Gone With The Wind
(1939)
Artemus Ward
Dept. of Political Science
Northern Illinois University
aeward@niu.edu
Introduction
• Despite longstanding history that accurately portrays slavery based on
slave narratives (Rawick 1972), the reasons for the South losing the war
(Beals 1965), and Reconstruction (Bennett 1969), Americans continue to
think about the past not based on fact but instead based on myth: images
gleaned from the mass media and particularly films.
• Because of its longstanding popularity and acclaim, Gone With the Wind
(GWTW), is perhaps the single most damaging, ongoing portrayal of
these events. For many people the film is the main way in which the Civil
War is remembered.
• One need ask only one question to see how incomplete and inaccurate
the film is:
• Does Mammy or any other black character in the film have any family?
Margaret Mitchell
• Mitchell began writing the novel in 1926. It
was published in 1936 and won the
Pulitzer Prize the following year.
• Mitchell’s novel is southern plantation
fiction, also known as anti-Tom literature,
written as a pro-slavery response to such
popular anti-slavery literature as Uncle
Tom’s Cabin.
• Southern plantation fiction is written from
the perspective and values of the
benevolent slaveholder and presents
slaves as docile and happy.
• It is the second favorite book by
Americans, just behind the Bible, according
to a 2008 Harris Poll.
• The poll found the novel has its strongest
following among women, those aged 44 or
more, both Southerners and
Midwesterners, both whites and Hispanics,
and those who have not attended college.
• The novel is on the list of best-selling
books, selling more than 30 million copies.
Mythmaking
• Gone With the Wind (GWTW) is
an archetypal statement of the
myth of the “Old South”:
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the columned plantation house
white women on pedestals
carefree field hands
devoted house slaves
the “carpetbaggers and scalawags”
myth of Reconstruction
• GWTW shows the South as it
never was, emphasizing
Southern honor and Yankee
imperialism.
Plantation
Myth
• Most southerners were not slaveholders, not wealthy, and did
not live in mansions.
• Most whites who owned slaves owned fewer than five.
• The homes of most people that did own slaves were so
modest that when researchers for Gone With The Wind went
looking for archival photos or descriptions of sprawling manor
houses with verandas and white columns in Georgia, they
had to report that they could not find any.
• Margaret Mitchell said: “I made up Tara, just as I made up
every character in the book. But nobody will believe me.”
Slave-Era Stereotypes
• Although black women have been featured in U.S.
cinema since the early days of silent films—in The
Wooing and Wedding of a Coon (1905) and The Masher
(1907), for example—the basic representational
paradigm governing their image has changed little.
• They have served primarily as white women’s Other, a
dark continent of difference whose various lacks—of
beauty, morality, and intelligence—subtend the cultural
elevation and adornment of white womanhood.
– mammy or maid in Gone With the Wind (1939), Pinky
(1949), Such Good Friends (1971), and The Help (2011);
– seductress in Hallelujah (1929), Porgy and Bess (1959),
Carmen Jones (1954), and Angel Heart (1987);
– matriarch in A Raisin in the Sun (1961), Big Momma’s
House (1992), and The Matrix (1999);
– whore in Anna Lucasta (1959), Take a Giant Step (1961),
The Pawnbroker (1965), The Hit Man (1972), or Monster’s
Ball (2001);
• These stereotypes, drawn and nourished in the slave
era, effectively exclude black women from cultural
notions of the feminine—and exclusion that ironically
provides the structural basis for such cultural
articulations.
Slave
Hierarchy
• The film portrays the differences between the house servants such as
Mammy and Pork and the field hands such as the foreman Big Sam.
• The house slaves appear comparatively well off and it is only the field
slaves who leave the Tara plantation after the Emancipation Proclamation
(1863).
• The novel explains that the field hands behave "as creatures of small
intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small
children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond
their comprehension, they ran wild—either from perverse pleasure in
destruction or simply because of their ignorance."
• Of the servants that stayed on at Tara, Scarlett thinks to herself, "There
were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no strain
could break, no money could buy."
Ku Klux Klan
• Does the film ever mention or portray the KKK?
• When producer David O. Selznick received screenwriter Sidney
Howard's first fifty-page draft of the script, Selznick deleted all
references to the Klan.
• Yet the film not only shows Klan activity it also glorifies it. How so?
