Why Gone with the Wind Matters
It's not just four hours of people being gossipy and mean and self-serving (but that's fun too)
In late May, I rewatched Gone with the Wind for the first time in a decade, and for the first time in a theatre. Gone with the Wind is a complicated movie, particularly in its heavily-romanticized depiction of enslavement and the plantation-era South; in 2020, HBO Max garnered controversy when it pulled Gone with the Wind from its streaming service for “ethnic and racial prejudices,” before returning it to the platform with a special introduction providing historical context1. Often, racist media such as Gone with the Wind is dismissed (or excused?) as being a product of its time, and indeed HBO Max referred to it as such when they removed it from streaming. I would argue, however, that Gone with the Wind cannot be dismissed as a product of its time due both to its phenomenal popularity, and the fact that those behind the movie were well aware of its problematic elements even during production in the late 1930s.
For instance, from early on in the adaptation and production process, the film studio received letters of protest critiquing the romanticized depiction of enslavement and the South in Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 smash hit novel. The filmmakers were conscious of these complaints, and made active efforts to make the film less racist in their adaptation. This included removing reference to the KKK, who are depicted as valiant and righteous in a major plot point of the novel. The film’s producer David O. Selznick, who meticulously oversaw every element of the production, recommended cutting out reference to the KKK in a memo to screenwriter Sidney Howard, writing, “I do hope you will agree with me on this omission of what might come out as an unintentional advertisement for intolerant societies in these fascist-ridden times.” Selznick was particularly keen to avoid recreating the effects of The Birth of a Nation, a seminal 1915 film whose portrayal of the KKK as heroes had reinvigorated the white supremacist group.
Thus, the depiction of enslavement and the southern slave society in Gone with the Wind is not a mere case of antiquated perspectives that are no longer accepted, but rather of filmmakers and studio executives knowingly and intentionally striking a fine balance, pleasing the southern masses who adored Mitchell’s novel while minimizing criticism from Black audiences (though such critique persisted nonetheless, even at the time of the film’s release). The attempt to have their cake and eat it too is evident in the film; the opening text scroll declares that the Old South is where “Gallantry took its last bow,” a land that was “the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave.” The film’s Black characters are woefully underdeveloped, largely content with their enslaved positions, and generally supportive of the Confederacy; the film does not depict significant maltreatment of them on the part of its white characters. To me, the inclusion and depiction of these Black characters is the most malicious and damaging element of Gone with the Wind, the aspect that most upholds the ideology of enslavement, and on some level Hattie McDaniel’s history-making Oscar win for her portrayal of Mammy feels like a validation of this depiction from the Hollywood establishment.
Unsurprisingly, the white characters in Gone with the Wind are far more interesting and complex; however, they are often, notably, not particularly sympathetic, which introduces a fascinating tension to the film’s depiction of the “Old South.” Several of the film’s white characters are not depicted as knights and ladies fair—or, if they are, these qualities render them fundamentally and explicitly at odds with a sustainable society. The basic plot of Gone with the Wind follows Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), a young southern belle who is in love with Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard). Unfortunately for Scarlett, Ashley soon marries his cousin Melanie2 (Olivia de Havilland), and Scarlett spends the remainder of the movie desperately trying to win him back against the backdrop of the Civil War and post-Confederacy South.
Scarlett O’Hara is probably the most famous southern belle of all time, but at heart she is anything but a “lady fair.” To be blunt, Scarlett is a massive bitch, and I don’t mean that as an insult; there is simply no other way to other way to articulate how jaw-droppingly self-centred, petty, and frequently cruel she is to everyone around her. This is what makes her so delightful to watch, but it also renders her far from ladylike; she is a snake in the grass, adopting the veneer of a fair maiden while constantly insulting people behind their backs, always looking out for herself at the expense of everybody else. Her passion and acumen for business also conflict with her society’s expectations for women, and unlike many other characters, she adapts quite well to the Reconstruction era, running a successful lumber mill as an offshoot of her second husband’s store. She is willing to conduct business with Northerners, setting aside her Southern loyalties to make a profit, and is also willing to exploit not only the enslaved, but also white convict labourers, to the shock of Ashley and her husband. She does not even cut breaks for her fellow Southerners; after Scarlett starts running the store, we see a sign reading “The War is Over; Don’t Ask for Credit,” and learn that Scarlett pressured her husband’s friends to pay back their debts so she could establish her own business.
Scarlett’s brazen self-interest and consistent flouting of societal norms sets her apart from the conventions of Southern society, which she aligns with only on a superficial level, and towards the end of the film she has more in common with the wealthy Yankees who have moved to Georgia than the fallen Southerners whom she grew up alongside. While Scarlett is undoubtedly attached to Tara, her family’s plantation, this is at least partially because owning land is a way for a woman of her time to secure a future, and she displays relatively little of the nostalgia her compatriots hold for the plantation way of life. Furthermore, it is the very qualities that set Scarlett apart from her peers—her selfishness and her skill at business—that allow her to hold on to Tara rather than having it slip from her desperate grasp, as happens to many others. While Scarlett is known as the archetypal Southern belle, she is just as often at odds with Southern society, and the very skills that enable her survival are fundamentally discordant to Southern expectations for a woman’s behaviour.
Though Scarlett professes her love to Ashley throughout the film, she is also consistently entangled with Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a caddish and charismatic blockade runner whose attachment to the South is driven in part by his ability to profit from its plight. As Scarlett and others repeatedly note, Rhett also does not align with the knightly expectations of Southern society; he seems to be tolerated mostly for the benefits his blockade running delivers, but he believes from the beginning that the South will lose the civil war since all they have is “cotton, slaves, and arrogance.” Both the film’s protagonist and its romantic lead, then, do not truly adhere to the Confederate values that the film otherwise professes; those characters who do align with societal conventions, Ashley included, are shown as woefully unequipped to cope even with their responsibilities within a Confederate context, let alone in the Reconstruction era.
