David O. Selznick's epic film production of Margaret Mitchell's novel "Gone with the Wind" is, adjusted for inflation, the highest-grossing movie in the history of the medium. It is iconic, unruly, and enormously entertaining. It is also undeniably racist and worthy of scorn. And this is why it cannot be easily swept into the dustbin of Bad Art.

Film scholars and cultural critics have been reckoning with "Gone with the Wind" for many decades, as they must consider the crater-sized imprint the movie has left in the American cultural landscape. I am 52 years old, and have watched the Civil War-set film plummet from beloved must-see to something that cannot be aired or streamed without an introduction warning viewers that they are about to bear witness to a horrendously dated artifact from

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