Do You Find Scarlett O'Hara A Sympathetic Character?

That girl inherited a lot of trauma, she be best left alone.

Yes she is. She's only a teenager at the start of the film. Prone to exaggeration and motional swings. She is still an innocent, about to be caught up in something much larger than her perceived world.

She's a racist.

She was a cunt. Ask Rhett, he’ll tell ya.

No real lady shows her bosoms ‘fo 3:00 is all I know.

She's written as an unsympathetic character. That's one of the reasons she stands out. Most novelists wouldnt have been brave enough to write a character like that and put her front and center.

R6 She isn't intended to be unsympathetic, she's intended to be a strong heroine.

I disagree, R7.

"She isn't intended to be unsympathetic, she's intended to be a strong heroine."

Too simplistic. One does not exclude the other.

I read GWTW twice. One as a teenager and once while I was in my 50's and living in Atlanta. Obviously, historically interesting and my point of view and sophistication had improved. I liked it both times. One of the things I still remember is that the northern General Sherman going toward the sea spared Milledgeville GA's mansions for some reason. One story (not Mitchell's) is that a Mason from Milledgeville flashed his Masonic ring at Sherman and that is why Sherman was so benevolent.

Scarlett was never meant to be sympathetic. She was meant to be fascinating. The director, Victor Fleming, kept urging Vivian Leigh to play Scarlett *less* sympathetically. "Bitchier!" he would scream at her during takes. "Play her bitchier!"

I feel like both Scarlett and the similar Jezebel were blamed for things they weren't fully aware of, like Scarlett not realizing the men were going out to a KKK meeting to lynch some men, or Jezebel not realizing a duel was the natural progression of her scheming. In that way, yes, they're sympathetic, because they're women trying to wield some power and control but ultimately end up being controlled by the men anyway, then blamed for it.

[quote] Victor Fleming, kept urging Vivien Leigh to play Scarlett …Bitchier!

He's unimportant. George Cukor was the real director!

Scarlett is inspirational. She does what needs to be done to keep a roof over her head and food on the table and to hell with anybody who gets in the way of that. And R9 is correct. She's an unsympathetic strong heroine.

To me, Scarlett seems the most human, she has personality flaws & failings, but, she had good points, as well. Here's an example, Scarlett's reasons for marrying her sister's beau were not entirely selfish, Scarlett knew if she didn't take action, her family & the black people who spent their lives toiling for her, would become homeless. Scarlett does gather some self-awareness towards the end, but, only for a moment, she exchanges her obsession for obtaining Ashley to getting Rhett back.

Scarlett is the same spoiled child at the beginning & the end of the novel, which makes her a rather refreshing character.

I think Scarlett is an interesting contrast to Lily Bart in The House of Mirth, another vain and selfish child-woman. Lily is a gracious and civil person, however; and she gains self-awareness and does the decent thing - and it kills her. Scarlett stays a mean bitch to the end - and survives.

Mitchell's novel is about what war does to people. Melanie wouldn't have survived if not for Scarlett. It's doubtful any of them would, including Mammy, the book's only truly good person.

[quote] …pale-faced…

R15 Is that supposed to be a term of abuse? Did Margaret Mitchell use that adjective?

R17, I'm not sure if that line is from the book, but it would be indicative of Scarlett's envy of Melanie's "superior" complexion. She is also implying that Melanie spends all her time indoors and never does anything fun.

R10, IIRC, the mayor (or some other person of importance) was a college roommate of Sherman's and hailed him by his school nickname. They had been great friends and the gentleman in question confessed (who knows how honestly) to Northern sympathies. On the basis of that, and the overall warm reception on the part of the town at large, Sherman spared it.

I would have thought all Victorian woman aspired to have a pale, fresh complexion with a blush in their cheeks.

I think that 1920s ladies seemed to think that tanned skin was a sign of health.

She’s not sympathetic. She’s a pragmatist. She saved that whole fucking family from starvation.

The relationships between Scarlett and Mammy and Scarlett and Melanie are what make the book/movie extraordinary. All three women are so well drawn and their relationships are complex and realistic.

In the movie, the scene where the three women are standing in the doorway of Tara before Ashley hobbled home is one of the most honest portrayals of female friendship I’ve ever seen. They are all equal in circumstance in that moment, and their ease and respect for each other really comes through.

While Scarlet is seen as this major figure of the great days of the antebellum south, the truth is the character mocked it constantly. Her entire through line is pretty much, this is stupid and I'm going to do what I want and the rules be damned.

Not at all. She’s a bitch to the bitter end, and then some. But I’m willing to forgive a lot for that red gown.

Infantile, never learns from mistakes, zero emotional intelligence, shit taste in men.

The “pale-faced” insult may be due to the fact that Scarlett prized vigor and health. She believed Melanie to be weak.

No. For reasons already stated here by other posters.

She was a gritty, hard, pragmatist and saved her family by being so.

Besides the slaves, Rhett Butler is the one deserving of sympathy.

As the writer Pat Conroy points out in his introduction to one of the paperback editions, his one weakness was falling hopelessly in love with Scarlett. I think he still loves her at the end of the novel ( which is far, far, superior to the film, of course) but his love wore out and he truly was indifferent to her.

Ooops, I should have written I think he still admires her at the end of the novel.

In fact, Mitchell has him reacting that way when he sees Scarlett gather some dignity about her as she accepts that he's leaving.

She owned Prissy... No, really, she OWNED Prissy and Mammy too

R26 What the fuck makes you think Rhett deserves any sympathy. He's a mean drunken "charming" asshole with no morals who only cares about himself.

^^Yeah, he should have run for president

She loved her parents and her Mammy.

There's one hilarious scene in the book where she has to choose between her son Wade and putting the putting out the fire. She resents having to save the whiny boy.

She was an infantile cunt, pone to fits, but somewhere in the darkest, deepest regions, there was a sliver of a soul.

She was a DataLounger well before the rest of us.

I'm R277 who worked for a Warren Buffett company. Don't have a lot of tea on the guy, but I'm bored so might as well spill the little I have (Part 1--Part 2 is in post below):

I was an executive at one of Buffett's bigger companies. You'd recognize the name. Berkshire Hathaway owns or is majority stakeholder in many holding companies as well as direct owner of others. BH owns/is major shareholder of a bunch of businesses that might surprise you: Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Sees Candies, Kirby Vacuums, Ginzu knives, Duracell. Plus tons of huge companies you've probably never heard of.

But BH itself is super small. It has only a handful of staff and is based in Omaha, which is where Warren lives in a pretty ordinary house. I've been to it. It's a stucco house probably built in the 40s. Nice for Omaha, but average for anywhere else. From what I remember, it was surrounded by a simple iron gate--nothing obtrusive. Though I'm sure there was plenty of security hidden on the property. I think he's lived there forever--certainly before he became a renowned investor.

I would go the Berkshire Hathaway Annual meeting every year. When I started going, it was a big nothing. Just a typical stockholders meeting. Now it enormous. It's held in a convention center, that was built largely for the meeting. Lots of celebrities go. I've met a bunch of them, but will tell those stories later.

Anyway, over the years, I got close to Buffet's chief assistant. She was around my age--blue collar gal who started working for him after high school and became his gate keeper. She was respected and feared because she completely controlled access to him. And she relished the control! Got a little big for her britches. For some reason, she loved me and would call me before every BH board meeting to see if I needed anything special. But it would just be an excuse to fill me in on all the BH gossip.

She worked for Buffett for decades. They were so close he walked her down the aisle at her wedding. (I was invited!) And then, suddenly, she was fired. Can't remember the details. She did something mildly shady, but not really bad or criminal. Something like using his name to get some small perk. However, she had made so many enemies through her power plays, she was fired. Not by Buffett--I seem to remember she was fired by his daughter, who did not like her one bit. She was absolutely crushed. Called Buffett to plead her case. He wouldn't take her call and never spoke to her again. She still calls me occasionally. Divorced, sad, and seems to have fallen into the bottle. But she's got BH A shares, so ok financially.

