Did anybody see Katie Couric's "Gone with the Wind" faux-pas?

[DeepModem Mom]

This was just reported to me, and I'll do my best to relay it. On this morning's "Today" show, Katie was apparently reporting the most overrated movies of all time. To her chagrin they included two of her favorite movies, "Gone with the Wind" and "Forrest Gump." Lester Holt was co-hosting. He said that he liked "Forrest Gump," but then added something like: "Well, 'Gone with the Wind'...." Katie responded with something like, "HOW could you not like 'Gone with the Wind'?"

Uhhh, Katie, because Lester is BLACK? Has she not heard or read about GWTW's controversial portrayal of black people? As Katie went on, saying that she thought the people who chose the overrated movies were just trying to be "contrarian," Lester, I heard, let it go.

[bunkerbuster1]

1. Lester don't know nuffin' 'bout birthin' baybeez?

Seriously, how embarrassing for all concerned.

[glitch]

3. Indeed!

yikes.

[Captain Hilts]

68. Butterfly McQueen quit acting and got a Poli Sci degree from CCNY (nt)

[bunkerbuster1]

82. That, I did not know.

I did hear a story on NPR about how, decades after GWTW, she'd get on board a NYC bus and hear murmurs from people... and not terribly flattering murmurs, either.

[tabasco]

2. Dem black folks were happy slaves dat loved they masters!

Couric is an idiot, but she is a mental giant compared to Matt Lauer.

[mark11727]

4. "Please don't free me, Miz Scarlett...!" I always thought the same thing.

[jane_pippin]

5. Yet one more reason I can't stand America's Sweetheart

Other reasons include (but are not limited to) :

Need to monopolize coversation/step on co-hosts' lines
Breaks into song WAY too much
Thinks she's hilarious, when in fact, she is not
She's an idiot
I've seen her colon


edit: to add another reason

[Deep13]

6. Even apart from being an apology for slavery...

...it is still a crappy movie. It is basically three hours of unpleasant and unsympathetic people bickering and making asses of themselves.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

10. Take that back...

Ashley Wilkes was a nice guy, you know, apart from the whole "I own a bus load of slaves and I'm going to fight to keep them" thingee.

All right, so he wasn't so nice. But at least he wasn't a dork like that Hamilton guy that Scarlett married.

[MalibuChloe]

24. you are judging a 1939 piece based on an 1860 experience...

by 2005 standards.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

98. But I'm rounding to the nearest century

so it all works out.

[Chipper Chat]

12. Gone With the Wind - you can pick and choose.

It's like a bag of Ghardettos - you eat your favorite pieces & leave the rest in the bag. I admire GWTW for the beautiful color, costumes, pace, cinematography, and music more than the plot & campy characters. Maybe Hattie McDaniel's role was an arch-sterotype (think Aunt Jemima), but she was one hell of an actress.

[MojoXN]

74. Mmmm... Gardettos...

the bagel chips first, then those breadstick things, and then the pretzels, of which there are entirely too many.

MojoXN

[spuddonna]

7. OMG... that's pathetic...

But you know what, as I'm thinking about this there are two possible explainations:

1) She's a moron...
2) She may not 'see' Lester as black, ie. she doesn't particularly take note or care about the color of his skin, therefore she assumes he has the same worldview as her... It can happen between coworkers... Nah, second thought, she's a moron!

Plus, "Gone with the Wind"??? gah... I love old movies, but never understood the interest in that one. Geez, if you like Clark Gable, go see "It Happened One Night" w/Claudette Colbert! Much better flick...

[calico1]

8. She is and idiot

and once again proves it. When she was co hosting the last Winter Olympics opening ceremonies I remember her taking shots and making fun of the different outfits different countries represented were wearing. Moron.

[Catherine Vincent]

9. Lester Holt is black? :-)

But anyways, I would give Ms. Couric a pass on this, it was a good movie but she probably forgot about it's portrayal of blacks. It happens to all of us.

[littleraf]

11. Katie Couric's an ignorant jackass

And NO, Gone With the Wind is NOT a good movie and I've never made the mistake of forgetting (nor has anyone I know) that it's entire basis was a racist portayal of blacks and a blatant attempt to whitewash the national nightmare of slavery with sophisticated white folks squabbling over their incestuous love-affairs. GWTW is not art it's garbage, it's not responsible entertainment and not even a good story. If Katie seriously wonders, "How can anyone not like Gone With the Wind?" then it shows that Matt Loser -er, Lauer's- not the only NBC anchor whose brain has been addled by too many years of drug abuse.

[Iris]

13. The book was a satire.

The movie glorified the Old South.

Good points and welcome to DU!

[JanMichael]

22. Excuse me, I am not sure I understood your post correctly

do you mean that Margaret Mitchell was attempting to write satire?

Please clarify this for me.