• After Scarlett narrowly escapes from the shanty town with the help
of Big Sam, her husband Frank Kennedy and the Ku Klux
Klan raid the shanty town whereupon Frank is shot dead.
• In order to keep the men from being arrested by the Union Army
(the south is under martial law during Reconstruction), Rhett puts
on a charade by pretending to be drunk. He claims that he and the
other men had been at Belle Watling’s brothel that evening and
the Yankees buy it.
• Hence the KKK is a noble organization that protects the honor of
its people and bests the Union Army.
The Wind Done Gone (2001)
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Alice Randall’s novel was a controversial response to the
historical fiction of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind.
Randall's main character Cynara narrates this book through
journal entries, giving the reader the opportunity to examine the
grittier aspects of slave society (the unacknowledged alliances
and relationships between men of power and colored women, the
unrecognized mixed-race mulatto children, slave markets,
jealousy and manipulation) and the similarities of all people,
irrespective of race (love, loss, and longing).
In Randall's South, slaves aren't childish simpletons but clever
manipulators with much more depth and texture of character than
Mitchell allowed them in her portrayal of a South without racial
brutality and miscegenation.
The slave-master relationship depicted in Mitchell's work is
sharply ridiculed by Randall throughout her novel.
On the surface, Mitchell's account shows a family in full command
of riches, power, land and slaves.
In Randall's portrayal, it is the slaves who truly maintain control of
the family's destiny.
From the marriage of the family's parental units, to the design of
the house they will live in, to the day to day management of the
estate, Mammy and Pork remained in subtle yet assured control.
Keepers of secrets and masters of manipulation, they created and
secured a present and future ("What would we a done with a
sober white man on the place?") that ensured safety and shelter
in an atrociously oppressive environment.
Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara
• The southern belle is an archetype for a young
woman of the American old south upper class.
The southern belle's attractiveness is not
physical beauty, but rather lies in her charm.
• While Scarlett is at once the quintessential
southern belle, she also rebels.
• Scarlett's bad belle traits, her deceitfulness,
shrewdness, manipulativeness, and
superficiality, in contrast to Melanie's good
belle traits, trust, self-sacrifice, and loyalty,
enable Scarlett to survive in the post-war
south, and pursue her main interest, making
money.
• Like all white women of the era, Scarlett’s goal
is to marry in order to maintain and improve her
social and financial status. She marries not
once was but three times: Charles Hamilton,
Frank Kennedy, and Rhett Butler.
• In the novel she has a two children before
Bonnie: Wade Hampton Hamilton (son to
Charles Hamilton) and Ella Lorena Kennedy
(daughter to Frank Kennedy).
Cynara “Cinnamon” Cindi
• Cynara is Scarlett O'Hara's half-sister,
the child of Scarlett’s father, Gerald
O'Hara, and Mammy.
• Cynara was raised side by side with
Scarlett and as children both sisters
competed for the attentions of
Mammy.
• As adults they continued their
competition this time for the love of the
same men, first Ashley Wilkes and
later Rhett Butler.
• Cynara's diary of life as a mulatto at
Tara and during Reconstruction
reveals jealousy, resentment,
hypocrisy, well-guarded family secrets,
and personal redemption.
• She writes of her transformation from
resentful slave to independent-minded
woman.
Thomas Mitchell
as Gerald O’Hara
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White slaveholding plantation owner of Tara.
Captain in the state militia and leader in the community.
TWDG:
His passion is for Mammy, not for his wife.
Father to Cynara, Scarlett O'Hara's half-sister, with Mammy.
Though he doted on his daughter Cynara when she was young, he
sells her away from her home to another family when he realizes
that she is Scarlett’s rival and that she would inevitably end up as a
bedmate for Scarlett’s husband.
• Yet, through a twist of fate, Cynara ends up working for Belle
Watling, begins a relationship with Rhett, tells him about Scarlett,
and unwittingly leads Rhett to her.
Hattie McDaniel
as Mammy
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Mammy is a slave who originally belonged to Scarlett's grandmother, and raised
her mother, Ellen O'Hara.
She is a loyal house servant and protector to Scarlett and her sisters.
She remains loyal to the family even after the Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
and during Reconstruction.
In the novel she recognizes her freedom to come and go as she pleases saying,
"Ah is free, Miss Scarlett. You kain sen' me nowhar Ah doan wanter go.“ Yet she
never leaves Scarlett.
