Your are right that Scarlett is really a "bitch" heroine, in both the book and the movie. Remember how she steals her sister's fiance, and then uses convict labor at the mill when slaves are no longer available? But she's also the strong one, who keeps the family going through the worst of the war. Rhett on the other hand starts out corrupt, but then "gets religion" just as the South is losing the war. After that he is a much better person. Don't forget how the story ends, and why it ends that way.
As for GWTW being History, that is of course nonsense. It's a romantic novel, a real "girl's book" if you ask me. And I love it, and I think the movie is great, the casting was perfect, esp. Oliva De Haviland, as Melanie Wilkes, who makes the character much, much more than the goody-two-shoes she is in the book; and my beloved Leslie Howard, also a Brit. He probably had no problem recognizing the song Dixie, and he died a true hero for his country and our civilization during WWII.
People should stop critizing GWTW for being something it's not, and enjoy it for what it is, or don't. It's just a story that was made into a big sweeping Hollywood movie. Anybody who would look to things like that for history is bound to be disappointed.
Anyone who uses GWTW, or any other Hollywood movie, as a primary source for their knowledge of the history of the era is a fool.
Good analysis. Hattie McDaniel (Academy Award for GWTW) was criticized at the time for playing a slave. (Now some of the Black-oriented magazines are recognizing her as a true hero.) Of course, she seems to be the only sane one in the whole movie. (Aunt Pittypat and Prissy seem soul sisters. Butterfly McQueen said she would have slapped Prissy too.) I think the only reason the Thomas Mitchell didn't win a Academy Award was that he had the one for Stagecoach that year too. (1939 was a Good Year for movies.)
Yes, it's entertainment. The story does carry the author's view of people like the O'Hara and Butler characters, but it's worthless for historical purposes.
What always strikes me is how liberal dimwits like this writer will be angrily attacked by "conservative" republicans on any subject except for this sort of subject. Anything which attacks the South or Southerners is just fine and dandy, though all of it comes from the left. It tends to show what the GOP is really made of. Southerners in the GOP are being played for suckers. We're not wanted there and our input isn't welcome, only our votes.