Stephanie

[Iris]

23. Yes. Mitchell was not a fan of "southern society"

The book was poking fun at it.

[JanMichael]

25. Can you please name your source?

Thanks,

Stephanie

[Iris]

27. It would take me a while to find it and I'm busy today.

But I live in Atlanta and I've read many articles about this.

Besides, all you have to do is read the book to see it.

[JanMichael]

35. I have read the book so many times that you can open it

read me a paragraph, and I can almost quote it, but certainly can tell you where the characters are, what they are doing...etc.

7th generation Southerner here.

I do not think that Margaret Mitchell intended for that book to be a strict "I adore the South and everything Southern" book by any stretch of the imagination; but never have I heard it described as "satire." When you get a moment, I would love to read what you have, if you can find a link.

Interesting thought; one aspect that I have not explored about the book.

Steph

[Iris]

40. I'll bookmark this thread so I can find it again later.

One interesting thing is there is a museum here in the apartment building where she wrote GWTW. It's called The Center for Southern Literature or something like that. The ironic part is she used to refer to the building as "the dump."

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

110. I've been to that!

[Cats Against Frist]

52. Didn't someone write an "alternate tale" of GWTW

that was more socially responsible? I think Mitchell's family sued that person, too.

***edit: Ah, yes -- called "The Wind Done Gone":

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20010430.html

[NYCGirl]

72. It wasn't an "alternate tale" nor socially responsible, it was a parody.

[Eloriel]

79. I live in Atlanta too and have never, ever heard that. n/t

[MalibuChloe]

30. i sort of addressed this down below somewhere...

she was a progressive of her time, but would have been considered a racist in 2005. but she didn't live in 2005.

the story is both a critique and a celebration of the Old South.

[littleraf]

75. A Critique and Celebration?

Sorry but you lost me there. A critique and celebration are two opposing impulses, and would candcel each other out. This didn't happen with GWTW. It's celebration of the Old South was it's strongest theme. At no point were the racist conceits of Southern society ever to blame for the troubles of the characters in the film nor were said conceits evre shown to have caused the slightest problem for anyone -slaves included. This is unreality. The story pretended as if their troubles simply appeared out of thin air.

[Beaverhausen]

29. yeah, that's a new one on me, too.

:wtf:

[Iris]

32. Have you read the book?

[Beaverhausen]

39. Yes

[Iris]

42. I just thought it was obvious when I read it.

I also thought it was pretty bad writing and am amazed at how overrated it is.

[Beaverhausen]

53. I read it more for the love story

It's not my favorite book of all time or anything but I did enjoy the story.

Hey, if you didn't like it that's fine. We are all entitled to our opinions.

[Iris]

56. Yes. It read like a romance novel.

And I think that's how a lot of people see it.

[Captain Hilts]

63. This is true. She loved stirring up trouble. (nt)

[LostinVA]

44. This book was NOT satire

Mitchell didn't like post-Civil War society constraints, but she was an enthusiastic admirer of pre-Civil War Georgia, including slavery.

[Eloriel]

85. I don't think there's any support for that allegation, either,

frankly. But I'll ask you if you have a link of some other support:

she was an enthusiastic admirer of pre-Civil War Georgia, including slavery.

It's the "enthusiastic admirer of slavery" part I'm interested in. Writing romantic FICTION about something which was historical fact, and doing so without a lot of moralism or social analysis, doesn't necessarily make one nostalgic for that historical fact.

It's been many years since I read the book, and quite a few years since I last saw the film (which would've been my third viewing). Frankly, aside from simply NOT condemning slavery, and perhaps not developing her black characters with much depth (or doing so somewhat stereotypically perhaps), I don't know what people are complaining about.

I also think the sage commment upthread needs bears repeating: this is a 2005 critique of a 1939 book about the 1860s. I think it's unrealistic at best to have expected Margaret Mitchell to have had scads more sensitivity to racial issues than her peers.

Further, depending entirely on my own memory here, I do not remember it being either egregiously racist. I don't recall any dehumanizing of her black characters, for example. And yes, Prissy was silly and useless, for example -- she could have been just as silly and useless as a young white woman. Frankly, on the subject of birthin' babies, I identified with her utterly, especially during my first viewing of it as a teenager!

So if Mitchell's sin was not using the opportunity of a bestselling book to reveal the true, inhuman nature of slavery, I think that's a tad bit unfair and unrealistic. It's not as if the aim of the book was the reverse: to glorify slavery. The book was a love story, and an epic saga of the Civil War era, NOT social commentary.

Same with Mark Twain's Huck Finn I think it was, which used the N-word and was so badly excoriated for that (and taken off library bookshelves on account of it). I'm sorry, but expecting a novelist, esp. one writing in dialect, to not use the thoroughly acceptable terminology of his time because WE find it objectionable many decades later -- and appopriately so!! -- is just silly IMO.

