluded to by the elderly Johanna from the Netherlands), or increased interest in history (Kate (i) from the UK). Deepak (i), a self-proclaimed ‘Americanophile’ from India, started to relate casual racism in many American films to his own and his ancestors’ position in (post-)colonial society:

People who, umm, are supposed to feel good about the fact that they have masters, and they are not running away, I mean, that kind of uncle-and-aunt attitude, that does piss me off, especially considering the fact that I am from India, where we were under the subjugation of Britain for such a long time. So it's very hard to, like, not to realise that there is a good chance my forefathers would have been under similar circumstances for such a long time.

A second question is how fans negotiate their mixed feelings. The realisation of having a ‘problematic fave’ can cause emotional turmoil. People are ‘unpleasantly surprised’ (Sandra) and ‘embarrassed’ (Linda) for not having realised these problematic aspects earlier. How to keep cherishing the parts they love without turning a blind eye to the darker side? They have to balance dissonant feelings – or even, as in the first quote below, conflicting progressive morals – about one and the same film:

By contrast, Mitchell *is* very critical of the way women were treated in ‘The Old South’. She was clearly not able or willing (or both) to see that oppression is oppression, no matter who gets oppressed. […] My appreciation has certainly changed, and the book/film has become harder to read/watch […] I still love other aspects of the book. Scarlett's disregard of society and other people's opinions, and her determination. […] (Benjamin, emphasis in orig.)

When I first watched the film I was a child and not fully aware of slavery or the KKK. It is shocking to think about all this now. But I was mostly interested in the love story(ies) and the power dynamics among the protagonists. This still remains relevant. (Elisabeth)

I feel sadder, considering the tarnished legacy of the film now. Visually it is still as marvelous as before in my head. (Deepak)

[In the interview, he would add:] It's something that I'll have to live with, knowing that a film that I really like, does carry … does actually wear its racism on its sleeve. (Deepak, i)

The racism in the film makes it ‘harder to watch’ and causes ‘shocking’ thoughts and ‘sadder’ feelings that they have ‘to live with’, but they feel entitled to not distance themselves from it entirely. They seek ways to combine their criticism with a feeling that it is nonetheless possible to like the film for other reasons, such as the visuals and the ‘still relevant’ relations between the White protagonists. Some respondents say they can cope with such contradictory readings quite well, for instance, due to experience with critical reflection as a film or literary scholar. Kate (i), an actress who calls GWTW her absolute favourite, does so by relating it to other art controversies:

Picasso used to beat up his wives, you know, umm, Charlie Chaplin had a penchant for young women. Umm, you can find faults and flaws that are really difficult to adjust to in your head with something, and yet, there is brilliance there. So, umm, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how, how we … that's the human brain, isn’t it? You know if some things are bad, but you still love it. So I drink wine, ha ha! So, yeah, it is hugely flawed in that sense. And yet, somehow perfect and I wouldn’t change any of it.

Such comparisons function as discursive mantras, ready for use whenever a controversial case pops up in the media.

Most of the interviewees disengage from certain ‘aspects’ of the film or feel a little uncomfortable while simultaneously still enjoying it. Comparable to Jhally and Lewis’s (1992) analysis of ‘enlightened racism’ in their study on The Cosby Show, GWTW allows White viewers the luxury of being both liberal (showing awareness of its racism) and intolerant (turning a blind eye to its racism to be able to still enjoy the film). They overlook that only feeling a little awkwardness is a White privilege (see McIntosh, 1989).

Conclusion

When a beloved cultural product comes under fire for moral or political reasons, its fans must find a way to relate to such contrasting interpretations. Based on a small open-ended survey and follow-up interviews on the Hollywood picture Gone with the Wind and the novel on which it is based, we found that people express deeply felt emotions and use arguments rooted in discussions on racism in general.

Although a significant number of respondents do not reflect on racism without being prompted – a silence that is telling in itself – the majority who do can be divided into two basic groups: ambivalent critics of the film who use a negotiated reading and staunch defenders against critical readings. All respondents share an enduring appreciation of the classic story, with its depiction of a turbulent era in American history and its feminist yet flawed role model. However, the degree to which they perceive the representation of slavery to be questionable differs strongly. Whereas some note Black stereotypes and a glorified and uncritical depiction of the Antebellum South, and some recognise such criticism to a certain degree, others strongly avoid confrontation with the issue of racist representation in their beloved film by shifting the focus to the main (White) love story and the allegedly accurate portrayal of the historical past.

Our study adds a more dynamic approach to audience reception and fan studies, which comes to the fore in two ways. First, the degree to which our respondents from both groups explicitly and spontaneously relate their reading of the film to their backgrounds and often even their ancestry – for example, allegedly ‘good’ enslavers and Northern soldiers – is remarkable. A second dynamic aspect concerns reflections, prompted by explicit interview questions, on changed opinions over time. This showed that defensive respondents often only took cognisance of opposing views following the protests against HBO Max in June 2020. In contrast, the ambivalent ones had already started negotiating their readings earlier.

A second addition to previous scholarship is a focus on reported responses to opposing interpretations. Respondents who only recently encountered anti-racist criticism that challenges the doxa of their fandom use discursive mantras to defend their favourite film. Fans who are more critical of GWTW must come to terms with what they see as their former ignorance, while simultaneously finding a way to continue loving the aspects they have always adored. This negotiation of appreciation and opposition leads them to hold contradictory opinions while underplaying the White privilege that allows them to do so.

Our research gave an impression of the readings and emotions of the fans of a politically controversial film. Due to the small number of respondents and the skewed self-selection via a limited number of channels, we cannot generalise to larger groups or relate the found typology to demographic variables. Moreover, Black people and people of colour were largely absent in our sample. Therefore, we recommend further studies among both particular fan groups and broader samples on comparable cases. Works from popular culture and from ‘high’ art, from the past and the present, are increasingly being criticised or even ‘cancelled’ for political or moral reasons in mainstream media. In order to understand these complex dynamics, it is relevant to go beyond the often-polemical narratives on social media and to turn to the fans themselves: how do they negotiate between their love for a particular work or artist and their recognition – or not – of oppositional readings on problematised aspects? We showed that, in such cases, it is recommendable to use a dynamic approach, including reflections on former selves, and explicitly present fans with opposing views to fully comprehend both ambivalent fandom and defensive attitudes.