To me, that's what Warren Buffett is in a nutshell. He can project a somewhat friendly and approachable image, but has zero human attachments. He's "loyal" just because he can't be bothered to drop people himself. If someone else drops them for him, he doesn't put up a fight. I really liked his business partner, Charlie Munger, who was not much of a public figure, but a very sweet man. He's close to 100 and still going strong(ish).

Buffett only cares about business. A total pragmatist. But weirdly, doesn't seem to care about money in terms of personal comfort. I had to present to him on a number of occasions, and during the presentations he was like a robot--no response to my attempts at charm/humor. Although Charlie Munger would always laugh at my jokes. But outside of business meetings, Buffett would seek me out at social gatherings and point out to whoever I was talking to that I give the most entertaining presentations of any of his execs. He reminded me of a politician who could turn on the charm for a couple minutes before disappearing to a smokey backroom to plot a world takeover. Though, there's no evilness about his. But no real humanness, either. A benevolent robot.

R33--part 2 post:

I knew all three of Warren Buffett's kids. The boys are completely dull, although one is an "artist." The daughter is cold, humorless, and kind of a bitch. I always assumed it was because she's insecure. She ain't a looker and has no personality. But! I LOVED Buffett's sister Doris. Just loved her. She died this year. Very attractive and lots of fun. Devoted to charity work--and not bullshit charities. Things she really cared about. She loved animals and did a lot of work with the humane society. Always made a point of seeking me out when I was in Omaha. I really liked his first wife, too. She was a frustrated actress-type stuck in Omaha, and pissed that her husband had no interest in traveling or spending their dough. Knew that Buffett would not be able to function without her, so arranged for him to marry an acquaintance of hers. The second wife is a nothing, but nice. Pretty sure they lived together for a long time before he got around to marrying her.

My last year at my company, my parents asked if they could go the the BH meeting with me. All the rooms book way in advance, so I called up Buffett's assistant (the one who eventually got fired), and she bumped some big shot from one of the conventional center suites so that my parents didn't have far to walk. Then told me to make sure my parents were in the room at a certain time before the day of the meeting, but didn't tell me why. At the appointed hour, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger arrived in a large golf cart, driven by Buffet's assistant. They told my parents to jump on and drove them to the convention center, which was being set up before the Annual Meeting. Many of their companies, including mine, were in the process of constructing our large booths with lots of give away products for the shareholders. They took them to every booth and told my mom to take whatever products she wanted. The last booth they stopped at was mine. My parents were literally covered in swag. I was so stunned and touched, I broke out in tears.

Buffett then told them what a loss it was that I was leaving the company. It sounded fairly scripted, but it even made my dad cry. Then he and Charlie took a picture with me and my parents. My dad blew it up to poster size and framed it, which was both sweet and embarrassing. My parents died a couple years later. My dad told me shortly before he died that it was one of the highlights of his life.

R34 When Buffett told you what a loss it was that you were leaving the company did you respond with "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" before exiting swiftly into the fog?

Correction to my R35 post: Actually, no company was allowed to give-away swag at the Berkshire-Hathaway Annual Meeting. We had to sell it, in part to support the "Capitalist Woodstock" theme. But, for my parents, companies were allowed to give them products for free. The most expensive thing my mom got was a Kirby vacuum cleaner. I still have it!

Lol

r29, have you read the book?

I have, many times.

If you've read the book, your comprehension of Rhett is very limited, compared to Mitchell's creation of his character as set forth on the page.

He's erudite, cultured, formally educated, has some depth and feeling to him, and is smart as whip.

Yes, he knows Scarlett isn't in love with him. He knows she has the upper hand and that he's helplessly besotted over her, but he never can let his guard down and let her know that because he knows she'd use his power over him like a whip.

Tragedy is in the eyes of the beholder and Rhett's love for Scarlett is his tragedy. I stand by my sympathy for him.

T

Despite a lifetime of being gay and investing, I have never--not ONCE--connected Gone with the Wind and Berkshire Hathaway.

DL rules.

Is R33 R34 drunk posting or is there a connection to GWTW in there? I was too bored to bother. TIA!

R40 Warren Buffett played Scarlett O'Hara in the all-male remake of GWTW, or haven't you heard?

You have to admit it is one of the all time most perfectly cast movies.

In the book Scarlett has a child with each of her husbands. She's not much of a mother, but still it makes her seem more human since it was no joke to go through pregnancy and childbirth in those days and she didn't want any of them. I identify with her because she was deluded over love, and who hasn't been?

Olivia felt she was a co-lead in this.

"Mitchell's novel is about what war does to people. "

THIS. Scarlett is never at any point a nice person, and she lives in times that destroy nice people.

"GWTW" is all very glamorous, but the fact is, it's a very grim story of a woman who's willing to sell her body, abuse employees, or kill to survive hard times. It's a lesson in the ruthlessness needed to survive cultural collapse and the price of that ruthlessness, which is that nobody who isn't dependent on her can stand her. Even the man who seems to be just as ruthless and amoral as she is can't stand her by the end of the book, and you know that for all her charm she's going to end up totally alone, all the people she saved will leave her in the end.

She is one of the great anti-heroines, much better drawn than any of Tennessee Williams' complex heroines. They all bore me, Scarlett keeps me interested.

No, she's a psychopath in a hoop skirt.

She's not a psychopath, R46, if she was she would have killed Melanie right after she killed the confederate soldier and sold her worthless sisters to a brothel. But she didn't, she supported them even though she disliked and resented them, because they were "family" and even if she had zero ethics she believed in family bonds.

She wasn't just fighting ruthlessly for her own survival, R46, she was fighting for the whole family's survival, and that included the sister-in-law and the servants who had no place to go and Tara itself. The one thing that makes her an anti-heroine rather than a villainess is that she isn't just out for herself, she's carrying her whole extended family in her struggle through the post-war collapse. It's almost admirable.

You are on her side when you see this immortal scene. At her weakest, she makes a vow, and makes it clear who she is. Old world silver screen perfection.

R34, can you start a separate Buffett thread? I'd love to hear more.

Or, which thread did you intend to post to? And then I can pick it up there.

She may have killed a Yankee soldier, but I was the one who got naked.

She never struck me as sympathetic or antagonistic in either the novel or the vivien leigh characterization. She seems pitiful and trapped to me. A victim of the Civil War, and a racist, patriarchal rural oligarchy that had to be absolutely crushed...and not quite thoroughly enough, it seems.

R51 is it me or can we see Merry's titty as she drops her nightgown?

What is admirable about Scarlett is that she has the capacity to survive, and to ensure those for whom she takes responsibility survive, when her entire world disappears around her. (We should all look to her example as climate change creeps up.)

To do that, you have to be utterly unsentimental, which is unheard-of for a heroine of popular fiction. You have to be ruthless when required, pragmatic, and have resilience and perseverance beyond what anyone around you can muster.

The book repeatedly makes the point that Scarlett was brought up to be none of those things. She had the old world values inculcated in her along with everyone else, and the person she most looked up to was her mother, who was a Melanie prototype. But when her survival and that of those around her is on the line, she is able to move into the new world with a ferocious determination to adapt, and later an equal appetite for what it can give her. While the South resents the Carpetbaggers because they move in and take advantage of the freed slaves and the now-impoverished gentry, Scarlett only resents them because they're competition. While everyone else yearns for the gracious old days when slaves did all the work, Scarlett simply looks for new groups to exploit, and finds there are plenty. Even Rhett finds that in the end even he doesn't have that kind of persistence. Part of the reason he returns to Charleston at the end is because he misses the grace and manners of the old world.

For all these reasons, she may be the first woman in fiction we today would think of as truly modern, and certainly she's the only main character in this book prepared to live as part of a modern world. Look at the number of characters who look to her for their survival, whereas although she sometimes takes advantage of men for financial help, the only person in the book whose loss would truly weaken her at the personal level is Mammy.

Excellent post, r54.