TWDG:
Wet nurse and mother-figure to the white children of Gerald O’Hara and biological
mother to the mulatto children of Gerald O’Hara.
She gained weight in order to make herself sexually undesirable to her white
master.
Mammy favored her surrogate white children over her biological offspring.
Mammy’s masters believe she is a loyal slave, but the other slaves suspect that
she killed Scarlett’s mother and Gerald O’Hara’s male children—given to her to
nurse—so that Mr. O’Hara would be Tara’s last white master.
Barbara O’Neil as Ellen O’Hara
• Scarlett's gracious mother of French ancestry,
Ellen married Gerald O'Hara, who was 28 years
her senior, after her true love, her cousin Phillipe
Robillard, was killed in a bar fight.
• Ellen ran all aspects of the household and nursed
negro slaves as well as poor white trash.
• She dies from typhoid in August 1864 after
nursing Emmie Slattery.
• TWDG:
• Hurt by the close relationship between her eldest
daughter Scarlett and Mammy, she would
sometimes nurse Cynara.
• She kept a secret that could destroy her family:
she learned that one of her distant ancestors was
black, which by the One-drop rule made her and
her children Negro. Therefore, like many mixedrace persons, she worked hard to “pass” as white
and explains why she nursed slaves.
Clark Gable as Rhett Butler
• Born to a respected family of Charleston, Rhett was expelled from West
Point and disinherited by his father when he refused to marry according to
the latter's wishes. He made his own fortune in the California Gold
Rush of 1848-1849.
• Rhett has a reputation as a womanizer, scoundrel, and scallawag. A
scallawag is a loafer, vagabond, or rogue and the term had special
meaning after the Civil War as an epithet for a white Southerner who
willingly accepted the reforms by the Republicans. In the novel, Mitchell
defined Scallawags as, "Southerners who had turned Republican very
profitably.“
• He redeems himself in the eyes of southerners when he becomes a
blockade runner, joins “the cause”, and marries and buys his way into
“respectable” society.
• He ultimately leaves Scarlett when she refuses his sexual and familial
advances.
• At the end of the novel, Rhett confesses to Scarlett, "I loved you but I
couldn't let you know it. You're so brutal to those who love you, Scarlett."
• Margaret Mitchell was asked what happened to Scarlett and Rhett and
she said that she did not know: "For all I know, Rhett may have found
someone else who was less difficult.”
Rhett Butler: TWDG
• TWDG:
• Cynara sees Rhett as a prize that she can
win in her rivalry with her half-sister Scarlett.
• Cyn becomes Rhett’s mistress when he
leaves Scarlett after the death of their
daughter Bonnie.
• Rhett purchases her off the auction block,
takes Cynara as a mistress and kept
woman, sets up house with her, and later
marries her.
• While Rhett loves Cynara for her beauty, he
never tries to understand her and ultimately
Scarlett’s ghost is always between them.
• Furthermore, throughout their relationship,
Cynara is torn between two loves. A love
she feels owed to Rhett for "rescuing" her
from a life of toil (only to imprison her to a
life of domestic servitude) and the love that
is awakened in her upon meeting a black
Congressman during a visit to Washington,
DC.
Leslie Howard
as Ashley Wilkes
• The unobtainable knight of Scarlett’s dreams.
• He chooses to marry his plain cousin Melanie Hamilton and live
respectably.
• He says he would have freed his slaves after his father's death, if the war
hadn't done it first.
• In Mitchell’s novel Rhett calls him "Dead Sea fruit" which is defined as
"something that appears to be beautiful or full of promise but is in reality
nothing but illusion and disappointment."
• TWDG:
• Because he is gay he is continually horrified by Scarlett’s advances.
• He secretly loves Prissy’s brother, a slave.
• When his lover revealed the affair to his wife, Melanie, she had the slave
whipped to death.
Olivia de Havilland
as Melanie Hamilton Wilkes
• Raised by her Aunt “Pittypat” Hamilton Melanie marries her cousin
Ashley and eventually becomes best friends with Scarlett.
• Like her brother and parents, Melanie is prone to sickness due to
generations of “inbreeding” between the Hamilton’s and the Wilkes’.