[littleraf]

90. I'm probably wrong but as I remember it

Huck Finn was taken off the shelves of public school libraries, not city public libraries. What's wrong with deciding that childred shouldn't be taught racial slurs in their own schools? and that taxpayer dollars shouldn't support objectionable material being available to children? Anyway you could still get a copy from your local bookstore. It's not like it was banned.

[Eloriel]

94. I wanted to add to the previous post --

that I didn't mean that Huck Finn shouldn't be taught responsibly (if it's "taught" at all), which would include a denunciation of that language for TODAY. And, what I would also like to see is that every copy of the book include a prominent publisher's note to that effect: that this language wasn't thought harmful or wrong in Twain's era, but is definitely considered so today (in much more eloquent form, but you get the idea).

What's wrong with deciding that childred shouldn't be taught racial slurs in their own schools? and that taxpayer dollars shouldn't support objectionable material being available to children?

Well, I can understand and have some empathy for that. OTOH, it's not as if these "children" have never heard the word before -- so it's not as if they were "being taught racial slurs" at all. But I still come down on the side of teaching it responsibly and the publisher's "disclaimer." I've never read the novel, personally, so I don't even know if it's worth salvaging, tho apparently it is since so many people still DO read it, and movies are still made of it.

I'm thinking how empty our libraries would be if all sexist material were removed....

[skygazer]

100. I have never understood Huck Finn being removed from ANY library

The story is that of a southern boy who learns that all he's been taught about the supposed superiority of white people and the inhumanness of black people is all wrong. The use of the "N" word simply underscores the casual cruelty of a time when it was perfectly acceptable to hold people in bondage, separate them from their families on a whim, beat them, kill them, rape them with impunity, use them like a tool and then discard them when finished.

That cruelty is countered in the book by the humanity and kindness of the escaped slave Jim, who risks his life and his freedom more than once to save Huck, a white boy. Huck is going through a profound process of shedding all the cultural stereotypes and stigmas he's been raised with, and that are carried by all his contemporaries. This is not a children's book anyway - a young child could not understand it and an older one will immediately understand the point and the lesson.

Far from teaching children racial slurs, Huckleberry Finn teaches acceptance and compassion. And as far as calling it objectionable, I have a hard time believing that anyone who would call it such has ever read it.

[bobbieinok]

120. and Tom Sawyer helps 'free' Jim when he's recaptured....but only

b/c he knows Jim has been legally freed; it's all just an exciting adventure for Tom who has zero ability to understand Jim's and Huck's feelings.........I was never able to read Tom Sawyer in the same way again

[sui generis]

16. just the same, it is a chronicle of all the things you have stated

people take from it what they want - it doesn't make them racist in their ignorance, nor does it make them bigoted or unsophisticated.

I'm sure the "part" that Katie Couric saw was the story of a "strong" woman making hard choices, although as you have pointed out it was told from the point of view of a white woman telling the white version of the war between the states.

I don't particularly care for the story for most of the reasons stated, but I'm not going to judge what people take for themselves from the story in the most negative light.

[DeepModem Mom]

17. Thanks for your post, littleraf -- and welcome to DU.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[linazelle]

66. Funny. Holt is the most unblack Black I know. This shouldn't have

been an issue for him.

[FredScuttle]

111. No way....

to paraphrase Paul Mooney, Bryant Gumbel makes Lester Holt look like Malcolm X.

[linazelle]

119. They're dueling for the title...I actually think Holt is winning. nt

[TNOE]

14. Okay - I guess I'm stupider than I thought

GWTW has been one of my all time favorite movies too - I didn't particularly see it as racist - so much as an accurate portrayal of the way things were in the South - people did have slaves (was wrong of course, but they did - they didn't even think of it as being wrong) - but didn't Mamee win an Academy Award or was up for one or something? I figured that was huge for the day in which this movie was made - and she was a treat to watch - she was certainly one of the stars of the movie in my opinion.

So - I guess I have to defend Katie here - I for one do not see black or white in my relationships - maybe she didn't either and I didn't see the movie as racist. So where am I wrong here?

[Beaverhausen]

18. I'm with you

People seem to be forgetting the period this film was set in.

I think Vivien Leigh's performance alone makes the film one of the best ever.

[sui generis]

19. analysis paralysis

I agree with you - a bit of overreaction on this one. Even if you could paint this as overtly and intentionally racist at the time it was created, it is nevertheless still a chronicle of those times from that point of view told at the time it was interpreted for film.

Sometimes we are as brittle in our opinions of what constitutes "proper" and "good" as we accuse the other side of being . . .

New Topic: Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare. Discuss.

[Captain Hilts]

65. The movie does NOT depict slavery or slaveholders in a favorable light.

Or how slaves were treated and kept ignorant.