Also, for anybody out there who thinks "GWTW", the novel, should be cancelled, I disagree.

For anybody, here in the year 2020, who still wonders why race relations are what they are and why they are, Mitchell responds to your curiosity.

Don't get me wrong. Mitchell doesn't intend to write an expository. Her racism and bigotry are despicable. She writes approvingly of the ingrained racial and social bigotry of the South and of the KKK. She exposes the hypocrisy of the North which is just as bigoted about slaves. The term white trash is explored and explained.

And it's precisely based upon Mitchell's despicable attitudes where the value is gained, because, while she didn't set out to write an expository, nevertheless, she did.

Again, if you're curious and interested in learning more about the historical, familial and social bases for race relations in the USA that exist to this day, read the novel "Gone With the Wind."

It's all in there.

Agreed, R55. I grew up in a California "liberal bubble", and I am old enough to be alive when segregation laws were on force and the Civil Rights Movement was ramping up. I didn't understand organized racism at all, and the first clue I had was when I saw "GWTW" on TV when I was 10 or 12. Then I read the book, and had much more of an idea of what those damn fool Southern segregationaist KKK-joining Southern assholes were clinging to, in defiance of all reason.

I didn't make me at all sympathetic to them, it just explained some of their history. AND it showed me how far back the foolishness, Mitchell is both sympathetic and unsympathetic to the Old South, yes she's a racist herself and frighteningly kind to the KKK, but... she's also very aware than the Southern upper classes were incredibly stupid to start a war they couldn't win. It's right there in the opening chapters - Rhett saying that the North has more money, more men, and all the munitions factories, and scoffing at the idiots who say any "gentleman" is a match for any dozen yankees. No, Mitchell is awful in some ways, but she's very aware that the Old South brought ruin on itself.

Who cares, OP? Look at that FACE!

She was not nice. She was kind of animalistic, skilled at survival but not much else. You can't call her a psychopath or on the spectrum because she was occasionally capable of empathy - she grieved her father and her child, she had a loyalty to her family and she chose more than one between duty and freedom. But - and Mitchell references this various times in the novel - she has no capacity for analyzing people or feelings and so that allows a lot of things others would never do. Mitchell specifically spells this out after Bonnie dies, when she cannot make sense of anything in the world around her. I think that's why she endures a thousand years after publication: she is a fascinating creation. We shouldn't like her, and we may not actually like her, but you've got to give her credit.

The original you do you.

Excellent point, r56, about Mitchell setting forth right off the bat that the South was foolish to want war.

But wasn't it a matter of what they thought of as survival for them? They had to have a war. They had to go into battle simply as a matter of honor. Take away their slaves and they were common as dirt. White trash really. The only way they could uphold their wealth and their lives of gracious living, dignity and what they considered honor was through slave labor and they knew it. They were not just going to give up what they 'owned' and everything that came along with it without a fight even if it meant death.

And the movie is called Jezebel as in the bible story but Bette's name in the film and what she is called by everybody is Julie. How can every single person on DL not know this?

Because Jezebel is a bad GWTW ripoff.

Jezebel was b4 GWTW

Suellen went to Twelve Oaks and ate like a field hand.

She was the original fat whore.

Jezebel was made after GWTW became a best seller and was rushed into production before GWTW couid begin filming. It was completely fabricated in response to Mitchell's book and would not exist without it.

Are you suggesting that Jezebel stole ideas from GWTW, R64? Apart from the dress.

There are remarkable similarities between Jezebel and Gone With the Wind. Both have a fiery, pervasive, self-destructive heroine; a correct Southern gentleman with whom the heroine is hopelessly in love; a sweet and gentle other woman that the Southern gentleman marries in preference to the extravagant heroine; a suitable ration of physical disasters (a yellow-fever plague in Jezebel and the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind); lots of talk about the faded glory of the South and the ruthless North's probable victory in the Civil War; and a colorful assortment of gamblers and adventurers.

When Jezebel was announced for production in October 1937, David O. Selznick, producer of the upcoming Gone With the Wind, was predictably aggrieved and began firing off letters and cables to Warner Bros. chief executive Jack Warner alleging unfair trade practices. Warner ignored Selznick's complaints.

Thank you, R66

Scarlett is not in any way self-destructive, R66. She is "I'll kill anyone who gets in the way of what I want."

I like Scarlett, but it might be because I've been described as the male Scarlett.

[quote]R64 Jezebel was made after GWTW became a best seller and was rushed into production before GWTW couid begin filming.[bold] It was completely fabricated in response to Mitchell's book and would not exist without it.[/bold]

JEZEBEL began as a 1933 Broadway play starring Miriam Hopkins. This was prior to Margaret Mitchell’s novel being published.

[italic](shock rolls through the thread)

But even with the great Miriam it BOMBED. Jack lost out on GWTW so Jezebel was a beat em to the finish line quickie. Of course he was smart enough to put Wyler and Bette together so he managed to come up with a minor classic.

Could you imagine if he had gotten Wind for Bette? 4 hours of Davis being a bitch on wheels would have the audience members slitting their throats.

Hey, Melly, there’s yams in the cellar.

I had a lot of sympathy for her when she had to kiss Rhett who had denture breath.

R47 I don't remember Scarlett selling her sisters to a brothel; can you elaborate?

Start a separate thread about that lame ass Jezebel . I love Bette ,but I hated that movie. Lets stay focused on the baddest bitch ever ,Scarlett O'hara ! What I loved about her was the fact she knew her actions flew against everything she was taught to believe , but she was selfish enough to not give a damn and do what she wanted anyway. If not for that part of her nature,she nor her family would have ever survived the war . Had she had other options open to her other than marriage ,she probably would have never married anyone. When she took over Franks store ,then bought and ran a sawmill , tongues wagged ferociously . She gave not one damn. Scarlett would have been a ruthless ceo had she been born 100 years later,believe that.

R75...it was a joke. R47 was pointing out that if Scarlett was a true selfish soulless monster, she would've sold her sisters to Belle Watling. They were basically dead weight.

It's a great pity Norma Shearer didn't do the role. As MGM's reigning queen she certainly deserved it.

R78 was she up for the role? I know every known actress seems to have screen tested for it, but was Norma a serious finalist?

Poor Norma. Such a great star of her time but largely forgotten today.

Vivien Leigh read GWTW as soon as it was published in the UK. While reading it, she just knew, correctly, she was perfect to portray Scarlett O'Hara.

Lawrence Olivier was either already in, or soon to depart for, Hollywood. Leigh, therefore, had a reason to be in Hollywood.

Leigh maneuvered an introduction, with help from Olivier, to Selznick's aide. He was dazzled, and was reported to have immediately contacted Selznick that he found his Scarlett.

At least, that's the story that was concocted by publicists. Sounds about right to me.

I should've included that, although that sounds about right to me, there are accounts which insist that Selznick always had been aware of the then little-known Leigh and had her in mind as a possible Scarlett, because he had either seen her in a stage play or had seen footage of her.

They conclude that Selznick always had her in mind, but because she wasn't an American it was a delicate matter.

R80... the "aide" was Selznick's brother, Marlon, one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood at the time. He repped Olivier, he repped Leigh, and he introduced her to DOS on the set of the burning of Atlanta shoot. The legend is her said 'here, genius, meet your Scarlett O'Hara.' Not sure if that is true, but things happened very quickly after that.

[quote]R79 I know every known actress seems to have screen tested for it, but was Norma a serious finalist?

I read in one (respected) book that she “halfheartedly rejected the role when it was halfheartedly offered to her.”

No one thought it was a good idea, as Shearer played unthreatening ladies for the most part. (Her lack of genuine talent would have been a further hurdle.)

If she were younger she’d be better for Melanie, if anything.

[quote] Lawrence Olivier

No, R80, it's Laurence.

I love Norma! Fuck every last one of you!

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful for she ate too many servings of Pancakes Barbara. . ."

Fire Over England starred Leigh and Olivier and had a prestigious premiere booking at Radio City in 1937. People in the industry in the US at least had to have known who Leigh was well before she was cast as Scarlett.

