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."

[Non-Sequitur]

Now, if there were these all black units were they composed of free black men or slaves being promised their freedom?

A mix. The southern congress didn't pass legislation allowing black combat soldiers, free or slave, until March 1865.

[Skooz]

It's a MOVIE.

If you want reality, go stand on the street corner.

[fortheDeclaration]

Lincoln died a martyr to freedom. And to be remembered as the President who saved the nation and freed the slaves. The south just died. Period.

Amen.

The South died, but the United States was reborn.

[fortheDeclaration]

We are interested in the facts about Lincoln's beliefs though and one of those is the fact that he died a racist colonizer.

As opposed to a racist slave owner?

Moreover, I think Lincoln's view on colonization had changed due to the fact that Blacks did not want to go back to Africa.

And Lincoln would not force them to do so.

So much for your racist nonsense.

[fortheDeclaration]

Defending the South about slavery is harldy a winning prospect. Not in the 19th Century. Not in the 20th Century. Not in the 21th Century. The thing about rights is, respecting them when they belong to someone else, respecting them when you don't like them and they're inconvenient to your purposes, and respecting them when they belong to someone you don't like.

Who was disrespecting the South's rights?

Did Lincoln threaten them?

He went out of his way in his Inaugural address to tell the South they had nothing to fear from his administration.

All laws would be upheld.

So by what right did the South, having lost an election, think it could just disband the Union?

[fortheDeclaration]

I've said before, and I'll repeat it now, that I think Lincoln's platform planks about "containing the expansion of slavery" (which, pointedly and tendentiously harping on this theme precisely to corroborate and vindicate Lincoln, you pound endlessly and disingenuously in your posts) were just so much campaign rhetoric disguising a settled and deadly intention of universal abolition by force if necessary, which I have suggested he first articulated at the Republican convention of 1856 in his famously undocumented address. Just my opinion -- laying a marker for later, so I can say "I told you so" when the truth finally outs about Lincoln and the Civil War.

Wow!

Another Southern myth!

So Lincoln was going to invade the South and end slavery?

With what?

Gee, if you guys had been smart, you should have waited for that anti-slavery army to be formed and then you could have claimed self-defense.

Had the South stayed in the Union they still had dominance in the Senate and the House.

Taney was leading the Supreme Court.

Lincoln probably would have been a lameduck President.

[fortheDeclaration]

And the old Battle Flag is instantaneously recognized around the world, as the flag of the South.

It is recognized as being a flag of brave men who died for a bad cause.

[fortheDeclaration]

THAT is the MAJOR difference between north & south. we want to be LEFT ALONE;the damnyankee DEMANDS that we be like them and/or that we remain UNDER THEIR BOOT.

Yes, being under another mans boot is a terrible way to live.

I would not want any man of any color to have to live that way-would you?

[fortheDeclaration]

btw, for the southerner,TWBTS was MOSTLY a war to be "left alone". i.e., the war was about personal LIBERTY.

Yes, the war was about personal liberty, wheather a man could be enslaved due to the color of his skin.

It seems that the only liberty that southerners were concerned with was their own.

The only thing that the South had that the North found of any value were your women.

I married one-LOL!

[lentulusgracchus]

In fact, slaves have to be hunted down by the Federal authorities to bring them home to their benevolent masters.

That would be true, Grasshopper, in the cases of slaves who actually ran away. It shouldn't surpass understanding that chasing runaway slaves through hill and dale would apply only to.....runaways. So your incisive insight is something of a tautology, and fails to discuss or elucidate relative levels of discontent among the slave population coherently, since it doesn't address at all the slaves who stayed home.

[lentulusgracchus]

The only thing that the South had that the North found of any value were your women. I married one-LOL!

I had heard that Northerners were mostly masochists who like to be whipped, branded, and strapped on by strong women........but I didn't want to say anything.

[lentulusgracchus]

I would not want any man of any color to have to live that way-would you?

Just white Southerners, right? Y'all weren't worried about what the blacks would do to you. But you levied war on those other folks, because they threatened your ability to take the national agenda private. And you've been on their case ever since.

