When does art warrant being Gone with the Wind?
In these turbulent times, the popular classic isn’t an obsolete shame; it’s more relevant than ever
June 7th, 2020 saw the statue of Edward Colston, a merchant and major figure in the Atlantic slave trade, being dunked by protesters into Bristol Harbour, the very port at which many of Colston’s ships had docked carrying men and women kidnapped from their homes in West Africa. This event is of enormous symbolic importance, and will hopefully raise much-needed attention for the ongoing-as-of-this-writing protest movement against systemic racism and police violence spurred by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
On June 9th, spurred by the same movement, the streaming service HBO Max pulled the Golden Age Hollywood classic Gone with the Wind, directed by Vincent Fleming and produced by David O. Selznick, from its circulation. HBO cited the film’s depiction of “ethnic and racial prejudices” as the main reason for the withdrawal, which they have made clear is temporary, the film being slated to return on an undetermined date. An op-ed article by screenwriter John Ridley, published by the Los Angeles times, is believed to have been a major influence on the decision. While that article is unfortunately locked behind a paywall, my understanding is that Ridley advocated for the film’s circulation being limited due to its glorification of the Antebellum South, and its depiction of slave characters who chose to remain loyal to their white masters post-emancipation, out of a seeming contentedness with their lot.
While HBO’s responsiveness to fair public criticism, and the seriousness with which it approaches its responsibilities as a purveyor of media content are to be lauded, this decision does raise pertinent questions about how we engage with cultural artifacts from the past, and with works of art as a whole.
Before that though, it’s worth exploring the particular criticisms levied against Gone with the Wind. It is, after all, having adjusted for inflation, still the highest-grossing movie ever made, beating its closest competitors, Star Wars and The Sound of Music, by a considerable margin, a record that, given the current media consumption climate, isn’t likely to be beaten anytime soon. The implication behind all those dollars is, of course, that it’s possibly the most seen film in history, and therefore one of most influential on our culture. This pervasiveness is such that some of its aspects — its characters, plot points, lines, images — are well known even to those who’ve never seen it in full. The film remains one of the very few, and I’m talking count-on-a-single-hand figures here, films that three generations of my family have been able to discuss at the dinner table (my beloved grandmother not being an avid filmgoer). Despite this, until recently, I counted myself among the number whose only engagement with it was through cultural osmosis. It seemed as good a time as any to amend that, and on June 12th, I did exactly that.
In the wink of a young girl’s eye, glory days…
The onscreen text that opens the film appears to support the notion that the film romanticizes what in reality was a problematic era in a society that was built on unjust practices. It calls the Old South a “pretty world [where] Gallantry took its last bow”, and claims it was where the last could ever be seen of “Knights and their Ladies Fair” (as well as, without missing a beat, of “Master and Slave”). The dissonance between the myth described in the opening and the reality depicted in the actual film becomes apparent almost immediately, however.
It’s not far into the film’s hefty runtime before the genteel denizens of the Old South make apparent their obsession with optics and preoccupation with propriety. They quibble over the appropriateness of certain actions, like the appearance of widows at public events or the hosting of a dating auction in wartime, on the basis of how they’ll be perceived by others, instead of their function, intent, or outcome. They base their behavior on public expectations — ladies aren’t to eat too much at a party, and must take a nap at some point — and woe be to whoever defies them. Before any notion of the Civil War and the sweeping change it heralds as described in the opening narration has a chance to appear, the film has made it difficult not to dismiss the entirety of Antebellum society as foolish, shallow, and repressed.
The first real intersection between the movie’s story and the historical reality of the Civil War comes in the form of a discussion amongst the Southern gentlemen about its justness and their prospects of victory. On each count, they demonstrate the rigidity of their thinking and flat-out delusion. They unquestioningly believe in the rightness of their viewpoint without examining the real principles underpinning the conflict, and appear to unironically think that victory will be theirs because they’re each worth twenty Yankees in battle due to being “gentlemen”.
It bears noting that the only two voices of dissent in the scene are those of the characters who go on to be principal players in the film’s narrative. Ashley Wilkes, otherwise a consummate Southern gentleman and a paragon of its ideals, expresses his willingness to fight despite his hope that war doesn’t eventuate. He’s smart enough to understand war’s implications, and conscientious enough to place higher value on harmony and human life than social pride, unlike his compatriots who are raring at the bit because the North had “insulted” them. But it’s Rhett Butler — roguish scoundrel, pariah to much of polite Southern society, and one half of our central pair of heroes — who provides a dose of reality, and from an audience standpoint, historical perspective, pointing out that the Yankees were vastly more industrialized and prepared for warfare than they were. Of course, his honest opinion is met with derision and hostility. After all, how dare he not conform?
Indeed, our central heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, is largely characterized in opposition to Southern sensibilities. She’s willful and fiercely independent, showing little regard for her people’s customs when they get in the way of her goals and desires. She cares little for what others think of her unless their opinion can be leveraged into some sort of benefit for her. It’s these very traits, however, that allow her to weather and eventually, even thrive in the aftermath of the collapse of the Old South. She’s pragmatic and resourceful enough to develop and implement solutions to her problems that would never even occur to a proper Southern belle, like actually doing farmwork to avoid starvation.