[MalibuChloe]

20. I agree TNOE

It's a fictional account of an ugly period in U.S. history and it's a great epic film. I don't think it glorifies or excuses slavery. In fact, the southerners are shown to be as arrogant and incompetent as they actually were. The slaves in the story are fairly one-dimensional, but that is because it is a story about Scarlett and her world and her viewpoint.

The book is better, of course.

Black Americans can't appreciate a piece of art just because it mentions slavery?

Maybe there are other reasons he didn't like it?

Oh and as a side note - watch that movie if you haven't seen it in a while. It's truly frightening how little things have changed in that part of the country. You have these Confederate soldiers going "yeeee HA! let's go to war!" and the smart guy who has actually seen the world saying, "wait a second...we could lose - we aren't prepared for this."

But they don't listen....and they lose very badly.



:nuke:

[Connie_Corleone]

31. Of course we can appreciate a movie even if it mentions...

slavery. Have you heard of Roots?

It's not the depiction of slavery, it's how black people were portrayed in movies like GWTW (i.e. stupid, scared, childlike, etc.). Yeah, that's how it was in Hollywood back then. That doesn't mean I have to like the movie.

[MalibuChloe]

38. no, you don't have to like any movie

but it should be made clear that the movie depicts the slaves in that way for a clear literary reason...it was, in fact, the perspective of the female protaganist, who knew no other world and who knew black people no other way.

Roots was written to tell the perspective of the slaves themselves and so they are much more three-dimensional.

[Beaverhausen]

48. One of my favorite relationships in the book/film is Mammy and Scarlett

Mammy was like Scarlett's mother. Scarlett, as strong as she was, relied on Mammy to help her through the toughest times.

Not all the slaves were portrayed and stupid or scared. Mammy was just as strong and smart as Scarlett.

[Connie_Corleone]

58. A black woman being a mother to the master's white kids...

I've never heard of that before.

:sarcasm:

That was commonplace back then.

[Beaverhausen]

62. yes, it was commonplace, and I thought they portrayed it well

what is your point?

[Connie_Corleone]

64. You thought they portrayed it well...

Good for you.

[ieoeja]

73. "Mammy was just as strong and smart as Scarlett."

So you're saying it DOES portray slaves as stupid and weak?

[Beaverhausen]

80. I didn't say Scarlett is weak or stupid

Geez...you don't like the movie. fine. whatever.

[LandOLincoln]

96. Hattie McDaniel OWNS that movie as much as

Gable and Leigh and DeHavilland do.

I love it, and watch at least part of it whenever it's on, and I think my handle should tell you all you need to know about any sentimental attachment I might have to the Old South.

[littleraf]

81. Appreciate Gone With the Wind?

That's like asking a Jew (or any conscientious person with morals) to appreciate Triumph of the Will. And to call GWTW art? That's an insult to artists everywhere. Chloe, I'm sure you mean well but unfortunately like most whites you've had no experience like slavery, nor experienced the humliation of racism enshrined into law. you've never had to watch as slave owners (like many of the founding fathers) are called heroes while people with your skin tone are called anti-American and animals simply for demanding the right to vote. You've not had to endure an entire half-century of radio and flims where you and other whites were portayed as sub-humans. Blacks have had to put up with all these things. So it's very easy for you to casually say, "It's art, no harm done," and shrug your shoulders that blacks don't "understand." And that's precisely what's wrong here. And with race relations in America today. If you truly don't see what's wrong with this film then it simply underscores how much more work there is to be done and how far we HAVEN'T come in race relations today.
Should GWTW be banned? No, I'm a fierce advocate of 1st Amnd freedoms, even when they denigrate me, corrupt the sensibilities of those who should know better and spread the ugliest of lies. But should it be praised? ABSOUTELY NOT!

[littleraf]

21. Thanks for the welcome Iris, glad to be here

The problem with GWTW is not so much that it shows the South as it "really was," rather that in this day and age it's glorifaction of the Old South (and there's no other way to look at this film than as a cononnization piece for Antebellum slavery, showing it as glamourous and genteel rather than barbaric, soul-crushing for the slaves and evil) is embraced with affection and respect rather than universally reviled. Nobody who defends GWTW ever discusses the slaves. Slaves were being killed, maimed, raped, lynched and imprisoned for life. This was the way the Old South really was, but for some reason that never made it into the film, nor do lovers of GWTW ever remark about this insignificant detail. Were someone to make a film about a love affair at a Nazi concentration camp I imagine there would be no defenders of it. Nobody is bothered in the least that the main characters were committing one of the most egregious human rights violations in history and that these characters were supposed to be the heroes of the film. GWTW encapsulates everything ugly about race in America. Even the title proclaims this conceit, that this great era is gone with the ind. Well, Good Riddance. If perky Ms Couric liked GWTW then she probably creamed her Hanes when she saw Birth of a Nation. I see these films as shameful works of degradation, but there are those who say it was about more than that. Perhaps someone will tell me where I am wrong in this matter.