The introduction on the set of the burning of Atlanta was a publicity story. I think she had already done a screen test before that. And it's true she was already on the list, not a sudden discovery of Myron Selznick's.

She practised the "kitten smile" in the mirror on the boat out to America, and lined her bluish eyes with green eyeliner to bring out any green in them. She was as determined as Scarlett to get the role, and once she had it, she was equally determined to maintain the integrity of the story relative to Mitchell's. She walked around the set with the novel in her hand, much to the amusement/irritation of Clark Gable, who I don't think had even read it.

On the other hand, on arrival at the premiere she was reported to have said, "Oh listen, they're playing the song from the picture!" when the band broke into "Dixie". Not being American did pose certain limitations.

R76, I very much agree. Scarlett *is* sympathetic because she’s been raised to be a cute little Southern belle who flutters around and can’t lift a finger to do anything. But that’s not her. That’s not her at all.

No. And neither is Melanie.

She did bad things for good reasons.

[quote]R85 I love Norma! Fuck every last one of you!

Your precious NORMA was a fuckin’ MUTANT!

[italic]Never[/italic] has someone gone so far on so little!!

Norma was getting on to look a little matronly at that point.

Scarlet needed fresh young blood! And Mrs Olivier provided it in spades!

Do you think Laurence Oliver would've won the Oscar if he'd played Scarlett?

[italic]Dear Mr. Selznick,

This is the first time I have ever taken the trouble to write about the casting of any picture, but when I read that Norma Shearer was going to play Scarlett O'Hara my blood boiled. Then when I read this morning that she wanted the story changed to suit her, I could bear it no longer. We don't want Norma Shearer, we want Scarlett. To change the woman's character is to spoil the story, and I don't think Miss Shearer at all the type, or that she possesses the beauty. I think Clark Gable ideal, and thought so when I read the book, and hope he plays Rhett Butler, but please no Norma Shearer.

Sincerely, Harriet Davis

P.S. I'd a thousand times rather see Carole Lombard as Scarlett than Norma Shearer

R94 The mercurial Larry never let any obstacle stand in his way. He had a Promethean energy for 35 years and an Adonis-like beauty for 15 years

R93 = mixed metaphor

I think Melanie is the dark horse of the film. There’s several times in the film when she shows a lot of guts. Like Scarlett, she was raised to act demure and helpless. Scarlett was no good at that, but Melanie could do it. But Melanie also did some things she wasn’t supposed to be able to do.

I think if she’d been able to overcome her upbringing, she would have been a nicer Scarlett. In that scene where the Union soldier goes after Scarlett on the stairs, then Scarlett kills him, Melanie, who’s weak from nearly dying in childbirth, drags herself out of bed and appears at the stairs with a heavy sword, ready to cut him to pieces to defend Scarlett. That shows what she was really made of. Scarlett’s sisters couldn’t have done that. Melanie had a quiet courage. And she believed in defending family like Scarlett did.

I read somewhere that a civilized person can go back to being a savage if necessary, but a savage can’t fall back into being civilized. Melanie, for all her manners, had that ruthlessness inside her too. She was just better at hiding it.

I find Scarlett to be an inpsiration. I want to BE her.

"I think Melanie is the dark horse of the film. There’s several times in the film when she shows a lot of guts. Like Scarlett, she was raised to act demure and helpless. "

Well remember, the ladies of the Old South were raised to look more helpless than they were. They were raised to be demure and make men feel like they were in control, while actually doing all the plantation management while the men played around. Scarlett's mother the Perfect Lady did things like fire the horrible overseer and nurse everyone through typhus, and if she'd been in Atlanta she'd have been a volunteer hospital nurse like Scarlett and Melanie, and if brigands had broken into Tara and leered at her daughters, she probably would have shot them in the face, too. And volunteering at that hospital was no joke, they were doing amputations with no anesthetic and no morphine, and Melanie stayed calm and helpful while Scarlett ran out and threw up.

An ideal proper Lady was supposed to have a core of steel, which she never let show in polite society. And in that, Melanie was the ideal Lady, as she was through the book.

The novel is so much better, richer, deeper than the film.

[quote] An ideal proper Lady was supposed to have a core of steel, which she never let show in polite society.

That is where the concept of a Steel Magnolia comes from, which is a much more truthful stereotype than the Southern Belle.

Surprised nobody has mentioned Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair. People have noticed the similarities of the two characters since GWTW was first published.

The first full length three strip Technicolor film was Becky Sharp, an adaptation of VF. Becky was played by Miriam Hopkins, already mentioned above.

[quote]Do You Find Scarlett O'Hara A Sympathetic Character?

She was a Democrat so you're a deplorable if you say no.

R103 there are similarities— both characters are schemers— but Becky Sharp is a social climber whereas Scarlett is at the top of the heap in antebellum society. Does Scarlett lose her social status after the war and she’s destitute? I would argue that she does not.

[quote] Surprised nobody has mentioned Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair.

None of us have read the book and the plot is confusing, And Sir Cedric Hardwicke's wig was rather distracting.

And Miriam Hopkins looks like lemons taste like.

Look to Aunt Pitty Pat for the answer.

"She was a Democrat so you're a deplorable if you say no."

Yawn, the Trumpster trolls are out in full force, invading threads that aren't even about politics

[quote] but Becky Sharp is a social climber whereas Scarlett is at the top of the heap in antebellum society.

Yes, if you just watch the film. If you read the book it is more complicated. She isn't exactly at the top. The O'Haras weren't exactly at the top. Gerald was an Irishman without any family heritage. It was why Ellen's old French family in Savannah looked down on him, also they were "country gentry" not part of the old aristocracy of Charleston, Savannah, or Virginia. Even in their country community they weren't seen as having the same status as the Wilkes. There is also the fact that they were Catholic, which was uncommon for Southern aristocrats outside of Maryland or Louisiana. Literally the only reason Scarlet was able to marry into the Butlers is because Rhett was a black sheep.

So they weren't considered the cream of Society-with-a-capital-S, R110, the O'Haras were rich and IN society. They were part of the upper class, the 1%, the owners of hundreds of slaves, the sort of people that would have considered themselves "aristocrats" in a few generations, if the war hadn't changed everything.

Becky Sharp spent her life trying to get into the upper class, Scarlett O'Hara spent her life trying to hold onto her place within it.

R111 - you’re being overly defensive; R110 makes good points; that further illuminate Scarlett’s character — she has a bit of a chip on her shoulder, as her father did, because they are considered lower tier in their world, and she may fear that is the reason Ashley is cool to her.

She may not be a classic social climber, but in her aristocratic world she is a striver. She was certainly part of the 1%, but then as now they don’t give a shit or a thought to the lower 99, just obsess on their fractional position within their gilded bubble.

What is there awareness of foetal alcohol syndrome back then? Because it’s weird. Scarlett’s second child, the daughter, who is plainly fried, was also carried to term while Scarlett was knocking back the Brandy.

Having read the novel GWTW (which was great , by the way) I would have to say no, Scarlett O'Hara was not exactly a sympathetic character. Oh, a lot of awful things happens to her during the course of her life; the loss of her parents, abject poverty, the death of her favorite child. But she is manipulative, unscrupulous, a liar, a cheat, someone who is willing to do anything to get what she wants and doesn't care who she hurts or steps on in order to get it. Nope, she gets no sympathy from me.

One question from the novel about the Melanie Scarlett relationship- I've read it many times and I never got the impression that Mitchell wanted us to believe that Melanie knew about the sexual love, which remains unconsummated only because of Ashley's "honor", between Ashley and Scarlett.

But I don't know if its a DLer from a previous thread or someone else in my "real life" who insists that Melanie knew all along.

But I recall Rhett telling Scarlett Melanie wouldn't believe it even if she saw it because she couldn't conceive of dishonor in those she loved.

Does anybody have a comment on that?

Also, I do believe Mitchell wants us to think Belle Watling's child is his.

