diff --git a/django/utils/httpwrappers.py b/django/utils/httpwrappers.py
index f4a7c54f0c..2312891b6a 100644
--- a/django/utils/httpwrappers.py
+++ b/django/utils/httpwrappers.py
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@ from Cookie import SimpleCookie
 from pprint import pformat
 from urllib import urlencode
 import datastructures
-from django.conf.settings import DEFAULT_MIME_TYPE
 
 class HttpRequest(object): # needs to be new-style class because subclasses define "property"s
     "A basic HTTP request"
@@ -135,7 +134,10 @@ def parse_cookie(cookie):
 
 class HttpResponse:
     "A basic HTTP response, with content and dictionary-accessed headers"
-    def __init__(self, content='', mimetype=DEFAULT_MIME_TYPE):
+    def __init__(self, content='', mimetype=None):
+        if not mimetype:
+            from django.conf.settings import DEFAULT_MIME_TYPE
+            mimetype = DEFAULT_MIME_TYPE
         self.content = content
         self.headers = {'Content-Type':mimetype}
         self.cookies = SimpleCookie()