If anything, it’s her lingering attachment to that value set that she’s so ill-fit for, in the form of her chronic obsession with Ashley, that platonic ideal of the good Southern gentleman, that is the cause of much of her suffering. Well, that and then-husband Rhett’s belated decision to participate in the respectability politics he’d so adamantly eschewed for the majority of his life, for the sake of allowing their daughter the option of taking part in whatever’s left of Old Southern polite society.
Even Melanie Hamilton, Scarlett’s demure, respectable foil, who like her husband Ashley embodies all that the Southerners hold dear, is depicted as willing to flout convention in favor of her personal values, showing compassion and respect to the local brothel madame, who only wanted to donate some of her earnings to their shared war effort. With that, the entire cast of characters the audience is expected to sympathize with is united in their deviation in some way from Southern norms.
The film stops just short of implying that the South was to blame for its own collapse, due to the stubborn belligerence begat by their pride and conservatism. In its depiction of the war itself and the subsequent efforts of the Southern people to rebuild, it does however become more charitable in its portrayal. It frames the decision of individual Confederate soldiers to fight to defend their home and their people with a sense of nobility. Upon witnessing this, even Rhett, who had to that point been happy to sit on the sidelines as a war profiteer due to what he perceived as the senselessness of the conflict, is shamed that despite his greater awareness and level of understanding, his actions were coached in opportunism instead of principle, like those of the soldiers. The Southern aristocracy’s code of honor, though often impractical, brings them to conduct themselves with grace and dignity even in trying circumstances; Scarlett, who doesn’t share it, ends up engaging in ethically questionable behavior, like hiring former convicts because they can be paid and exploited without fear of reprisal from authorities.
That the movie cedes that there was beauty to be found in this “Civilization gone with the wind” isn’t, in my mind, a problem. The important distinction is that at no point does the film, through either text or subtext, imply that the South was entitled to continue its way of life, or more pointedly, that the practice of slavery was ever justified. In fact, one scene has Ashley, a character who in his honor and nobility is portrayed as largely sympathetic, outright condemning it, claiming he would’ve freed all his slaves regardless of any pressure from the Yankees. This, despite Ashley otherwise lamenting the loss of the world he knew and to which he belonged, like all who called it home.
Ultimately, it presents the Old South not as the last vestige of a glorious time gone by, but as a backdrop against which to explore a fundamentally human story. It shows us people faced with having their entire support system and view of the world pulled out from under them, and with figuring out exactly what it is they want to build in the wake.
The case of Mammy
That the film’s black characters are not the most well-rounded, thoroughly developed lot, is incontestable. It’s also a reality, however, that they are but supporting players in a story centered around characters who happen to be white. There is nothing wrong with this. Not every story can or should be about everything, and this particular story chooses to use the perspective of the genteel class of the Old South to explore how people react to changing, often diminished, circumstances, and the ways in which their values and beliefs spur them to make the decisions that they do. What’s important is that stories from a variety of perspectives be told, not that every individual story indulges all possible ones. That there was a dearth of stories from alternative viewpoints in 1939, when the film was first released, does nothing to diminish its validity, especially not today when we have the benefit of access to decades’ worth of content.
There is a legitimate question about whether the film’s depiction of black people is negative, or even harmful. One character in particular, the house servant Prissy, certainly comes off badly. She’s flighty, stupid, unreliable, and serves primarily as comic relief or to wither before an obstacle so that protagonist Scarlett can intervene and overcome it in order to demonstrate her strengths. But Prissy is neither the only black character nor the most prominent, and with others being depicted in a far more positive light, it’s difficult for me to conclude that the movie paints an overall negative picture of black people, even considering how foolish a venture it is to make conclusions about an entire race of people on the basis of a handful of examples in the first place.
In fact, the character of Mammy, played by Hattie McDaniel, Scarlett’s childhood nanny who stays with her until adulthood, is shown to be among the wisest and most emotionally intelligent, seeing through all of Scarlett’s airs and often understanding other character’s feelings and motivations better than they do themselves. She’s the only other character in whose opinion Rhett, ever shrewd and disregarding of social norms, puts any stock in besides that of Scarlett, who he’s in love with. It’s also relevant to note that McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Academy Award for her performance in the role, a fact that in itself gives the film a great amount of cultural significance.
There is still the matter that a majority of the black characters are former slaves who continued to work for their white masters after the loss of the Confederacy. Now, I don’t claim to know any statistics about the activities of liberated slaves in the American South, but given a rudimentary understanding of human behavior, this doesn’t seem like an impossible scenario. The O’Hara family that the characters in the film served are shown to have been generally humane in their treatment, and many, like Mammy, had formed genuine relationships and emotional connections with their charges. Consider too that this is likely the only life they had ever known, and that human beings often fear, and shirk away from, change. One can see how remaining in their positions could have proven the less risky, or at least less daunting, prospect.