[quote] someone who is willing to do anything to get what she wants and doesn't care who she hurts or steps on in order to get it.

That's true as far as it goes, but the reasons why are the interesting part... which are the impacts of what she went through. And I would argue she often did care who she hurt, but in the drive to survive, she rationalized it, knowingly. The 'as God is my witness' speech is a significant moment in her character, probably the most significant moment.. the writing around it in the book is revelatory.

When she gets up after puking and lying face down and exhausted in the dirt "her head was raised high and something that was youth and beauty and potential tenderness has gone our of her face forever. What ws past was past. Those where were dead were dead. The lazy luxury of the old days gone, never to return. And, as Scarlett settled the heavy basket across her arm, she had settled her own mind and he own life. There was no going back and she was was going forward."

Another big problem for her was Rhett actually made her worse than she was. For his own amusement, he encouraged all of her very worst behaviour and she embraced it because she was so dumb about human feeling and so indifferent to what others thought, she didn't think it through (couldn't, really.) You look at it through today's lens and Butler was cleverly isolating her. Certainly by the end of the book she is exactly where she is in the middle of the book... alone with no one to help her, bereft, cut off from everyone and with nothing but Tara. It's a good circle.

As to Melanie, Mitchell makes it clear she did not know, during the deathbed scene. Melanie had her own set of beliefs about the people she loved and we've all been blinded to things on that basis.

[quote] As to Melanie, Mitchell makes it clear she did not know, during the deathbed scene.

Thanks for the response, r116. Between agreeing with Rhett about how Melanie viewed those she loved and Melanie's deathbed exchange with Scarlett, I, too, thought that Melanie never knew of the sexual attraction between Scarlett and Rhett.

I will part company with you on Rhett's influence on Scarlett. She would have done whatever she needed to with or without Rhett Butler in her life; no encouragement from anybody else needed. I saw Rhett's approval of Scarlett's worst behaviors as his accepting her for what she was- an unscrupulous, hard-headed, driven woman.

To me it wasn't so much that Melanie did or didn't know. She was very much the sort of Southern Lady who might very well have known but if she did she would've acted as though she didn't and blocked it out of her mind and ignored it.

"I've read it many times and I never got the impression that Mitchell wanted us to believe that Melanie knew about the sexual love, which remains unconsummated only because of Ashley's "honor", between Ashley and Scarlett."

The book spells it out. The Wilkeses marriage is consummated, Melanie has a baby and it damn near kills her. After that, the doctor says that if Melanie has another baby it'll kill her for sure, so Mel and Ashley live without sex for several years. Towards the end of the story they resume having sex, Melanie gets pregnant, and sure enough it kills her.

There are some hints in the book that Melanie and Ashley have a passionate relationship,when Melanie and Scarlett are staying with Aunt Pittypat Ashley comes home on leave, and Scarlett sees the two of them go off together at night in a way that makes her jealous and disturbs her. And in the end, the Wilkses simply HAVE to have sex even if it kills them, or one of them. That's the thing, Melanie is presented as embodying all the ideals of Southern Womanhood, and that includes things that no lady would ever talk about in public, such as doing all the gruntwork of nursing sick family members and wounded soldiers, enjoying sex with the husband... and going back to being prissy and demure and acting like a holy virgin in public.

[quote]r119 The book spells it out. The Wilkeses marriage is consummated, Melanie has a baby and it damn near kills her. After that, the doctor says that if Melanie has another baby it'll kill her for sure, so Mel and Ashley live without sex for several years.

The bitch had two other holes to work with. And we know how accommodating Melanie was.

"Another big problem for her was Rhett actually made her worse than she was. "

Not really. He simply encouraged her to be herself and not pretend to be something she wasn't. Rhett greatly valued honesty. When India Wilkes tells him she's deeply grateful for what he'd done for Ashley (he keeps Ashley and the other men from being implicated in a KKK raid) but "I despise you just the same" Rhett is not offended but amused. He says to her "I appreciate frankness and I thank you for it."

If you read the book, one of the greatest scenes in it is Scarlett and her grandmother. And it also tempers the selfishness of Scarlett.

I do think though that the movie, though not as great as the book, does as well as can be expected. And so much of it is due to Leigh, who is so obviously smart and beautiful, that she almost makes the picture work singlehandedly.

How come no one wants to discuss the fact Melanie was ass fucked for years?

Because it was Ashley who was ass fucked for years by Melanie with a strap on. Mitchell writes chapters about it.

[quote] If you read the book, one of the greatest scenes in it is Scarlett and her grandmother.

If you're referring to Scarlett describing her maternal grandmother to Rhett, I recall that passage from the book. There isn't a scene in the novel or film shared between Scarlett and her grandmother.

Also in my post at r117 I wrote, "...I, too, thought that Melanie never knew of the sexual attraction between Scarlett and Rhett."

I meant to write Scarlett and Ashley.

No, Melanie ever even suspected anything going on between Scarlett and Ashley. As Rhett told Scarlett "Even if she saw she wouldn't believe. There's too much honor in her to conceive of dishonor in anyone she loves. I don't know what lie Ashley Wilkes told her but any clumsy one would do, for she loves Ashley and she loves you. I'm sure I can't see why she loves you but she does. Let that be one of your crosses."

Oh, I'm sure Melanie knew about the attraction between Scarlett and Ashley, but like a typical mealy-mouthed southern lady who'd die before she ever said what she really thought, she never let on.

And that's why I can't stand dealing with southern ladies. I like people who say what they think.

Of course she knew. That’s what’s so touching about the ending. She and Scarlett have become as close as sisters, though they’re polar opposites.

It’s not like Mel is mentally retarded.

Melanie wasn't "mealy mouthed" when it came to Scarlett. She defended her fiercely and when the scandal about Ashley and Scarlett came to light she rejected anyone who believed anything was going on between them. She told her sister-in-law India to "never set foot in this house again" and would have nothing to do with anybody who didn't concur with her that Ashley and Scarlett were just the subjects of nasty, gossipy lies, even if that included her own blood kin.

Had Scarlett been born in the 80s, she would have been on the cover of Fortune 500 as an entrepreneur, like a Kylie Jenner type, raking in the dough.

And that’s where I sympathize with her the most. She was skewered by a society of matronly women, who despised her for doing what they did: marrying whomever proposed marriage, in order to survive. And their rancor increased when she decided to take ownership of this, and opened up the saw mill, and it was a success.

Sadly, Rhett betrayed her when he decided that gaining the approval of the society that scorned his wife, was of greater importance than supporting her as who she was, just because she gave birth to Bonnie, who he lost tragically, and that loss highlighted this divide that now existed between himself and the woman he once admired, and it was a chasm created by him, as Scarlett has remained Scarlett, and Rhett became someone else.

Rhett’s biggest mistake was marrying Scarlett under the umbrella of a traditional marriage, and hence, treating her like a pet, instead of his equal who needed to be challenged through an entrepreneurial career, rather than motherhood. Just like him, when he first met Scarlett as she raged in Ashley Wilkes’ library after she learning of his plans to marry Melanie, Scarlett was a rebel and a non-conformist, and he forgot why he loved her so, after he made an honest woman out of her.

In the end, Scarlett was the most honest person in this saga, and she remained true to herself, as everyone else around her submitted to a dying society which was founded upon the most anti-democratic, anti-entrepreneurial, misogynistic, ignorant, and racist society to ever exist in American history: the Antebellum South, which STILL hasn’t changed as much or even adapted as easily as Scarlett did in her own life, when forced to do so.

The south would never rise again; but Scarlett? I believe that she did rise, even if Rhett frankly didn’t give a damn, anymore.

That’s what GWTW was about, women who were left to rise from the ashes like a Phoenix, and above of a time that burned down to the ground, ignited by the men who had sworn to protect their honor instead of their lives, , as they were inexplicably beholden to a cause that brutally extinguished everything it touched, including their sons, and them.