[lentulusgracchus]

It is recognized as being a flag of brave men who died for a bad cause. [Emphasis supplied.]

Since you obviously have trouble grasping the concepts involved, the obvious question arises ..... how would you know?

[nolu chan]

George W. Williams, a Union Negro soldier wrote:

"The South took the initiative in employing Negroes as soldiers, but they were free Negroes, and many of them owned large interests in Louisiana and South Carolina."

George W. Williams, A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion. Harper & Bros, 1888, p. 81 quoted by Dr. H.C. Blackerby, Blacks in Blue and Gray, 1979, p. 5

[lentulusgracchus]

So Lincoln was going to invade the South and end slavery? With what?

With an army. After he admitted more (free) States and amended the Constitution with the South out.

I don't know exactly how he planned to do it, but based on his statements from the time of the election through his inauguration, he had absolutely no olive branch to offer the Southerners except the Corwin Amendment, and I think his support of that was bogus. Personal opinion. I think he definitely wanted the Southern States to secede and call their legislators home. That gave him a free hand. Then, when he dragged them back into the Union, it'd be on his terms, at gunpoint, and he could establish military governments for the States. Which is how I think he planned to get around the Constitution, and abolish slavery.

Gee, if you guys had been smart, you should have waited for that anti-slavery army to be formed and then you could have claimed self-defense.

It was. We did. Didn't matter, Lincoln had enough soldiers.

Had the South stayed in the Union they still had dominance in the Senate and the House.

No, they didn't. The North -- and more to the point, the Republicans -- controlled both houses and the White House.

Taney was leading the Supreme Court.

Just for a couple of years. He was elderly and decrepit and died while Lincoln was in office. Lincoln nominated four Supreme Court justices during his term of office.

Lincoln probably would have been a lameduck President.

If you think anyone with a million bayonets in the field at his sole beck and call is a "lame duck", then you are obviously having trouble with the concept.

Lincoln was the closest thing we've ever had to a man on horseback -- and by every measure that matters, he was. He ran the country on his own desk. Congress and the courts didn't matter. Lincoln was using the Army to run the country.

[fortheDeclaration]

fact, slaves have to be hunted down by the Federal authorities to bring them home to their benevolent masters. That would be true, Grasshopper, in the cases of slaves who actually ran away. It shouldn't surpass understanding that chasing runaway slaves through hill and dale would apply only to.....runaways.

And that changes something?

The relative small numbers of runaways makes the South hunting them down and putting boundies on them somehow more justifiable?

So your incisive insight is something of a tautology, and fails to discuss or elucidate relative levels of discontent among the slave population coherently, since it doesn't address at all the slaves who stayed home.

No, because the vast numbers of the slaves were in the deep South and unable to escape.

Most slaves escaped from border States.

However fear of slaves escaping is why the South became virtually a police state.

I think the only tautalogy is the words freedom and South going together or is that an oxymoron?

[fortheDeclaration]

The only thing that the South had that the North found of any value were your women. I married one-LOL! I had heard that Northerners were mostly masochists who like to be whipped, branded, and strapped on by strong women........but I didn't want to say anything.

Now, why would you want to insult Southern womenhood like that!

As for being whipped and branded, isn't that what Southern men liked doing to helpless individuals who couldn't fight back.

Do you know that there are some Southerners who actually defend the practice even today!

[lentulusgracchus]

The South died, but the United States was reborn.

The South was beaten and conquered, but it was the United States that was destroyed.

[fortheDeclaration]

would not want any man of any color to have to live that way-would you? Just white Southerners, right? Y'all weren't worried about what the blacks would do to you. But you levied war on those other folks, because they threatened your ability to take the national agenda private. And you've been on their case ever since.

This isn't one of your Southern myths again is it?

Gee, if I remember correctly, it was the South that fired on the U.S. flag.

I think that would be considered an act of treason in any nation of the world.

Only a Southerner would claim to be the victim after enslaving 3million people and then firing the first shots of the war.

[lentulusgracchus]

Now, why would you want to insult Southern womenhood like that!

Brave words ..... now show her your post!