[Iris]

36. The film was made in 1939.

The black actors and actresses probably had to sit in the balcony just to see their own movie.

[Lex]

45. To see all the movies at that time. Does that mean all the movies are

bad from that time or what?

[Iris]

50. If you don't get it, I really can't explain it to you.

These people were IN the movie and still had to sit in the balcony to see it.

[Lex]

57. Yeah, I *get* that. That was bad, of course.

But that happened to all movies that had black actors in them. It was horrible but how can that be a condemnation of the movie itself if all movies were like that?

[Iris]

76. Yes, I see what you mean. But the point of this thread is

that Katie Couric seemed completely clueless about why anyone would be offended by the movie.

I don't think I really mean to say she doesn't have the right to name GWTW as her favorite movie, but I also think the person who is offended by it has the right to be offended by it.

And, ultimately, I think it's pathetic that Couric can't see that AND that she would pick such an overrated movie as her favorite movie of all time.

[MalibuChloe]

78. it's interesting how we all see it so differently...

to me, it shows that katie is not a racist. she didn't assume that just because Lester is black, he automatically wouldn't like Gone With the Wind.

Maybe he hated the acting or the story structure.

[littleraf]

101. Sure, Lester probably didn't like the story structure

And I'm sure the only reason blacks objected to Al Jolson's blackface routines was because they didn't think he was a good singer.

[Iris]

117. To me it shows that Katie is incredibly obtuse.

And maybe deserving of the "diva" label after all.

[petronius]

26. I never saw the movie

but this reminds me of when I was on a crowded bus in Oakland, and the only other white person on the bus decided, out of the blue, to tell me what a great movie GWTW was because it showed how happy and well-treated the slaves really were...

[MalibuChloe]

33. but it doesn't show that AT ALL!

the movie is Scarlett's story...what it shows is that SHE, her family, and the other slaveowners believed their slaves were perfectly content with their lot in life. And that they were wrong. (the movie makes this clear when, after the slaves are freed, they get cocky and badmouth their former "owners."

[petronius]

61. Well, I was pretty sure she was an idiot

and I still haven't seen the movie...

[littleraf]

34. That's Sad

For anyone to gloss over the horror of slavery showsa lack of compassion or intelligence, or rather both. And to think the slaves were happy? That's racist nonsense. Not one of the slaveowners believed that anyone wanted to be a slave -that's why they had them in chains and butchered anyone who tried to escpae. It sounds like someone who wanted to be offensive in the rpesence of blacks which unfortunately has turned into a kind of cottage industry, of which Ms Couric is a proud proponent. And how is a slave whose been abuse his whole life being "cocky" when he "badmouths" his former captor? Rather he's voicing his outrage at his treatement and finally airing his indignation. There's still a lot of work to do in American, because the issue of race, as seen through the eyes of so many, is still completely distorted, even today.

[Iris]

37. What's sad is that someone is that naive.

And doesn't even know what an idiot h/she is!

[MalibuChloe]

41. i don't think you understand

no one is glossing over it. i'm speaking as a writing student and i'm speaking about the pure literature here. this WAS the perspective of the slaveowners. that is what mitchell was trying to illustrate. the movie was not about slavery. it was about one woman.

[Iris]

46. It's not that.

The movie was a big deal - wasn't it the first (or one of the first) color movies ever?

And it made the whole era look like one great party before the Yankees came and destroyed everything. It totally ignored the fact that the elite were able to enjoy that lifestyle on the backs of slaves and poor whites.

It's like glorifying the 50's and how wonderful "family life" was without acknowledging that there were plenty of people who weren't living the lifestyle glorifed by Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best.

[Lex]

54. No---it showed how short-sighted and oblivious the South was about slavery

and what a Civil War would do to them.

[Iris]

59. Yes. That's a good point, but I don't think that was necessarily the

intention of the film makers. I always got the impression it was the blockbuster of it's day - one of the first colorized movies - a very big deal, but not necessarily meant to be social commentary, which is why I see it as a little insensitive today.

[Eloriel]

91. Of COURSE it's insensitive TODAY

but it wasn't released TODAY. It wasn't written TODAY.

I agree wholeheartedly that it doesn't depict slavery as it really was -- altho I am totally unwilling to believe there were NO loving relationships between whites and blacks during that time, no humanity expressed, no education given, and in fact no freedom given, etc. (all of which I'd consider JUST as factually inaccurate).

So I disagree. By today's standards it would be VERY insensitive. But I see no point in villifying Mitchell for not producing something that matches today's standards of racial sensitivity when that would have been clearly impossible.

So, villify it for not matching today's standards. And hate it for whatever reasons you want. But ask yourself how realistic to expect the impossible?

