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."

[annyokie]

Here we go.....

[squarebarb]

Oh Lord here we go.

[tuffydoodle]

I wonder if "Star Wars" played fast and loose with the truth, too?!

I'm totally bummed. Like, totally.

[what's up]

Does the article mention that the slave-owners in the South were all Democrats?

Didn't think so.

[sam_paine]

GWTW was a precursor to the modern liberal recycling fad. Most new dresses on sale in SoHo these days are actually made out of recycled curtains.

[squarebarb]

We both had the same thought at the same time!

[groanup]

This guy is imminently more qualified to describe the pre-war South than Margaret Mithchell whose parents actually lived in it.

[CAluvdubya]

As far as I'm concerned, "The Wind Done Gone!"

[squarebarb]

The novel should be considered as a novel not as a pro or con propaganda piece.

I've never heard of GWTW being taught as a novel; its construction, especially. It is well done. Anyway, maybe with the passing of time...

[Artemis Webb]

This has been weighing heavily on my mind for some time now. Perhaps we can remake Gone With The Wind and set it in Iraq...With Michael Moore as Rhett and Cher as Scarlett!!

Ooooooooohhhhhhhh...how I quiver!!

[annyokie]

Great minds and all that!

[montag813]

this piece is only 65 years late

[Riverman94610]

I was born in California but lived in the South three years during the 1970's.I was amazed at the polar opposite way whites and blacks saw the region and its history.You would have thought they were talking about two different universes.
From Mitchell's perspective she was telling the truth about her land of birth.GWTW was her work of art and the book and the film should stay intact.Yet a similiar film made by a black film maker should also be recognized as a legitimate point of view from his or her experiences.

[DBeers]

-reparations???

[D Rider]

It was also filmed when the last remaining civil war veterans were still alive. It romanticized a period that was still fresh, with many whose parents and grandparents fought in that great conflict.

To rip it for all its faults now, besides being stupid, misses the point off the civil war's impact on who we are as Americans. And its romantic portrayal of how we Americans felt about ourselves during the period of its filming.

For example, take any major modern movie and compare it to our current culture. Try to take a viewpoint from 60 years in the future, and see what it says about us.

[annyokie]

No! I'm waiting for all the usual suspects to show up to refight the War Between the States. It's entertaining and informative until the name-calling starts. ; )

[weenie]

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

[sevry]

Yet a similiar film made by a black film maker should also be recognized as a legitimate point of view from his or her experiences.

But the only black writers favored today are generally incompetent PC misfits and liars. So the 'black perspective' would be that filtered by Communism, Islam or a Jesse Jackson-leaning 'Protestantism', and a dependency upon assorted wealthy whites of the Dem Party.

Mitchell's work, on the other hand, came from family knowledge and a life in the south not THAT far removed from the old plantation days. Certainly, the perspective of someone honestly oppressed under American slavery would differ on many key points. But are there even the black authors to produce such a work, today, whose words could be believed? Now, on the other hand, if one speaks of those black authors and editorialists who are pilloried by the black left, by the black Dem, then perhaps they could author such a work AND be believed. Perhaps some already have?

[DBeers]

Movies dramatized and often fictionalized have great impact on many -I often wonder how many children that have not converted to Islam are named Kunta Kinte?