It’s a movie. You either line it or you don’t. GWTW is one of my favorites and Scarlet O’Hara is one of the all-time great characters, in film and in literature. Now it does depict Slavery as a mostly benevolent institution and most of the slaves, except Mammy, as being little more than children in need of supervision and direction. But hey, it was 1939.
“But hey, it was 1939.”
The movie came out when the cultural reality was shaped by the wisdom of the court, a Plessy v Ferguson way of life. Black ministers were appealing to FDR to integrate the armed forces, which he did not. Truman integrated the armed forces and less than a generation after the movie Brown v Board of Education overruled Plessy. So was this movie depicting slavery as a “benevolent institution” a cultural viewpoint of some Americans, reflective of the 1860s, or 1939, or both?
Since I did not read the book, I would guess that the “beneficial” depiction of slavery was written therein and the movie was capturing that viewpoint.
These dog-whistler false-witness accusers are zealots, race hustlers, a mob, our modern day enraged, intellectually lazy book burners. They need a professional intervention and help.