Fact, Fiction, Feminism, and The Elephant in the Room

Rating: Null/10 (7 February 2013)

"Gone With the Wind" represents a vision of The Old South through the romanticism from which great stories are born. Nearly 75 years after its initial release, the movie is still loved and beloved, offering a portrait of a stubborn woman's sexual adventures backed up by a war whose sad legacy remains with us even today.
From the outset, it might seem to just a simple romantic adventure about a stubborn woman's attempts to find her own measure of sexual freedom, but there is something deeper. The backdrop of "Gone With the Wind" is a war that completely restructured the American landscape and created social legacies that we, in the 21st century are still dealing with. At its center is a character who reveals the nature of being able adapt to the enormous changes that would follow.
Scarlett O'Hara represents the future. When the war ended, the rigid tradition of The Old South would die away as the southern economy and traditions were essentially destroyed. Scarlett won't be pinned down by that tradition. She is stubborn, independent, man-hungry and pursues a man, Ashley Wilkes, for no other reason than that he is promised to someone else. She marries to keep from being an old maid, and then pursues one man while resisting another. She sees what she wants and takes it; she is keen but not perceptive. If she were then she might have seen that Rhett Butler is almost her exact equal. He is no gentlemen, visiting Miss Whattling's house of ill-repute and openly admitting that he runs blockade for profit. They are perfect for one another and we know that their attitudes will become the social norm, set in place in the years after the Civil War.
What is unexpected is the way Scarlett casts off the role of southern lady and begins toiling in the dirt to save the family plantation. Her sisters complain about callused hands and sore backs but compare Scarlett with the other women in the movie, you will see the she will survive once the war has ended because she has learned how to face it head on. She has learned how to scheme and manipulate. She grows When we first meet her, she's sitting on the porch at Tara, her face bright and cheery in the Georgia sun surrounded by a flock of potential suitors. This would be the position she would seek to find again in life, the option of having her pick of the man she wants even when he belongs to someone else. Scarlett provides the narrative and the entire business of the war is seen through her eyes. There are no battles. The reality arrives when wounded soldiers are flooded into town in such vast numbers that the streets are lined with wounded and the dead.
That point of view allows us to see Scarlett grow from winsome southern belle, to frustrated widow, to a woman who rises from the ashes of the war, determined to never be hungry again. After that lies her transformation to revolutionary as she determines to return Tara to its former glory. By the time she arrives back to Tara to find it plundered by Yankees, we know that Scarlett won't give up.
That "Gone With the Wind" allows such a feminist story is impressive. Yet, the movie avoids the elephant in the room. It deals with slavery simply by not dealing with slavery. The struggle to free the slaves remains at the edges of the film. In that, the movie is a product of its time. The book had been part of a long series of literary works known as "Anti-Tom Literature", books that came after "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that attempted to downplay the reality of slavery by focusing on the good-hearted white slave owners while portraying slaves as docile and apparently happy. In Mitchell's book Scarlett regards the slaves in internal monologue, "There were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no strain could break, no money could buy." The issue of slavery has always been so touchy. Note that most films about The Civil War take place from the point of view of The Union. "Gone With the Wind" follows the Anti-Tom ideal by dealing with the slaves only very briefly. Male slaves are seen briefly while two female house servants, Mammy and Prissy, supply key supporting roles – again holding up the film's feminist slant. Mammy is a mother figure; always the conscience over Scarlett's shoulder as she propels herself forward into wreckless sexual adventures. Prissy, the younger house servant, portrays a somewhat comic role.
The movie avoids controversy. Margaret Mitchell's book had a subplot involving the KKK, but in adapting the film, producer David O. Selznick omitted that element. He wanted to avoid the same controversy that unpinned "The Birth of a Nation" 24 years earlier.
Perhaps dealing with the issue in the cold light of day might have unpinned the story's romantic fire. This is a story about a Southern woman's full-force sexual adventures. Slavery doesn't seem to be a part of this story, only the provocation of the war that surrounds it. We are asked to admire "Gone With the Wind" for how it portrays women while at the same time forgiving it for how it avoids the larger issue of slavery as a means of still providing escapist entertainment. That's a lot of weight to carry, especially in our politically correct culture. "Gone With the Wind" focuses on ideas and attitudes that were prevalent in the 1930s. It is a time stamp, a window into the attitudes of a time gone by. The Civil War is not presented here, only an interpretation of the way we all heard about it, so maybe we can look on this movie as a manner of how the devastation of this war came to be so romanticized. In that way, the movie is invaluable.