• As the story unfolds, Melanie becomes progressively physically
weaker, first by childbirth, then "the hard work she had done at
Tara," and she ultimately dies after a miscarriage. As Rhett Butler
said, "She never had any strength. She's never had anything but
heart."
• In the novel, Melanie objects to her husband's intended move to New
York because it would mean that their children would be educated
alongside Yankees and pickaninnies.
Ona Munson as Belle Watling
• The stereotypical prostitute
with a heart of gold, Belle
helps the South by donating
money to the cause.
• A brothel owner, she once
owned Cynara, which is how
Rhett came to be involved with
the O’Hara’s.
• She is a source of advice for
the young woman.
• Although she had an affair with
Rhett, Cynara believes she is
a lesbian.
Oscar Polk as Pork
• Gerald O'Hara's valet and the first slave he owned. According to the
novel, Pork was won in a game of poker (as was the plantation Tara).
• When Gerald died, Scarlett gave his pocket watch to Pork. She wanted to
have the watch engraved with the words, "To Pork from the O'Hara's—
Well done good and faithful servant," but Pork declined the offer.
• The novel depicts Pork’s wife Dilcey, a slave of mixed Indian and African
descent. Scarlett pushes her father into buying Dilcey and her daughter
Prissy from John Wilkes, the latter as a favor to Dilcey that she never
forgets.
• TWDG:
• Gerald’s manservant Pork is the architect of his master's success, his
master's marriage and the house Tara.
• He used his wits and patience to manipulate O’Hara, with the goal of
becoming the estate's real master. Indeed the GWTW scene where
Scarlett and Pork discuss taxes suggests this.
• Cynara suspects that he may also be the mastermind behind Gerald
O’Hara’s death.
Butterfly McQueen
as Prissy
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A child pickaninny slave girl, the daughter of Pork and Dilcey.
When Scarlett and Prissy arrive in Atlanta with Scarlett’s baby from her first marriage
to Charles, Uncle Peter negatively calls Prissy a pickaninny in his explanation for why
Aunt Pittypat and Melanie are not there to meet them: "Miss Pitty in a state bekase she
din' come ter meet you. She's feared you mout not unnerstan' but Ah tole her she an'
Miss Melly jes' git splashed wid mud an' ruin dey new dresses an' Ah'd 'splain ter you.
Miss Scarlett, you better tek dat chile. Dat lil pickaninny gwine let it drap.“
When Melanie is going to give birth Prissy first says that she can do it and later says
that she cannot: “Oh, lawdsy, Miss Scarlett! Lawdsy, we've got to have a doctor! I don't
know nothing about birthing babies. I don't know how can I tell such a lie. Ma
ain't never let me around when folks was having them.”
TWDG:
She holds a grudge against Melanie Wilkes, whom she blames for two of her brothers'
deaths.
One of her brothers was whipped to death when Melanie discovered his affair with her
husband. The other starved to death as a baby when his mother became wet nurse to
Melanie's child Beau.
The whites believe she was psychologically broken by her brothers' deaths, but the
slaves believe that she is a crafty woman who is responsible for Melanie’s death.
Aftermath
• The film won many awards and is
routinely listed on film critics’ lists
of the best films of all time.
• Hattie McDaniel, who played
Mammy, won an Academy Award
for Best Supporting Actress – the
first African-American honored by
the Academy.
• McDaniel was also an
accomplished singer and was the
first African-American to sing on
the radio.
• She has two stars on the
Hollywood walk of fame.
Conclusion
• Until the 1970s, Americans who sat in the movie theaters saw an
endless string of Civil War films in which African Americans were
mostly depicted as groveling simpletons, as in Gone With The Wind,
or, murderers and rapists, as in The Birth of a Nation.
• Movies convinced many whites that the disgraceful way in which
blacks had been treated in and out of slavery over the decades was
perfectly justified. If slaves occupied the very lowest regions in the reel
world, put there by supposedly well-researched Hollywood films, it
followed that they should occupy it in the real world, too. Ultimately,
Civil War films showed Americans that they could be reunited after the
end of the war – reunited in their whiteness.
References
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Beals, C. 1965. War Within a War (Philadelphia: Chilton).
Bennett, L. 1969. Black Power U.S.A.: The Human Side of Reconstruction (Baltimore: Penguin).
Pilgrim, David. 2002. “Jezebel Stereotype.” Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.
Rawick, G. 1972. From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community (Westport, CT: Greenwood).