"In the end, Scarlett was the most honest person in this saga, and she remained true to herself,"

I can't agree that Scarlett stayed completely true to herself, as every single one of her marriages compromised herself and her beliefs. She married Hamilton because people expected her to marry somebody, she married Kennedy out of desperation, pure and simple. Okay, I can forgive her that, people need to make some concessions to reality, and all one can hope is that the less pleasant concessions don't last any longer than her first two marriages.

But the Butler marriage was tragic, because it shouldn't have involved her being untrue to herself, but it did. And it was Rhett's doing. Instead of setting out to win her heart (and other organs) by treating her as an equal and really won her, but he didn't even try. He wanted to have her, so he took the quick and easy way of getting her when she was vulnerable and promising her money and fun, which meant that he was compromising himself and his heart as well. He could have won her completely, body and soul, if he'd been willing to invest his own body and soul into the courtship, but he didn't, he held his heart back and settled for sexual conquest, and let the chance for the true love that should have developed between them go.

And then he decided to get all respectable for Bonnie's sake, which was a betrayal of everything that was wonderful about him, and everything that could have made his relationship with Scarlett catch fire.

Scarlett's grandmother isn't a character in the film or book but Grandma Tarleton is featured in the early portions of the novel. She has had a long and tough life and she does have a conversation with Scarlett, telling her, among other things, that you always need to be prepared for the next time the world turns itself upside down. Mitchell said or wrote somewhere that the conversation was based on talks she had with her own grandmother, who had lived through War and Reconstruction.

Trivia about the film: Vivien couldn't make convincing vomiting sounds so Olivia dubbed them for her.

I think you mean Grandma Fontaine.

Scarlett married Charles out of spite towards Ashley and Melanie . She married Frank out of sheer desperation (after stealing him from her sister) . She married Rhett for money mostly,but also because with him she could say and do what she wanted with his approval .I found the whole part of the story about his rehabbing his image for Bonnie a little tedious personally . I understood why , but he could have easily taken her anywhere else and bought her social cache .

I stand corrected, r133.

Thank you, r132 and r133. I knew it was someone's grandmother! (it's been a long time since I read it the last time.)

Scarlett married Charle(to salvage her reputation, which was sullied due to her "fast" behavior, and because she wanted to hurt Honey Wilkes. Honey Wilkes, not seen in the movie, was Ashley's other sister. She and Charles are cousins and are expected to marry (the Wilkes always marry their cousins), but Scarlett steal him away. At the barbecue Scarlett hears Honey telling the other girls how "fast" she is and how although she's always stealing other girl's beaus the only boy she "gives a rap about" is Ashley. It's thought that Honey will never catch another man, but much later in the novel she does marry and it appears she's quite happy with her husband.

Scarlett marries Frank for his money. She desperately needs money to pay the taxes on Tara so she won't lose the property and has run out of options so she lied to make Frank think Suellen decided not to wait for him anymore and married someone else. Quite a dirty trick to play on both Frank and Suellen.

She married Rhett because he pressed her to do so and because he was rich. He comes to Aunt Pitty's when Frank is barely cold and kisses her passionately until she finally says yes (she demurred at first). For the sake of decorum they wait about a year and then marry. Everyone is appalled because Rhett has such a bad reputation but Scarlett doesn't care what anybody says. She does get irate when Mammy tells her she's marrying "trash" and that she and Rhett Butler are both "mules in a horse harness." Her speech to Scarlett is one of Mammy's finest moments.

Slightly OT, but for those of you who have read the book, (and this thread has made me want to), as you are reading it do you still envision the characters as they all appear in the film?

Even though he thought himself miscast, I still picture Leslie Howard every time Ashley is mentioned in this thread.

I never really understood the marriage to Frank Kennedy. Why not just let him marry Suellen? He would still be in the family and would likely have still paid the taxes.

It's interesting that Mitchell makes her an Irish-French Catholic and not an Anglo-Saxon protestant.

R140 That part was probably autobiographical as Margaret Mitchell was Irish Catholic.

"I never really understood the marriage to Frank Kennedy. Why not just let him marry Suellen? He would still be in the family and would likely have still paid the taxes."

Scarlett didn't think so:

"For a moment she considered asking him to lend her three hundred dollars, but wearily she rejected the idea. He would be embarrassed, he would stammer, he would make excuses, but he wouldn't lend it to her. He had worked hard for it, so he could marry Suellen in the spring and if he parted with it his wedding would be postponed indefinitely. Even if she worked on his sympathies and his duty towards his future family and gained his promise she knew Suellen would never permit it. Suellen was getting more and more worried over the fact that she was practically an old maid and she would move heaven and earth to prevent anything from delaying her marriage."

No way SuEllen would be bothered to help the family.

What r143 said.

While I agreed with Scarlett when she didn't blame Sue Ellen for trying, still, there's no getting around it that she was willing to trick her Father into spurning the Confederacy by taking an Oath that he was a Union sympathizer to get a US (Union) Federal payment

Sue Ellen wasn't playing, and that act was indicative of how far she would go to recreate some semblance of her pre-war social position. If she had to let her family starve, no way was she going to let Frank pay the taxes on Tara.

And I envy you, r138. This is r55. There I wrote about how Mitchell, in GWTW, wrote an expository on race relations and why, for that reason, it should never be cancelled.

Mitchell, in GWTW, also wrote a barn-burning, flat out, entertaining story.

The novel is long and takes concentration. You may be tempted to skim the her descriptions of the Civil War military generals and battles, but don't.

They also add to an understanding of attitudes that prevail to this day. Observe the recent controversy about removing the statues of Confederate war generals which Trump is against.

I thought he didn't like losers.

Saintly Ellen Robillard O'Hara has three daughter. Two of them turn out to be dreadful human beings. Only her youngest daughter Careen turns out like her mother. Unable to get over her dead love (Brent Tarleton, killed at Gettysburg) she eventually becomes a nun, just as Ellen thought of doing when her true love, Philippe Robillard, gets killed in a barroom brawl.

Spoiler Alert for those who haven't read the novel: If it hasn't dawned on you, this thread is spoiling the novel.

r145, I thought that scene describing Ellen O"Hara's deathbed when she's experiencing delirium, and Scarlett asks Mammy if she called for anybody, and Dilcey speaks up and Mammy tries to hush Dilcey, is very poignant.

Of course, Ellen is calling for Phillippe....

R115 Melanie definitely knew. Despite how the film makes her seem so simplistic as a character (and Dame Olivia's performance doesn't do it any favors, she's about as emotive as cardboard), she most definitely knew. But as Rhett said, she was a lady with honor. And that, in the end, is what set her apart from Scarlett. If the roles had been reversed and it had been Melanie who'd shown up to that party in that red dress after the incident in the mill Scarlett would've walked right up and knocked poor Melanie's teeth out right on the doorstep.

Melanie was a lady, and she was kind, but she was not an imbecile. She knew. But she also knew that real ladies treat everyone, even whores, with grace and civility and decency. I also think that even if she'd wanted to call Scarlett out on her bullshit she couldn't, because she felt indebted after Scarlett saved her and her baby from certain death during the invasion of Atlanta.

Scarlett may have been a Southern Belle, but Melanie was a Steel Magnolia. Just because she never called Scarlett out for the slut that she was doesn't mean she wasn't aware of it.

" She knew."

No, she did NOT. That is a major point in the novel. Melanie is so good that cannot see anything bad about anyone she loves. And she loves Scarlett. I (and Rhett) never understood why, but she loves Scarlett unconditionally. She even goes against Ashley, pressuring him to come to Atlanta and work for Scarlett (which is a major blow to his masculine pride) rather than go North. To her, Ashley and Scarlett can do no wrong. Melanie was a fool, not only because she can't see Scarlett for what she really is, but for having another baby when the doctor said it would kill her if she did. She convinces Ashley that it would be ok for her to get pregnant again and ends up dying as a result. She was an idiot. A saintly idiot, but an idiot.

I agree, she did not know. Mitchell makes it clear in the death bed scene.

"I never really understood the marriage to Frank Kennedy. Why not just let him marry Suellen? He would still be in the family and would likely have still paid the taxes."