Assuming then that precedence can be established, the question becomes, “is it fair to depict this in film?” I’m admittedly too far from the subject for my word to be definitive on the matter, but my thought is, given that no obligation exists for any one story to cover all possible angles, and that this story’s thematic and narrative focus lie elsewhere, it is. Again, depiction, not endorsement, is the key word here. The film passes no judgment, positive or negative, on their decision to stay (the decision itself isn’t even depicted directly). The former slaves aren’t extolled for their unwavering loyalty or devotion to their station, other than the genuine concern and love Mammy demonstrates towards Scarlett and later, Rhett, as fellow human beings. Neither does it indict them for their willing participation in what is an inhumane and unjust practice.
I’m led to think of a question I once asked about whether victims of extreme trauma were still entitled to prejudices against groups to which their aggressors belonged (e.g. Filipino victims of war crimes committed by Japanese soldiers in World War II). A friend had told me that those traumas often left deep psychological scars that were difficult to move past, and that the best way forward was for them to simply not pass those prejudices on to the next generation, enabling society to move forward collectively. A life of slavery is among the most extreme of traumas, and so I don’t think it’s fair to condemn these characters for “wasting” their freedom; the real benefit of emancipation is that their children will not be obliged to walk down the same path.
Frankly, my dear…
The goal of this piece is to point out that despite similarities in the motivations behind them, the withdrawal of a film from circulation does not achieve the same outcomes as the toppling of a statue. Firstly, and more obviously, a film isn’t imposed on a person the same way a statue placed in a public space is. The citizens of Bristol are no longer forced to gaze upon the countenance of the slaver Edward Colston; interested parties with an HBO Max subscription are no longer able to watch Gone with the Wind, a movie of, at the very least, great historical import, through the service. They can, of course, obtain access to the film via other means, such as through a Blu-ray copy, but then the question becomes what the withdrawal achieves in the first place.
The second, and more important point, is that while a statue exists to memorialize and, particularly for statues in public spaces, aggrandize their subjects, the function of narrative mediums such as film is far more nuanced and broad. Stories exist in the form that they do because that form enables and encourages interpretation. This is what allows for many different messages to be derived from a single tale, and for meanings to be found where even the author didn’t intend them to. In censoring movies with content that clashes with our social mores, we are implying their their function is simply to moralize, which completely robs them of their power and complexity.
Gone with the Wind is film of great cultural significance, dazzling technical achievement, and, despite a third act that ventures into soap opera territory with its left-turn twists and plot contrivances, no small measure of artistic merit. It also depicts a setting which had social norms at odds with our modern, comparatively enlightened values. Does that mean it isn’t worth seeing, dissecting, discussing, interpreting, or simply enjoying? Or that it shouldn’t be? Where does that leave movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas, Trainspotting, or Fight Club (all films with a sizable portion of idiot fans whose big takeaway was to indulge in the ethically questionable behavior depicted in them)? If another big economic crash happens because of unscrupulous finance professionals, should The Wolf of Wall Street be pulled from streaming services? (For that matter, is Martin Scorsese the single greatest force of cultural evil on Earth, and does he therefore merit destruction?)
Facetious questions aside, what I’m trying to say is that consuming art, especially narrative art, is not a passive experience devoid of obligations. Just as content creators have the responsibility to be as honest and insightful as possible with their work, so too do audiences have the responsibility to critically examine and process any content they consume, to not blindly emulate what they see or take it at face value, but to use it in conjunction with all their other experiences in order to make choices that align with their values.
Despite its sensitive content, I do not believe Gone with the Wind contains themes or messaging that is inherently hateful or destructive. That HBO has made it clear it intends to return the film to circulation at some point says as much. So even if it is temporary measure, what warning or message could HBO or any other distributor come up with that isn’t a simple declaration of what is already implicit? Audiences aren’t to be coddled, “protected” from layered, potentially volatile content; they’re to be challenged. Progress isn’t achieved by covering up the shames of the past, but by looking at them with eyes unclouded, and moving forward.
After all, tomorrow is another day.
A note
This piece is representative of my thoughts on what is only a tiny sliver of a pervasive, and much larger, social issue. Be that as it may, it would be remiss of me not to mention, for the sake of any who may be first engaging with the issue through my article, that the infliction of unjust physical or psychological violence on any private citizen by those in authority is a flagrant violation of everything human civilization stands for. It’s especially heinous when such violence is disproportionately inflicted upon a particular group of people because of their background or appearance. And make no mistake: it does not matter what race you belong to or where in the world you live; if you reside on this planet and move within human society, then this is your problem, as much as it’s anyone else’s.
Bridging gaps in your understanding of the experience of those whose circumstances differ from yours by engaging with works of art, such as cinema, is just one of many things you can do in these trying times. If you decide to go down that route, these are, in my opinion, some works that are particularly insightful regarding the issues of police violence, disadvantaged minorities, or race relations:
- Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, 2013)
- Boyz n the Hood (John Singleton, 1991)
- The Color Purple (Steven Spielberg, 1985)
- Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks, 1974)
- Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
- American History X (Tony Kaye, 1998)
- If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018)
- BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)
- Just Mercy (Destin Daniel Cretton, 2019)
- Hotel Rwanda (Terry George, 1998)
- Bend It Like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha, 2002)
Black lives matter.