You know, one of the things that makes a book a classic is its "universality," its applicability of theme, etc., over a wide range of the human condition. Here's Dictionary.com's definitions:

2 entries found for universality.
u·ni·ver·sal·i·ty Audio pronunciation of "universality" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (yn-vr-sl-t)
n. pl. u·ni·ver·sal·i·ties

1. The quality, fact, or condition of being universal.
2. Universal inclusiveness in scope or range, especially great or unbounded versatility of the mind.

GWTW isn't considered a classic by literary people, of course, because it's probably not that great a work of literature, per se. But it IS a great story, one that has endured for many years and one which is probably going to be popular for centuries hence. War is, unfortunately, a universal fact of life, as are love and betrayal along with desperation, hunger and starvation, etc., etc., etc. And stupidity. By today's standards, it has a serious flaw in its too-pretty portrayal of slaves and slavery -- that doesen't change any of the rest of why the story endures. Were it a book and movie ABOUT slavery as its main subject matter, I'd agree that it should be relegated to the scrap heap of history and literature and film. But it's not.

[Iris]

118. But the point is, Katie Couric was being incredibly insensitive TODAY

no pun intended.

I'm not faulting Mitchell at all and as I said earlier, I don't believe she meant for the book to be taken seriously.

[Captain Hilts]

67. The men who sign up for the war are depicted as fools.

And Scarlett a selfish, spoiled - but resourceful - brat.

[Iris]

47. dupe

[littleraf]

55. How was GWTW about one woman's struggle?

There were plenty of other 18th and 19th century works about independent female characters against incredible odds and they didn't use a backdrop of slavery. The argument that the film comes from the perspective of people who were merely products of their time doesn't wash. William Lloyd Garrison was a man of his time and he hated slavery, as did John Brown. Yet I've never seen Glory given the accolades of GWTW. How can left-wingers in 2005 still callously defend this film and boldly sniff their disapproval that anyone would dislike GWTW? And to say that it's not a racist waste of celluloid? That's the biggest -and saddest- commentary about this film.

[Lex]

60. It's about one clueless spoiled white woman in the South

and I'm sure there were many like her. Clueless, spoiled, isolated and who thought everything was hunky-dory.

[theboss]

99. Scarlett is anything but clueless...and she stops being spoiled in Act 2

Let's see...during the movie, Scarlett marries three men, divorces two of them, decides that traditional mourning is not for her, helps a woman give birth during an invasion, drives a buggy with a sick woman and newborn 80 miles during a vicious battle, kills a man, saves her family's home, starts several businesses, scandalizses all of Atlanta several times, loses a child, nearly wrecks a marriage, losese her true love, and in the end, decides that she will just get up tomorrow and start all over again.

If anything, Scarlett O'Hara was the first fully-formed 20th Century woman in either film or print. In the book, my favorite part is how she horrifies Mammy but giving birth with little effort and no suffering.

[MsTryska]

103. baha!

that's the best synopsis i've read in this thread.


i always thought she was remarkably slutty for her time....

[theboss]

104. The book really goes into a lot more detail

One of the more interesting scenes is when she decides to steal Mr. Kennedy from her sister in order to get the money to save Tara. Mammy realizes what she is doing immediately but supports her because she sees the logic behind the plan. It's a pretty neat scene as it shows these two calculating survivors in a world full of broken idealists.

[MsTryska]

106. I've never read the book....

I'm going to have to put it on my list now. (embarassing, considering I live in Atlanta, and probably should have done so by now)

it's almost time for a fiction break.

[theboss]

107. It's a remarkably fast read

I read it over a weekend once.

[MsTryska]

109. That will be perfect.....

I've gotten on this serious non-fiction jag, but i ususally get so stirred up i need to get a nice fluffy piece of fiction to use as a "palate-cleanser" of sorts. Sounds like GWTW will fit the bill.

[theboss]

113. I should warn you....there's a lot of filler

It could probably lose 200 pages and be a better book. But, it's not like reading War and Peace. The filler is a lot of pages, but takes little time.

[mondo joe]

105. Exactly! She's smart and capable. She just doesn't WANT to be

either of those things. Great analysis.

[MalibuChloe]

77. Welcome to DU, Mr. Quayle!

:woohoo:

Seriously, arguing that a movie that was made 66 years ago (and 25 years before the civil rights movement) depicting the south during the Civil War was not sensitive enough to the slave characters (who were very much secondary to the story) is rather like Dan Quayle getting all pissed off because Murphy Brown had a child out of wedlock.

It's FICTION and it's a beautifully written book (and I think an amazingly beautifully-filmed movie) and that's why it's a classic. Art is perception. You can take whatever you want from it.

Liking the movie hardly equates to approving of slavery. To suggest so is irrational.

Poor Katie Couric. She gets bashed by Ann Coulter AND the DU!

