Revisiting a Polysemic Text: The African American Press's Reception of Gone With the Wind

Abstract

This article is a historical and discursive analysis of the African American press's reception of the motion picture Gone With the Wind (1939). The African American press represents a specific sphere wherein ambivalence and resistance to the cultural hegemony exhibited in this popular film text may be examined. Coverage of the film by 5 newspapers from December 1939 through May 1940 suggests a process in which discourse changed from watchful indifference to ambivalence toward the film. News and commentary suggest the polysemic readings of the text by African American journalists and filmgoers and the emergence of more complex forms of viewer resistance to Hollywood's cultural hegemony. The Academy Award received by Hattie McDaniel for her performance made the sense of resistance to such hegemony more substantive, while also bringing a new sense of purpose to the audiences' readings of the text. The resistance to this cultural hegemony was cut short, however, when reports of a new production of The Birth of a Nation (1915) were carried by the newspapers. A collective effort by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the African American press, and its readers curtailed the remake of The Birth of a Nation, although it would be years before Hollywood included African Americans in meaningful, multidimensional roles.