Let's Talk About Gone With the Wind (and the significance thereof)

Cafe Society
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I recently re-read the novel Gone With the Wind, which for those who haven’t it’s wayyyy better than the movie (which actually follows the storyline very closely but of necessity leaves out tons of sidestories, backstories and supporting characters- a miniseries would be great where they can include the Fontaines and the older two children, etc.). It occurred to me while reading it that we are about exactly the same distance in time from the writing/production of GWTW as Mitchell and her readers/viewers were from the Civil War & Reconstruction.

Though both are flawed, both the novel and the movie are truly great. However, a few things that I didn’t notice on my last reading (many years ago) are-

1- Mitchell’s near obsession with social class. Rhett is Charleston aristocracy (aristrocracy in this sense meaning “grandpa was rich”, not the European sense) though in disgrace, rich while his once patrician family starves post-war rather than accept his aide. Scarlett is a half-breed, her mother a scioness of the Robillard clan (a very wealthy Huguenot-Creole family who rebuild their fortune in Savannah when expelled from Haiti) and her father a rags-to-riches Irishman, and pretty much everybody’s social status is discussed in depth. An oddity is that the aristocrats are all painted in far better colors than the crackers, yet Ashley and his sisters- the most aristocratic characters- are portrayed as weak and damned leaches.

2- The fact that Scarlett’s mother and Rhett are the same age (16-17 years older than she is)

3- The fact that Mammy is not, as I remembered, ever depicted as Ellen or Scarlett’s wet-nurse- she is presumably asexual (and far sassier about her freedom in the novel than in the movie, though I’d argue that in neither is she portrayed as a “simple darky” as is often complained about) though it is mentioned repeatedly she was literally reared in the bedchamber of her mistress and thus has fanatical loyalty to her owners

4- The very real racism of the book venting in other ways but also giving glimpses that Mitchell wasn’t as simple as she’s often accused (especially for a privileged daughter of the segregation South)

Other issues as well, but I’ll see if the thread gains any life. But a few questions about the book/movie that range from short answer to discussion:

1- Why is Scarlett, 70 years later, such an icon? While she is a survivor through and through and that must be respected, she is a horrible person: totally self centered, self-deluded (particularly where Ashley is concerned), a terrible mother who doesn’t even like her older children, bitter, mean, turning away from the one man who is great for her, etc… Melanie is by far and away the character who should be emulated, almost Christ-like but at the same time capable of self defense and realism.

2- What is your opinion of the movie now? (It definitely has some political incorrectness but it would be shocking if it didn’t considering when it was made and at that it’s NOTHING as inflammatory as Birth of a Nation.)
My chief complaints are the overkill on the sets (particularly Twelve Oaks- any farmer who built a house like that in central Georgia in 1860 would have been a deposed Romanov) and the casting of Leslie “WTF” Howard as Ashley (who no teenaged girl would swoon for). At the same time it holds up amazingly well, most of the casting from Scarlett and Rhett to Belle Watling and Big Sam and Priss being perfect, and details such as Tara after the war is one of the all time masterpieces of set-design in my opinion. What’s yours?

3- Do you think in 65 more years it will still be remembered?

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It’s been years since I’ve reread GWTW. I gotta do that. It’s one of those books, like To Kill a Mockingbird, that I would swear up and down to you that such-and-such a scene is in the movie (and it isn’t) because I have such a vivid picture of it in my head.

I really liked the casting of Leslie Howard, because it made it so clear that Scarlett was lusting all those years after a fiction that she had created.

Now that I think about it, it worked for me because I had read the book first.

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The simple answer that satisfies me is “chicks dig it.”

Aspirations to gentility are a really big part of the Southern psyche (even though I’m aware its the height of modern carpetbaggery for people like myself to move down here and…form opinions!). Southerners have a tremendous time pulling all that cultural taffy: it being a cardinal sin to put on airs & get above your raisings, but on the other hand, who wouldn’t want a big house on the rolling piedmont with the manicured fescue out front and the $6,000.00 barbeque in back?

The thing about the South is that this place suffered generations of grinding poverty, so when both the book & movie GWTW came out, the South was in the Great Depression, at the nadir of an already deep economic pit. Back then its premium on gentility was a dream for all the receptive barefoot “lint-heads” (so called because of the cotton lint that collected in the hair of the working class). Now they’ve got money: so suburban Atlanta is choked with McMansions & SUV’s and all sorts of places to eat all sorts of food.

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Because most people haven’t read the book and base their opinion of the character entirely on the movie. She’s a manipulative bitch in the movie but she eats a turnip and has a revelation about dirt so the people love her.

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Margaret Mitchell’s original idea was to write a book about a “good woman and a bad woman, with the bad woman in love with the good woman’s husband.” She always saw Melanie as her heroine–a woman who sees life as it is, yet copes with it with dignity and grace.

I think more woman identify with Scarlett than with Melanie.