:cry:

[littleraf]

89. My point is not about the film itself

The reason this topic deserves discussion (I've never seen this discourse as "argument, and regret that you have taken it that way) is because this issue is still with us and the attitudes that created GWTW still persist for a large section of the US population. GWTW assails the dignity of an entire people. Human dignity is not debateable, yet that's exactly what defenders of that film do -debate whether it was "all that bad." I don't care how nice the cinematography or wardrobe is, I care about the thrust of the story and it was putrid and wrong. My points in this thread have been about modern society's attitude about this movie -of which couric is merely one example. You can say the filmmakers had warped views on race but how does that explain the people living today who "appreciate" that film? And there were plenty of people in 1939 who railed against Amos and Andy, minstrel shows and the blackface routines of Al Jolson. Sadly, there were also as many people who said these things were merely "art." So again, the argument that these were merely "men of their time" (be it the 1860's or 1930's) simply doesn't wash.
BTW PLEASE don't call me Mr Quayle, even in jest. Dan Quayle was one of the architects of the Willie Horton campaign and I have never misspelled "potato" in my life.

[littleraf]

121. You're a Writing Student?

With your belief system I hope you never make it into print. To describe the slaves as "cocky" shows that clearly it offended you to see slaves talking back, you think the nigras were getting "uppity." And to say they "badmouth" the slaveowners, as though the slaveowners were virtuous men who didn't deserve to be criticised. You sound like a Neo-Confederate, an apologist for slavery, and the more I listen to you malibuchloe the more it's clear that's what you are. Of course you have yet to say a word about the slaveowners -they're just good people who had to put up with "cocky" niggers who "badmouthed" them when all they had ever done was be nice to the underserving darkies. Your statements sound more appropriate for FreeRepublic or Stormfront. Like most prejudiced people you'll say you didn't mean it like that, and I'll say right now I don't believe you. You said exactly what you meant. You may be writing student but you have a lot to learn -about morality, the real world and especially about yourself. You don't have to admit to your bigotry, your words make that plain enough. It would be a shame for someone so irresponsible to ever be put in print. And your attitude is exactly what I'm so indignant about -that people in the modern era love this film, when sensibilities have supposedly changed. The guys who made that film MIGHT (small might) have had an excuse for their racist attitudes, but what's yours? The worse part is that, based on the responses I've seen on this thred, you're not alone. It simply proves a sad truth: as far as race goes there's not a dime's bit of difference between a white Republican or a white Democrat. Neo-cons and left-wingers may not be able to argee on much, but they're soulmates when it comes to their collective attitude about blacks.

[Beaverhausen]

43. Who is glossing over the horror of slavery?

I don't have to agree with every point of view in a film to still enjoy it.

I don't think anyone at DU condones slavery- then or now. But it happened and there isn't anything we can do about it...except make sure it doesn't happen again.

[Fescue4u]

28. I didnt realize you had to be white

to like gone with the wind.

interesting....

[Lex]

51. Yeah. Weird.

One of my best friends (African American)likes it for the portrayal of the South's short-sightedness regarding slavery and the impending Civil War.

[TNOE]

49. I guess I saw it differently

I saw Scarlett as the rich, spoiled brat who had no clue - and it was Mamee who kept her and the rest of them straight (level headed) - and to me it showed Mamee as being the smart one - and then of couse life taught Scarlett a lesson - and forced her to be strong and resourceful, which to me Mamee was already. I found it more like a family, that they cared for each other and went through the hard times together.

However, for me - I tried to watch Roots and watched most of it - but I couldn't sit through it - it made me sick and it literally hurt my heart - I'm sure that it happened, but I for one, could not face the horror.

[Jack Rabbit]

69. Gone with the Wind is the most insufferably overrated film ever

The acting is excellent and some of the cinematography is breath taking. Beyond that, there is nothing positive to say about Gone with the Wind.

I can forgive the film its racism, but only because it was made in 1939 when attitudes were quite different than they are now. Thankfully, we've grown a lot since then.

What bothers me about the film is that it expects me to sympathize with a dreadful, overgrown spoiled child in the person of Scarlet O'Hara. About ten minutes into the nearly four-hour film, I stopped giving a damn what would happen to her. I do not believe a person so shallow and selfish would allow herself to pine away for twenty years over a man she can't have (because he's married to someone simply too good to be true).

And then there's the story of Scarlet and Rhett Butler. You will never convince me that Rhett would have stayed in the same room with Scarlet. He knew he could find a more suitable and more respectable lady in an Atlanta cat house.

Gone with the Wind get a big thumbs down from me, Roger.

