Taking a breather from last week’s furious episode dedicated to police brutality, John Oliver poked fun at his own network and the ensuing uproar for its decision to temporarily remove Gone With the Wind from HBO Max. On June 14’s Last Week Tonight, Oliver directed his ire to White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who questioned the removal during a press conference this month and asked “where do you draw the line?†when erasing cinematic moments of the Confederacy. “The answer to ‘where you draw the line’ is literally always ‘somewhere.’ You draw it somewhere,†Oliver responded. “Also, HBO is not permanently pulling the movie — it’s going back up with additional context. And finally, who gives a shit if something’s not on HBO Max? In fact, there may be no better way to obliterate all evidence of something’s existence than to put it on HBO Max, the only ash heap of history that costs $15 a month.†Oliver also continued his new weekly tradition of roasting Tucker Carlson, crowning him as a “one-man homeowner’s association†and “fucking moron.â€
HBO Max, which is a separate streaming service from HBO and not the same as HBO Go, said that the decision to remove Gone With the Wind was due to the film depicting “some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society.†The service intends to reinstate the film in the coming weeks, with the addition of a “discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions.†The film itself will remain unaltered and how it was “originally created†in 1939.