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I believe this is because, while the other aristocratic families have had some “new blood” in them, the Wilkeses are said to be dangerously inbred with their constant cousin-marriages. See Beatrice Tarleton’s rant on breeding to Gerald on the way to the picnic (“spavins and heaves!”)
The thing that I think is admirable about Scarlett, in spite of her incredible density and selfishness in other respects, is the way she takes on the responsibility for taking care of her family and trying to maintain Tara after Sherman marches through and pretty much the whole comfortable world as she’s known it crashes in. It’s not just that she fights to survive herself; even though she doesn’t like her sisters or Melly and considers them a useless burden, she doesn’t abandon them. (Okay, there was that whole marrying Frank Kennedy thing, but I don’t see Suellen giving a penny to help out the family if she had married him.)

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In the movie, Scarlett is a strong woman and Melanie comes across as something of a wimp. I’ve never read the novel, but my impression is that Melanie is a much more important character there.

When I worked at a library, I was very surprised by the number of black women who adored Gone with the Wind, both book and movie. I guess a figure of strength has a more or less universal appeal.

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Probably, though controversy will swirl around comparisons between it and the 2018 remake starring Rumer Willis and a computer-generated Humphrey Bogart.

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Leslie Howard was good friends with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall had a mad crush on him before she met either of them. He was considered something of a heartthrob in his day (don’t get it now - maybe I do, Howard seems to have a little Leonardo DiCaprio about him - too pretty boy for my taste, but, hey).

I think Scarlett is iconic precisely because she is so flawed. Despite being human and selfish and manipulative, she can do the right thing on occation. She is scandalous and that makes her more interesting than Melanie. Great heroines are flawed.

I wouldn’t want to be Scarlett, but I’d love to have her in my circle of friends so I could amuse myself by watching her. Melanie would be the friend I’d call if I needed help or a shoulder. But Scarlett would provide endless stories, her life would be entertaining to watch, and yet, she is self sufficient enough that she wouldn’t be “taking” more from the friendship than she gives.

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1- Why is Scarlett, 70 years later, such an icon?
You’re absolutely right about Scarlett being a terrible, evil person…but I must have read the book a hundred and fifty times before I came to that conclusion. I was ten the first time I read it, and I remember thinking that Scarlett was one of the few protagonists I’d run across who did the things you wanted her to do (slapping Suellen and eavesdropping on the girls who gossiped about her at the party are the things that spring instantly to mind.) Because she was the protagonist of the book, it seemed that you were supposed to be on her side. Plus, she was tough, smart, and (no matter what the first line of the book says) beautiful. Who *wouldn’t * want to be her?

2- What is your opinion of the movie now?
Some good casting, though I never liked Leslie Howard. Pretty costumes. Those are all the nice things I have to say. As with most any book I really care about, I consider it unfilmable.

3- Do you think in 65 more years it will still be remembered? Yup.

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Curses, dungie you beat me to it! I was in the sixth grade when I first read Gone With the Wind, and to me, Scarlett did it all right. When you’re 11, you don’t have social behavior imprinted upon your soul and of COURSE you think it’s fine to dance when you feel like dancing, throw black away if you don’t feel like mourning and above all, do whatever it takes to save your family and friends! It’s only upon the millionth reading (and getting a few years of social etiquette under your belt) that you realize Scarlett is running like a bull over social customs that get her ostracized and what a ballsy thing that is to do if you want to be “in” with your chosen social circle.

However, all this IS addressed in the book. Rhett remarks to Scarlett several times about how people such as he and Scarlett are often embarrassments to their children, but admired by their grandchildren. How, in emergencies, what seems like useless cargo is jettisonsoned and it is only, later, that the survivor realizes that it cannot be retreived. Rhett felt he did everything he did with his eyes wide open, and didn’t give a flying rat’s ass … until he had Bonnie and then, suddenly all those things seem to matter again.

I have always had a hard time with the movie, having read the book first. I couldn’t get over the merging of some characters (Honey and India Wilkes into one India character) and the complete omission of Scarlett’s older children. I also hate how dated it looks and how non-period the clothing is. There is much discussion in the book as to when it’s correct to show one’s bosom, or wear one’s hair up or down; the movie just seems to throw everyone in a hoop skirt and call it a day.

When I read the book last, possibly four or five years ago, I was struck by how complex it was. Mostly my memory if it is from those early, immature readings when I was just all “go, Scarlett go!” As an adult, I see the restrictive social conventions more clearly and that’s what sticks with me: what a constricted society they lived in “when never in history had a lower premium been placed on female intelligence.”

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I, also, recently reread *GWTW * (last month, in fact). Except I couldn’t make it through the end (maybe the last fifth). I used to love this book, especially as a teenager. For the first time, though, I was getting mad at Scarlett. And at myself, for how taken I was with the book the first thousand times I read it.

This was the first time that I really understood what Grandma Fontaine was telling her, about having nothing left to fear. I think Scarlett starts out progressive and take-charge, and doing what she has to do to survive. At some point, though, she has nothing left to fear – and not just from Yankees or ruined finances. She’s shattered all the societal expectations, lost her mother (her only real “conscience”), married a man she thinks doesn’t love her, and in return, has safety and wealth. She “planned” to be a good person, but there just doesn’t seem to be any reason to anymore, and she passes a point of no return.

