# Obvious things about a creative work you realize after the millionth time (OPEN SPOILERS POSSIBLE) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 24, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117 "2009-07-24T13:20:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 66
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1301 "2013-01-25T21:27:03Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > I just heard Kenny Roger’s song “The Gambler” this morning (hadn’t heard it in decades) and…holy shit…the Gambler dies on the train right there! I never caught that bit before. Somewhere in the darkness, the gambler he broke even… ---
**Author:** ![SweetiePotato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@SweetiePotato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SweetiePotato)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1302 "2013-01-25T21:49:35Z")
wow, I cannot believe the length of this thread! I came in to report that I was in college before I realized that Michelangelo’s David is the same David as David and Goliath. I guess I never put it together because I picture David from David and Goliath as a puny underdog-guy and Michelangelo’s David is so… masculine and _statuesque_ 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1303 "2013-01-26T00:40:26Z")
No, that didn’t happen that way in either the novel or the movies. Vito didn’t choose the name “Corleone.” What happened was that the clerk that was checking him in at Ellis Island looked at the badge he had around his neck and saw the words “Vito” and “Corleone.” Corleone was the town that he came from, and the clerk, not reading the badge carefully, assumed that that was last name. (Incidentally, it appears that such a mistake would never really be made at Ellis Island.) ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1304 "2013-01-26T01:07:58Z")
My bad. (But good dramatic license on Puzo’s part.) ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1305 "2013-01-26T01:51:54Z")
> [@SweetiePotato](#): > > wow, I cannot believe the length of this thread! > > I came in to report that I was in college before I realized that Michelangelo’s David is the same David as David and Goliath. I guess I never put it together because I picture David from David and Goliath as a puny underdog-guy and Michelangelo’s David is so… masculine and _statuesque_ 😛 He’s also not Jewish…the statue’s penis is uncircumcised! ---
**Author:** ![Sarabellum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarabellum/32/3492_2.png) [@Sarabellum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarabellum)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1306 "2013-01-26T06:38:54Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](#): > > In the movie version of _Gone With the Wind_, carefully watch the scene between Rhett and Belle where Belle’s talking about her son. There are unspoken acknowledgements, glances, a nod, a flicker of a smile… Rhett is the father!! > > I swear! If you have it on disc watch it again and see if you agree. In the novel, this is alluded to several times, by different characters. You are correct - there is no shortage of evidence in the novel to support this theory. First, the aforementioned scene where Belle Watling confides to Melanie that she has a boy, also. She mentions that he lives in New Orleans, and that he’s never been to Atlanta. Also, that she hasn’t seen him in a long time. Presumably, she has used her ill-gotten gains to send the boy away to a boarding school or the like, never allowing him to see what she does for a living, so that he will not suffer the disgrace of having a madam as a mother. So Melanie knows about Belle’s son. Later, when Rhett is making friends with Scarlett’s son (her son from her first marriage, Wade Hampton, was not portrayed in the movie) she asks Rhett how it is that he knows so much about boys. Rhett replies that he is the legal guardian of a boy (I don’t remember the exact wording but he doesn’t cop to being his father) that lives in New Orleans. And that’s why he travels there so frequently. He swears Scarlett to secrecy about it. So Scarlett knows about Rhett’s son. If Scarlett and Melanie had ever discussed this topic together, they surely would have figured it out, but they never do. No further mention of the boy in New Orleans is made, although at one point after Rhett marries Scarlett, he does tell her son Wade that Wade is all the son he’ll ever want. Also, at one point after Bonnie is born, Rhett realizes again that Scarlett still loves Ashley, and he decides to leave her. Belle Watling convinces him not to, saying, “The child is worth ten of the mother…” and it’s kind of a poignant scene. Another reference to their love-child in New Orleans. Margaret Mitchell once teased a reporter that wanted to know if she would ever write a sequel to GWTW, and she said yes, that she’d already begun work on the sequel entitled “Back With the Breeze” and that it would be primarily about Belle Watling. And then she followed it up with, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you!” to imply that she was kidding. So who’s to say? Maybe the author had a plan of bringing Rhett and Belle’s son into the limelight in the sequel that she never got around to writing. She was still fairly young (late 40s?) when she died in an accident. She got hit by a car while crossing the street. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1307 "2013-01-26T07:48:38Z")
It was maybe a few years ago that I got the joke in the name Ginger Grant. (from Gilligan’s Island) I never called red heads “ginger”. