Commentary: Truth blown away in sugarcoated 'Gone With the Wind'

sacbee ^ | 11-13-04

[LouAvul]

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Based on Margaret Mitchell's hugely popular novel, producer David O. Selznick's four-hour epic tale of the American South during slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction is the all-time box-office champion.

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Considering its financial success and critical acclaim, "Gone With the Wind" may be the most famous movie ever made.

It's also a lie.

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Along with D.W. Griffith's technically innovative but ethically reprehensible "The Birth of a Nation" (from 1915), which portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroic, "GWTW" presents a picture of the pre-Civil War South in which slavery is a noble institution and slaves are content with their status.

Furthermore, it puts forth an image of Reconstruction as one in which freed blacks, the occupying Union army, Southern "scalawags" and Northern "carpetbaggers" inflict great harm on the defeated South, which is saved - along with the honor of Southern womanhood - by the bravery of KKK-like vigilantes.

To his credit, Selznick did eliminate some of the most egregious racism in Mitchell's novel, including the frequent use of the N-word, and downplayed the role of the KKK, compared with "Birth of a Nation," by showing no hooded vigilantes.

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One can say that "GWTW" was a product of its times, when racial segregation was still the law of the South and a common practice in the North, and shouldn't be judged by today's political and moral standards. And it's true that most historical scholarship prior to the 1950s, like the movie, also portrayed slavery as a relatively benign institution and Reconstruction as unequivocally evil.

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Or as William L. Patterson of the Chicago Defender succinctly wrote: "('Gone With the Wind' is a) weapon of terror against black America."

[capitan_refugio]

The problem in 1860, and 1856 for that matter, was that abolitionists were kept off of the ballots in several of the southern states.

[lentulusgracchus]

Like Michaels Moore's "documentary" on Bush? LOL! They exist only because they need a hate target - now it's GWTW.

You just reminded me of something. Since the election is over, I can go see Moore's screed now in good conscience, so I can laugh at him.

'Course, I'll wait until it's at the dollar house -- and then I'll try to sneak in.

Then I'll still laugh and throw popcorn at him.

Luuuuuuu-zerrrrrr!

Hope it burns, fat boy.

[lentulusgracchus]

The problem in 1860, and 1856 for that matter, was that abolitionists were kept off of the ballots in several of the southern states.

Should that be seen as a damnable attempt to forestall the Abolitionists from receiving valuable votes that might have propelled them to victory.......?

....Or as a labor-saving device, to spare the election officers the tedium of writing in all those zeroes?

[lentulusgracchus]

Imaginative scenario. Creative thinking to re-frame the argument.

And actually, it isn't all that far from where things are today out West.

Liberals always want to seize control of everything and then let you know how much of your property and your money you can have.

[GeronL]

It was a movie you twerp, get over it

[GeronL]

Lincoln got zero popular votes in the South

Apparently he wasn't on the ballot in many states

[GeronL]

We need someone to do a manly version where the battles take up more than 2% of the film .. lol

[GeronL]

What if Kerry had won and had not even bothered to put himself on the ballot in 11 contiguous states?

Lincoln was not able to get on those ballots for various reasons, you couldn't just put your name on them...

[jocon307]

"We need someone to do a manly version where the battles take up more than 2% of the film .. lol"

LOL, good idea, then I might be able to persuade Hubby to watch it! Pretty gruesome part when Scarlett shoots the Yankee straggler, or deserter, whatever he is.

[GeronL]

We could call it Saving Private Rhett

[nolu chan]

[XBob #100] "Re: "Roots". That piece of fiction (which claimed to be fact)...."

Roots has another problem in that it was plagiarized from a book by Harold Courlander called The African. Haley paid $650,000 in damages.

LINK

Jan. 18, 2002 / 5 Shevat, 5762
Jewish World Review

Stanley Crouch

The 'Roots' of huckster Haley's Great Fraud

In the early 1980s, when Alex Haley, the author of "Roots," was speaking at Lincoln Center, investigative reporter Philip Nobile asked him a straightforward question. Since he had paid Harold Courlander $650,000 in a plagiarism suit, why shouldn't Haley be considered a criminal instead of a hero?