The movie was on TV around the same time I was reading the book. I couldn’t watch. The missing & merged characters & storylines, although it was still so long. 65 years from now? I don’t know – the book is intimidatingly long to even avid readers, but I’m sure it’ll still be on the list. The movie though? Maybe with that remake **Bryan Ekers ** is planning…

Has anyone read The Wind Done Gone? It’s an interesting look at the same characters from a different angle. Not a great book, but that makes you stop & think when you read GWTW.

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Absolutely love it-the book and the movie. I adore the costumes, even if they aren’t accurate-I’m a huge costume whore.

I don’t think Scarlett is actually the most unlikable and unredeemable heroine-Becky Sharp of Vanity Fair wins that contest, hands down. But let’s face it-the bad guys are always much more fun than the good guys. As much as we’d all love a good friend like Melanie, Scarlett is much more entertaining.

And forget The Wind Done Gone, did anyone else try to read that horrible tripe that was Scarlett? Ugh, while I do think that Scarlett would eventually have gotten Rhett to come back (probably seduced him when he made one of his trips home so everything looked “respectable”), there’s no way I think that:

She would have gotten pregnant again (after a storm while sailing with Rhett) and then actually ENJOYED motherhood. Nor can I see her happy as an Irish peasant-even a rich Irish peasant.

BTW, I’ve found that if you think of Prissy as most likely being mildly retarded, she’s not quite as offensive.

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I avoided it.
I thought Rhett was too smart to become involved with Scarlett again.
:slight_smile:

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In one documentary Butterfly McQueen (in real life a well read, very intelligent woman who in addition to being an outspoken atheist was also a very good businesswoman) stated that she would personally have slapped Prissy every chance she got. She hated the character.

Two frequently heard rumors, incidentally, about GWTW (truth unknown to me and probably unprovable):

1- Belle Watling was based on a madam who it was later learned was a transvestite (this one I heard frequently in Georgia, usually in connection to a particular old house, but have no cite for and tend not to believe_

2- Scarlett was based in part upon Mittie Bulloch, aka Mrs. Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, Georgia belle and mother of Teddy Roosevelt. This one seems more possible, though I suspect there were several inspirations (including Mitchell herself, who caused a scandal or two) and a lot of imagination.

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What I found fascinating on the re-read is Rhett’s attitude toward tradition, family, heritage, etc., after Bonnie Blue’s death. (I don’t have my copy at hand to make a direct quote from, but) he tells Scarlett something to the effect of he’s returning to Charleston because the traditions he always scoffed at he now realizes are extremely important.

Pat Conroy’s plans when he was chosen to write a sequel (it was in his contract that Scarlett never happened) was to write the autobiography of Rhett. This could conceivably have worked, though ultimately he and the eunuch-guard-like Mitchell heirs could not get along.

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I don’t understand sequels or fan-fic or any of that stuff. As far as I’m concerned, Rhett doesn’t give a damn, tomorrow is another day, The End.

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I’m a fan of both book and film. I first encountered them both as a fairly young person (about 11 or 12) --book first, then movie-- so a lot of my love is somewhat based on nostalgia and not so much any decent sense of literary or film criticism. When I first read the book, I loved it because it was epic and exciting and interesting and I cried a lot at the Draaaaaah-ma of it all, and I loved the film because it oozed Hollywood Glamour.

  1. Why is Scarlett such an icon? Well, she does keep everyone hopping, that’s for sure! When I first read the book, I was intrigued by Scarlett, but I didn’t like her. I was a little afraid of her, she’s like the ultimate Mean Girl. As I got older, though, I found myself thinking more about Scarlett in an almost cryptofeminist way. She’s a strong woman who chooses to break societial rules – all up and down the scale, from wearing the decolletage-revealing dress during the day to stealing her sister’s fiance – without too much premeditation to most of her actions. I think this is interesting because it leaves a lot of room for the reader to fill in why Scarlett wants to do something (other than that she wants it and she’s usually selfish). I’m not of the mind that this is intentional on Mitchell’s part, but I think it it’s one of those cultural coincidences that contributes to why different generations find Scarlett fascinating – you can overlay a lot of stuff on Scarlett’s personality and actions.

  2. The movie now – I still think it holds up pretty well. Gosh, there’s a wealth of things to talk about related to race, both in the fiction and in the politics of the making of the movie, but the fact that they’re still being talked about probably attests to the durability of the film. The last time I watched it, I felt like it starts off strong and is lively through most of the war, but gets a little bogged down during Reconstruction (with the exception of the scene with the Klan) and then doesn’t get “edge of your seat” good again until the very close of the movie.

  3. Will it be remembered in another 65 years? Yes, although I think there will be a growing number of people who “know” the Scarlett O’Hara story and have never read the book or seen the entire film. Just that sort of general cultural knowledge of Scarlett and Rhett and Tara, you know? I’m sure there are plenty of people like that now. The movie will continue to be important in film school.

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Good news for you, Sampiro! Belle Watling is based on famous Lexington, Ky., madam Belle Brezing.

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