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1308 "2013-01-26T08:40:35Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > It was maybe a few years ago that I got the joke in the name Ginger Grant. (from Gilligan’s Island) I never called red heads “ginger”. Yeah, that’s one of those “Britishisms” that I wasn’t even aware of until I was in my 30s and on the Internet. (And as a professional cook, all the ginger I’ve seen has been bright yellow, so I can’ even figure out where it came from.) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1309 "2013-01-26T12:04:50Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Yeah, that’s one of those “Britishisms” that I wasn’t even aware of until I was in my 30s and on the Internet. > > (And as a professional cook, all the ginger I’ve seen has been bright yellow, so I can’ even figure out where it came from.) Maybe from the bright red “flowers” (I think they’re actually modified leaves) of most ornamental ginger plants? They’re tropical shrubs, but I think they can be house plants in, say, Britain, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1310 "2013-01-26T16:14:45Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > It was maybe a few years ago that I got the joke in the name Ginger Grant. (from Gilligan’s Island) I never called red heads “ginger”. It’s only relatively recently I heard of “ginger” as a word for redheads. But even so, I’ve always thought the name “Ginger” was chosen for the character simply as an example of a glamorous, movie-star-sounding name, a la Ginger Rogers. However, I was inspired to do a bit of research just now, and I discovered that the character was originally conceived and portrayed inthe pilot not as a movie star but as a (redheaded) secretary, so that blows my theory out of the water. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1311 "2013-01-26T17:05:45Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > (And as a professional cook, all the ginger I’ve seen has been bright yellow, so I can’ even figure out where it came from.) Apparently it takes on more of a red hue if you pickle it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gari\_ginger.jpg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gari_ginger.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Reeses\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reeses_monkey/32/2885_2.png) [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1312 "2013-01-26T18:27:03Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > I just heard Kenny Roger’s song “The Gambler” this morning (hadn’t heard it in decades) and…holy shit…the Gambler dies on the train right there! I never caught that bit before. Didn’t grow up watching [The Muppet Show](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPaXG9KXbhE), did you? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1313 "2013-01-26T18:41:10Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:1301, topic:504117”] Somewhere in the darkness, the gambler he broke even… [/QUOTE] That line alone wasn’t enough for me to get it. I had to add in the bit about “every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser/and the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep” as well as the line about ‘his last words…’ ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1314 "2013-01-26T19:38:18Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > It was maybe a few years ago that I got the joke in the name Ginger Grant. (from Gilligan’s Island) I never called red heads “ginger”. :smack: > [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Yeah, that’s one of those “Britishisms” that I wasn’t even aware of until I was in my 30s and on the Internet. Ditto. I never made that connection myself. I just know the first “redhead” I met I wondered why he was called a redhead, because his hair was orange. “Ginger” might be an appropriate description for that color. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1315 "2013-01-26T21:34:03Z")
“Sky of blue and sea of green” by addition equals “Yellow” (submarine) cannot be intentional. Although it is a nice observation in a particular critical approach that dismisses authorial intention. For years I understood the title of the movie _Thieves Like Us_ as being about how thieves like us for whatever reason. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1316 "2013-01-26T21:38:52Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I just learned the title of _My Fair Lady_ is a pun. It’s how Eliza Doolittle would have pronounced “Mayfair Lady.” Huh. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1317 "2013-01-26T21:50:15Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > Okay, I just popped in a DVD of MST3K ( **Manos** , to be precise). So you know the opening sequence, where they show what’s supposed to be Gizmonics Institute? And it’s not even well-made miniatures; more like model-railroad trees and houses? And the rocket taking off is so ridiculously fake? Kind of like the not-even-F/X in so many of the films MST spoofs. You know the opening-doors sequence leading into the theatre the bubbles are falling? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1318 "2013-01-26T22:25:11Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > And College Inn Broth is a play on the word [collagen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collagen). The collagen from boiling bones thickens the broth. No shit, you’re right! Too bad their broth sucks. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1319 "2013-01-26T22:41:34Z")
I always thought the ginger/redhead thing was down to them both being a bit “firey”. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/1320 "2013-01-27T09:43:14Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > You know the opening-doors sequence leading into the theatre the bubbles are falling? Yeah; what of it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117.md?page=65) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117.md?page=67)