Sue Ellen had better uses for Frank's money that saving a plantation that was Scarlett's and not hers!

Although it's also possible that Kennedy would have paid the taxes rather than have a house full of broke-ass in-laws move in with him and his new bride, but it's unlikely he would have realized the necessity in time. Sue Ellen wasn't about to tell him that the O'Haras were so broke she was out in the fields picking cotton herself, she wnated the middle-class Kennedy to think he was marrying up, and would never admit that she was now the one having to marry up and that he was the best she could do. No, the Ladies of the Old South were never, EVER honest.

Mitchell absolutely wasn't a racist. She was writing Southern history as she had learned and knew it, not necessarily as she thought it should have been. The historical accuracy of GWTW is something she spent a lot of time investigating and historians still admire its authenticity.

Mitchell devoted much of the novel's profits to black educational projects including black colleges in what was still a segregationist culture.

Yes, Mitchell WAS a racist, she really truly believed that black people were less intelligent and less worthy that white people, and that they should be content with less and know their place. Or so I assume from reading her writing on race relations. Of course she didn't actively hate black people and probably never attended a lynching in her life, but look - she wrote nice things about the fucking KKK! She thought that they were actually defending southern white womanhood, and not engaging in acts of murder and terrorism!

Now in her defense, I will say that she was really very honest and perceptive about the Old South and how the foolishness of its ruling class led to its downfall, and that you really can learn a lot about the flaws of antebellum society from her writings including the deep sexism, but she doesn't understand squat about race relations. She genuinely thought that black people were happy to be slaves, as long as the owners weren't actively killing them, and if you'd told her that any of the O'Hara's slaves were unhappy she'd have never believed you.

It’s strange that Scarlett O’Hara has never seemed so boring as in this dry thread.

When did you meet Mitchell, r152, and what specifically did she say to you?

[quote] She even goes against Ashley, pressuring him to come to Atlanta and work for Scarlett (which is a major blow to his masculine pride) rather than go North.

This was, to me, the most incomprehensibly foolish decision that Melanie made in the entire novel.

[quote] she really truly believed that black people were less intelligent and less worthy that white people

Yet, she gave generously to Morehouse College for the education of black doctors. Mainly, because she found it so difficult to get quality care for her family's old black female retainer and wanted to make sure others would be able to access quality care.

It's clear she was a product of her time, but too many people today seem to want to operate in black and white, whereas most people fall in the grey area in between.

I think Mitchell's racism came from a place of ignorance, rather than a place of hate. Not an excuse or a minimization but if she's to be seen as a racist, which I believe she was, it's worth seeing her as she was. I'd argue she was less the problem than a symptom of it, though I don't know if that distinction matters. I don't equate the portrayal of blacks in Gone with the Wind with stringing someone from a tree. On the flip side, maybe the benign racism was more enabling of Jim Crow laws and segregation because it provided support to the haters. I am genuinely curious if, from the perspective of a black person, there's much if any difference.

Gone With The Wind is racist. Gone With The Wind is also an amazing film. Margaret Mitchell was racist. Margaret Mitchell was also an amazing and talented author.

The world has become so obsessed with absolutes. Not everything is black and white (no pun intended). You can still recognize the greatness within flawed things, and the flaws within great things. Gone With The Wind being racist and Gone With The Wind being a wonderful piece of art are two facts that can coexist with one another. Please don't fall into the modern trap of dismissing things just because they're seen as flawed, or of assuming that admitting the flaws in something means that the something can't be still be great.

Just because Gone With The Wind is great doesn't mean it isn't racist. Just because Gone With The Wind is racist doesn't mean it isn't great. Art does not exist in an Either/Or world.

Thank you R158. I'm a person of color who, aside from the ugliness of the story, has always found Scarlett inspiring.

Not to be contrary ,but slavery was a minute part of the movie. It was basically over 30 mins into the movie .When Scarlett said she was going to Atlanta to see Rhett Mammy made it abundantly clear she knew she was free .

"On the flip side, maybe the benign racism was more enabling of Jim Crow laws and segregation because it provided support to the haters. I am genuinely curious if, from the perspective of a black person, there's much if any difference."

I'm curious, too! But I doubt any black people are fascinated enough by Mitchell's story to read past 100 replies here, I betcha Mitchell's benign racism would make the average black reader throw the book against the wall within the first 100 pages.

But yes, the book is still great, even if it was written by a racist. I learned a lot about the Old South from this book, both things Mitchell intended her readers to learn and things she did not. That's the thing about art, it can reveal truths intentionally or unintentionally. And that's why art shouldn't be "cancelled", although I would argue that nobody should ever be required to read something that might need to be thrown against the wall in a literature class.

Nothing can ever truly be cancelled. There is a fear in GWTW getting banned but I doubt it would ever come to that. The only real fear is people turning their noses up at you reading/watching the story, and who gives a fuck what THOSE people think?

True r141, but I wonder how Mitchell felt as a Catholic growing up in an anti-Catholic milieu and if that fed into her views on race in any way.

Mitchell died at the age of 48 in 1949 after being knocked down by a speeding car. It would have been interesting to see how she reacted to the civil rights movement if she had lived.

"True [R141], but I wonder how Mitchell felt as a Catholic growing up in an anti-Catholic milieu and if that fed into her views on race in any way."

Here's what I don't get: Mitchell wrote positively about the KKK in her book, she seemed to believe they were actually defending Southern Womanhood, and not terrorizing former slaves and the white poor into accepting economic conditions that were little better than slavery. '

Yet in her day, the KKK was anti-Catholic as well as anti-black, although their anti-Catholic efforts were more directed at immigrants from unfashionable nations like Italy than against people from old, white, respectable Catholic families.

I don't find her very sympathetic. She's such a brat. Every time you think she'll redeem herself, she fucks it up.

[quote]Do You Find Scarlett O'Hara A Sympathetic Character?

Why, yes. Yes, of course.

R164 My guess is that she separated the two. I've read things from other people at the time and heard from older relatives, and they made a distinction between the first iteration of the Klan, which is what she wrote about in GWTW, and later iterations. The first Klan wasn't really anti-Catholic nor anti-Jewish, they were just mainly focused on ending Republican rule and reestablishing white Democrat rule. It was the second iteration, founded in 1915, that expanded to include opposition to Catholics and Jews, as well as being pro-Prohibition. This was the iteration that expanded across the country, North, South, and West. It was also the iteration that, for a short period, achieved almost middle-class respectability, though it declined by the late 1920s and was considered pretty much dead by the time GWTW came out. It was the iteration that added cross burning and mass marches. The third iteration, which is the current one, went full neo-Nazi, and is the most secret and hidden iteration, without much of a national organization and are instead a bunch of separate and isolated groups, most of whom are looked down upon by even most "respectable*" racists as poor white trash.

My point is that there are people, like MM, who might have felt one way about one iteration of the KKK and completely different about other iterations.

*I know there is no such thing as a "respectable" racist, I used the term to refer to those who are/were racist but would NEVER associate with the current KKK, people like the middle-class professionals that formed White Citizens Councils in the 1950s-60s.

Who the fuck would want to read the book/see the movie if Melanie was the main character?

I've only read the book and often wondered as I was reading it just what was going through Melanie's mind. She's portrayed as being a simple, good soul but she seems more complex to me, e.g. when she shot the Yankee soldier and with her attitude towards Scarlett and Ashley. I'm sure she knows something is going on between them but chooses to ignore it because she loves Scarlett and also doesn't care.

Melanie had cognitive dissonance but people didn't challenge her because it kept the peace and made everyone's lives easier.

Bonnie Blue Butler.

What do you think?