This is a dissonance that threatens to unravel the film’s romanticized view of the plantation south; if the skills necessary for survival are fundamentally incompatible with the idealized southern society, then by definition that society is unsustainable, its values and self-perception fundamentally false. The film is certainly easily romanticized by those who idolize the fallen Confederacy, and the film’s success both as a technical achievement and as a feat of entertainment make it easier to ignore the contradictions and tensions inherent in the film’s setting. However, to a modern viewer, the film’s depiction of its characters and setting can often be read equally as a critique of the plantation society, given the characters’ frequent impotence and unlikeability. These qualities, again, make the film difficult to dismiss as merely a product of the time; discussion of “values” and “civility” and returning to some glorious, fictitious past are just as present in the modern political landscape as they were in 1939. Applying a critical lens to Gone with the Wind, examining its successes and failures to uphold a rose-coloured vision of the past, can allow us to fully appreciate the film’s influence on modern society, and in turn to apply a critical lens to modern media as well. Rather than merely dismissing media as “problematic” and banishing it from existence, it’s important to confront our discomfort and analyze exactly why something is offensive or dangerous, so that we can attempt to understand and avoid such pitfalls moving forward.
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While watching this movie in the theatre a man told me mid-movie3 to eat my popcorn more quietly. On the way out of the theatre, I told him that you can’t go to a movie theatre and get upset about people eating popcorn, to which he responded that he is European4 and it is “his culture” to not eat popcorn during “arthouse movies.” Of course, Gone with the Wind is not an arthouse movie, it is a gigantic Hollywood production, one of the most expensive movies ever made at the time of release and still the highest-grossing movie of all time when adjusted for inflation. Equating it to an arthouse movie plays into an idea that any older film is a serious picture, to be viewed with solemnity and reverence, which in turn makes classic film seem intimidating and dull. Gone with the Wind is the blockbuster to end all blockbusters; it is designed to be entertaining, and at this it is a triumph5. Much of the film holds up remarkably well, especially Vivien Leigh’s rightfully iconic performance as Scarlett in all her complexity and selfish cruelty. I consider Scarlett to be one of the great anti-heroes of all time; even in 2024, Scarlett (and Leigh’s performance) feels fresh, modern, even shocking in her self-assuredness, her shamelessness, and her determination to survive at any cost. There is a stunning level of craft in the gorgeous costumes, the Technicolor cinematography, and a script that distills the events of 12 years, and over 1000 pages, into a watchable and enjoyable film. It is four hours of people being gossipy and mean and irrational and self-serving, in a way that feels both larger-than-life and remarkably human. I think it’s so important to look at the people of the past as real people who had many of the same fears and pleasures and petty grudges as we do today; to not do so gives us space to view ourselves separately from them, and thus to view their mistakes and failures as separate from our own. Our approach to film history is one avenue in which we can stay engaged with the past and recognize it for what it is.
This includes, as discussed above, not dismissing the racial elements of Gone with the Wind as mere ignorance or stupidity—acknowledging that these elements were manipulated by corporate and capitalistic entities that continue trying to please as many audiences as possible, reflecting diverse voices only when there is sufficient pressure to do so. David O. Selznick’s memos about the production of Gone with the Wind are catty in places and shockingly modern in others; at one point he tells someone that a task will take them “literally only a few seconds” to complete, while elsewhere he directs a colleague to remind Leslie Howard’s agent that “Howard has been a box-office failure in all of his pictures in recent years without exception.” The Selznick memos brought to mind the emails between studio heads leaked in the 2014 Sony hack, which frequently display similar levels of ego, control, and callous pettiness, highlighting that, though nearly a century has elapsed, studio heads are still remarkably similar to those who held power in 19396.
While Gone with the Wind is, in my opinion, a remarkable and entertaining film, it is crucial not to ignore the pitfalls that arise when studio heads have more say in artistic creation than filmmakers do. Selznick’s attempt to please white southerners without angering Black audiences reminds me of recent efforts by studios like Disney and Marvel to appease audiences by including characters who are stated or implied to be gay, but who are depicted minimally to (presumably) avoid offending homophobic audiences. If Gone with the Wind has any connection to arthouse and independent cinema, as my popcorn-hating fellow moviegoer suggested, it is to remind us why it is so important to carve space for voices outside of blockbuster cinema. I don’t want filmmakers like Barry Jenkins and Chloé Zhao to be given major opportunities only when working through massive conglomerates with pre-existing IP; I want to live in a world where a filmmaker as iconic and influential as John Waters doesn’t struggle to secure funding even for an indie movie. To paint Gone with the Wind as an arthouse movie, or to view older movies in general as homework, is to ignore the realities of film history, and thus to assume that the current film landscape has nothing to learn from its past—and by extension, to assume that it cannot collapse as the studio system eventually did. To turn away from the past, or to deny our connection to it, is to deprive ourselves of the joys, the discomforts, and the lessons we can derive from it—especially when considering a film as massive and as successful as Gone with the Wind.
This introduction also played at the Cineplex screening I attended.
Because “the Wilkeses always marry their cousins,” of course!
This was during one of the film’s most iconic scenes, the slow zoom out to reveal the casualties from the Battle of Atlanta, a scene that coincidentally doesn’t actually have any dialogue! He also wasn’t even sitting beside me, he was halfway down the aisle!!! If you’ve seen a movie with me, weigh in—is my popcorn-eating so aggressive as to disrupt someone eight seats away?
Yes, he was French.
This glossy appeal is part of what makes its propagandistic elements easy to overlook.
Why have a civil war when the real enemy is right there — the French
I hope the French guy reads this.