Haley had no answer. Well, what would you expect from someone who had pulled off one of the biggest con jobs in U.S. literary history?

Yet the "Roots" hoax has sustained itself. Every PBS station in America refused to show the 1997 BBC documentary inspired by Nobile's reporting on the book. And tonight NBC will air a retrospective on the 25th anniversary of the popular TV miniseries.

There are a number of reasons the truth about "Roots" is still ignored. One is that black Americans, primarily because of the influence of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, became obsessed with being a "lost" people in America, people who had "no knowledge of self." Younger black people were told they were not Americans, but victims of Americanism. Their true identity, Malcolm X said, was African and Islamic. The truth had been hidden from them by the white man, who was the Devil.

Another reason the hoax has held is that Haley, riding on the success of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," for which he got "as told to" credit, knew how to hustle. He had already been accused of plagiarizing an interview with Miles Davis for Playboy.

So he traveled the country for years promoting a forthcoming book on the Haley family history, which he had miraculously traced back to Africa. Black college students, swept up in the black power movement and romantic ideas about "the motherland," were thrilled at the idea that Haley had proved it was possible to hold up a lantern in the historical darkness and find one's way home.

But the most important reason for the durability of the hoax is white folks. Those at Doubleday who published "Roots" had a best seller and were not interested in people knowing it was phony baloney. David Wolper Productions created the most successful miniseries of its time and was not interested. Federal Judge Robert Ward, who presided over the plagiarism case, protected Haley's reputation.

Ward urged Courlander - the man whose novel "The African" Haley pillaged - to be quiet about his huge settlement. Ward thought that Haley had become too important to black people to be torn down in public. As I said once before in this column a few years ago, that was paternalism at its very worst: Treat them like children; they can't handle the truth.

Haley called Nobile in February 1979 at New York magazine when he was reporting on the federal case. Haley said he shouldn't report on the case because the Ku Klux Klan could use the outcome against his people.

On another occasion, I heard Haley protest on the radio that "they" were trying "to say that black people have no history." At another point, according to Nobile, "He compared the truth about him to those people who attacked Anne Frank and said that there was no Holocaust. He would resort to anything."

Since "Roots" has brought millions of black tourist dollars to Gambia, one Gambian said to me, "Yes, it is a lie but it is a good lie."

The book remains an opportunistic insult to black people, and no amount of excuses will change that harsh fact.

[FreedomCalls]

Lincoln was not able to get on those ballots for various reasons

You could still write-in his name though. It should tell you something that not a single person (excepting parts of Virginia) did that.

[FreedomCalls]

Pretty gruesome part when Scarlett shoots the Yankee straggler, or deserter, whatever he is.

Wasn't he a rapist?

[capitan_refugio]

I don't claim to know the exact election laws in each southern state in 1860. Given the relatively high illiteracy rate at that time, and the censorship conducted by the southern post offices and other authorities, it is unlikely many southern voters would have been aware they had a write-in option - if one even existed.

The were plenty of Unionists in the southern states in 1860. They were not all bug-eyed secessionists.

[capitan_refugio]

I would call it "par for the course" in the pro-slavery south.

[isom35]

gwtw is one of the most boring movies ever. Dawn of the Dead (1978), now that's a movie worth watching. maybe if scarlett had zombies chasing her, gwtw would improve. maybe the zombies could be added via cgi.

[MrLee]

No, but "The X-Files" did! :-)

[stand watie]

my only comment on this FOOL, that wrote the "hit piece" is:

GET A LIFE.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

also, in regard to Bruce Dancis, i'm reminded of one of my grandmother's sayings:

"TOO STUPID TO BE ALIVE."

free dixie,sw

[tm22721]

How about reparations for the severe and irreparable damage that the 13th and 19th amendments how caused to the Constitution and this country ?

BUMP