Bonnie Blue Butler was a spoiled little monster. But she has everything that Southerners prize in their children; looks, charm, vivacity, robust health and utter fearlessness (except for the dark), so the fact that she has tantrums until she gets her way is of little importance. Rhett is her chief caregiver. He tells Scarlett that he can take better care of her than she can and will not let her "bully her and break her spirit" the way she did with her other two children. But Rhett in his own way is as bad a parent as Scarlett. He indulges his Bonnie Blue's every whim; she gets whatever she wants and is never told no. Scarlett usually lets her have her own way, too, because she's "such a sweet, darling thing." Rhett and Scarlett spoil their little darling literally to death; her horsemanship swells them both up with pride and Rhett allows her to attempt a higher jump one day although it's not a good idea. And that is the end of Bonnie Blue. I have to admit I wasn't all that broken up over her demise. I thought she was a horror.

MM maybe evolved (somewhat) over her life. I had heard the story before, in the link below, that while at Smith she refused to attend a class with a black student so yeah, racist. The link also talks about how she was a bit racy herself when young, maybe she saw herself as a Scarlett?

I first read GWTW when I was about 13. LOVED IT. Read it in two days one summer. I think Scarlett is awesome and she did what she needed to do in terrible situations. (patriarchy, war, poverty, death)

IMO Melanie knew about the attraction between Ashley (so fucking miscast in the movie, he was a complete toad, not the tall blonde aristocrat of the book at all dammit) and Scarlett, but believed they were both "good" people who would never act on it.

"Melanie had cognitive dissonance "

No, she was just a person who thought one thing and said another. Always. She knew what she knew and was no fool about things, but she never let herself say anything except the kindest and most correct statements. And BTW that was something that Olivia DeHavilland captured, there are moments when it's obvious her Melanie is saying one thing but thinking another.

That wasn't the result of cognitive dissonance, that was the result of iron self-discipline! And a complete commitment to social dishonesty, and to hiding her own abilities. This is someone who'd try to fight a dangerous Yankee deserter and didn't mind helping to hide the body, but who stayed deliberately mealy-mouthed before and after that. I can't deal with people like that in real life, they are devoid of honesty and most of them will smile to your face and stab you in the back. At least Melanie didn't backstab, but I still wouldn't have liked her if I'd met her.

R173, Mitchell was apparently into erotica and kink and interested in sexology.

There is also an SM kinda rape scene between Rhett and Scarlett, which Scarlett seemed to enjoy.

Mitchell was an interesting individual. If anything, GWTW, despite its awful racism, is a document of a complex place and time and a complex individual, detailing private worlds that rarely leave their traces in history but which drive so much of human behaviour.

Anyone read the second book "Scarlett"?

It makes an oddly satisfying read because Scarlett and Rhett do get together in the end.

But I thought Mitchell said herself they never get together again. When he lost his love for her it was truly gone. She no longer mattered to him in any way. And face it she really no longer needed Rhett She had and would always have Tara. Like at the end of the Wizard of Oz these two most famous American films are about finding one's way back home, a place where one could find refuge the only true meaningful love one can have. Everyone understands it instinctively.

Only Satan knows why, but I'm thinking of giving Donald McCaig's novel "Rhett Butler's People" another go.

I've skimmed it, but I didn't like where he took the characters.

Without spoiling it, in the improbable event you want to read it, among other things, McCaig addresses who is, in GWTW, the boy whom Rhett describes as his "legal ward" who he describes as a "hellion" but regularly visits him in New Orleans. Recall in GWTW (the novel), he discloses his existence to Scarlett and asks her to keep it to herself and that Mitchell, in GWTW strongly implies that Belle Watlings son may be Rhett's.

That's some of what McCaig goes into.

I could go into spoilers if you want me to but, I'll see if they're requested.

Not at all but I find her endlessly fascinating.

[quote] No, she was just a person who thought one thing and said another.

In other words, a true passive-aggressive Southerner. Bless her heart.

[quote] the Old South brought ruin on itself.

A tradition that lives on in the New South.

I can not believe that some of you actually think that Melanie was the simple, kind, couldn't hurt a fly or think a bad thought about anybody saint that she is talked about as in the book.

One of the biggest themes of GWTW is that people are not what they seem to be on the surface, that people are more complex than their appearances. Scarlett appears to be a helpless petulant child but proves the be strong and smart and capable of independent survival. Belle Watling appears to be an untouchable perverse whoremonger but shows herself to be as respectable as a nun. Rhett appears to be a cold and rough dark horse but is shown to be capable of sensitivity, love, and guilt.

Melanie appeared to be a helpless little saint, but as the novel goes on she proves herself to be capable of ruthlessness and even murder twice. Once when the Yankee soldier comes to Tara and again when there's a knock at the door after the gang's husbands have run off to defend Scarlett's honor (she asks Mrs Meade to hand her the pistol, she's fully prepared to kill if need be).

This novel is about how people change over time, and more importantly how the world turning upside down can change people. Mitchell does a wonderful job of juxtaposing the pre and post civil war worlds while still holding on to one coherent theme: nothing is as you think it is. That's why there's so much emphasis on the "lost cause" of the south and how stupid and arrogant the confederacy is.

I could write for years on the complexity of the story (which is why I think it should never be burned by the mobs: it's a story that is so layered that it demands analyzation until the end of time). To say that Melanie is the simple saint that she's presented as on the surface level: incapable of hurting anyone, incapable of thinking ill of anyone, incapable of pulling her head out of the sand, is an insult to the major themes of the story as well as an insult to Mitchell's writing.

What you say is true, r182. However, for all her faults, Scarlett is still the more interesting character...and one we're fascinated by as opposed to sympathizing with her.

"Anyone read the second book "Scarlett"?"

I made an attempt to. But I couldn't. It is SO godawful bad. As one reviewer said "Frankly my dear, it's not worth a damn." I agreed with another reviewer that the characters in the book had names like Scarlett and Rhett and Mammy and Ashley, but other other than that they had no resemblance whatsoever to the ones in Margaret Mitchell's book. And course Rhett and Scarlett get back together in the end, and they even have a Bonnie Blue replacement named "Cat."

About "Cat", the Bonnie Blue replacement...she's conceived in this way. In the original novel Rhett tells Scarlett he doesn't love her anymore (the only feeling he has left for her is "pity and an odd feeling of kindness') and he doesn't care where she goes or what she does, and he damn well meant it. But somehow in "Scarlett" he and Scarlett go sailing (???); there's a storm, the boat capsizes and Scarlett almost drowns. But Rhett manages to save her and drag her to shore. Once she's safe on shore Rhett starts to wail "MY DARLING, MY DARLING! I THOUGHT I'D LOST YOU!" and then proceeds to make passionate love to her. She gets knocked up with what turns out to be their new Bonnie Blue. My God, how stupid and ridiculous is THAT scene! And it's like that all throughout the book!

I never for a second entertained the thought of reading any sequel to GWTW unless M.M wrote it ,and how could she have?

She clearly never wanted a sequel to GWTW. If she had she wouldn't have ended it in such a bleak way.

"Anyone read the second book "Scarlett"?"

It's terrible. First there's a super dull section where Scarlett quits drinking and marries off Ashley to some old maid schoolteacher, and generally extricates herself from all the problems she had at the end of the real book. Then there's a passable section, where she goes to Charleston to chase Rhett. Then she goes to Ireland, and it all goes to hell. It's an absolutely ridiculous mess from then on, and not the fun kind of mess either.

Thanks to you cunts I'm now nearly two hours into the movie. Hadn't seen it in 15+ years.

[quote]R182 One of the biggest themes of GWTW is that people are not what they seem to be on the surface, that people are more complex than their appearances.

Puhleeeeeaze!

Rhett Butler enjoyed the war. He spent most of it in brothels, playing cards and making a ton of money. He didn't suffer like Scarlett did, and he sure as hell wasn't picking cotton, plowing fields, birthing babies, assisting in surgeries or keeping people alive like she did. Of course she wasn't going to be the same carefree teenager that she was when they first met, even though he acted like she was supposed to be as long as he provided material comforts. The war made her hard, cynical and determined never to be without money again. Maybe if he hadn't abandoned her and had gone to Tara to help out, things would have been different.

But then we wouldn't have a novel or a movie.

People love you and tell you lies.