[Name removed]

70. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ScreamingMeemie]

71. I liked Gone With the Wind and don't see that as a HUGH faux pas.

I leave the movie admiring Mammy. YEs they overdid the Prissy part and did an awful job of it, but rare is it that I am completely satisfied with a movie. As another poster stated, it's an accurate portrayal of the crappy treatment of the spoiled rotten rich b*tch. :hi:

[earth mom]

83. Couric Bites! How anyone can watch her is beyond me.

She's just another rethug. :puke:

[TNOE]

84. Now if we were talking GWTW Part Deux

EEEEE GADS - NOW THAT!!! WAS AN AWFUL MOVE. The guy - Timothy Hutten or Bottoms - can't remember was a HORRIBLE RHETT BUTLER - AND the Scarlett was equally as awful!

I don't know how they ever got that one made.

[VADem11]

86. Couric

I never really liked her. Her sister though was a great democratic state senator in Virginia.

[noonwitch]

87. The movie is racist, the book is not

According to Butterfly McQueen, the only white people on the set that were nice to the black cast members were Clark Gable and Olivia Dehavilland. She said the Selznick was a racist, and it's pretty obvious from how the black characters are portrayed.

The book, on the other hand, is very clear about it being told from the perspective of a biased individual, that is, Scarlett O'Hara. She is shallow, racist, and sees the way the whole lifestyle of the planters class that she was a beneficiary of, fall apart. She survives by being business smart and emotionally frigid. But the book captures interactions between the white and black characters that the movie fails to show properly. The movie ruins the black characters by making them stereotypes. Except Mammie, because she was such an integral role, played by a great actress. You can never totally diss the movie, for no other reason than the performance by Hattie McDaniel.

[Connie_Corleone]

88. Exactly!

I've been reading and posting on this thread and wondering why some people are talking about the book.

This thread is about the movie.

It's the movie I didn't like. My aunt read the book and she can't stand the movie.

[Fescue4u]

92. SO I guess Jews cannot appreciate Schindlers List either

Since it showed how the Jews were treated?


Personally, I find this slam on couric to be more racist than her rather innocent comment.

I find it racist that people assume that another individual cannot appreciate a movie because they happened to be a certain color.

Of course racism well deserves to be stamped out, but some people are so virulent about it that they become racist themselves in their attempts to be not be racist.

[krkaufman]

93. Pretty damn hard to walk in someone else's shoes...

... but that's bloody dense.

Have you ever pondered being a non-Christian in a world where every day you're reminded of your "second-class" status? (think year reference)

[theboss]

95. I've never found the portrayal that unsympathetic

Prissy's character is a over the top, of course. But I've always felt that Mammy was the heart of the movie. She's clearly smarter than nearly everyone around her.

For a movie from 1939, it's not that bad at all. In most movies from that era (including all of the Marx Bros movies that I love), blacks are throw-away, silent characters. At least in GWTW, they are pretty fully-formed (Mammy, Jim, and Prissy at least).

[mondo joe]

108. Indeed - and let's not forget the only white characters who the movie

"views" as good are the ones who have the most human contact with the slaves: Melanie and Rhett.

It's too bad that something so complex and weighted with so much baggage gets reduced to "racist".

[theboss]

112. True...to thing the movie is racist, you need to ignore Rhett completely

Rhett's speech at the Wilkes' picnic summarizes the true view of the movie, in my eyes. The Old South was a world of Knights and Ladies only in the naive eyes of weak-willed Ashley Wilkes and the young, spoiled Scarlett of the first act.

Rhett sees the South for what it is: a weak, arrogant, immoral, hyprocritical system propped up an awful institution. I don't think he had any particular love for the slaves - but, of course, neither did Abraham Lincoln. But he did seem to have respect for individual slaves as human beings - particularly Mammy in the scene where he gives her the silk petticoat. No other person in the movie interacts with a slave or former slave in that kind of human way.

Once again, the book deals with this issue in more depth. The O'Haras are written as "decent" slave owners (which is a literary fiction of course), but the book acknowledges that other masters - downriver in Georgia - were cruel.

To me, the only truly troubling part of either the book or the movie is the perception that the Ku Klux Klan (that's the meeting that Mr. Kennedy was killed at) was some kind of heroic organization. Reconstruction was abusive, but the book and movie whitewash the very ugly side of the Klan.

[mondo joe]

114. Yup. Movies can't be racist - only our reading of them can be.

And you have very nicely illustrated finding the non racist message of the movie.

[theboss]

115. Actually...some movies CAN be racist

I give you "Birth of a Nation."

Having watched that, I find any message in it irredeemable.

[littleraf]

116. Movies Can't Be Racist?

Birth of a Nation, Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves (a 1943 Warner Bros parody of Dsiney's Snow White though it's sarcasm was aimed almost entirely at blacks rather than Disney) the Steppin Fetchet movies, Amos and Andy. I'm afraid movies can be racist, just like the people who created them.

[Javaman]

97. God, she's a fucking halfwit.

[lildreamer316]

102. Dumbass.

and she's not even blonde.really.