Was Gone With The Wind Racist?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2584135/Cambridge-University-college-forced-drop-racist-Gone-With-The-Wind-ball-theme-complaints.html

[albaqwerty]

Wasn't he big in Albania?

Wondering if any of them were slave-owners or slaves?

[emmie]

Albania is no different - some of its citizens are active in the sex/slave trade, an ugly business that should be severely dealt with.

[emmie]

i don't know about years ago, but it certainly goes on now, trafficked into Britain, and other parts of Europe from Albania, Serbia

[sandyRoe]

There was one brief appearance of a black in a position of power. He was a carpetbagger riding in a buggy who refused to help the gallant wounded Confederate soldiers as they hobbled along the road.
hardly a sympathetic role.

[emmie]

Jonas Wilkerson is the only carpetbagger i can remember, and he was white, he married his mistress the Slattery girl, that Mammy called white trash.

[sandyRoe]

Maybe the chap I was thinking of was Jonas's servant. He was in the buggy while wounded Confederate soldiers walked and he had a supercilious air about him.

[emmie]

he may have been a slave once, and could lord it over non freed slaves, its a while since i watched the film, i must have seen it a dozen times or more,

[sp1814]

Was 'Gone With The Wind' racist? From 2014 it's not so much racist (unlike 'Birth of a Nation', which is stunningly racist IMO), but it's quite reductive, and a bit revisionist.

Not sure what the ball organisers were thinking of, nor how they were going to sell it to black students.

Odd.

[nungate]

G W T W. was set immediately prior to the outbreak of the civil war in1861 ending 1865 when the Klan was founded in its first incarnation. Therefore the reference in the article that G W T W. "glamourises the dreams of a slave owner and member of the K K K" by one of the students commenting on the film, so that argument doesn't fly.
As for the book and the film, both were products of the time in which the creators lived, when racism was more or less commonplace, and while we may deplore that situation we cannot judge them by the mores of today.

[LazyGun]

The KKK are portrayed quite positively in the book; They, along with husband Frank raid a shanty town seeking retribution for the robbery attempt on Scarlett as she is travelling back from the mill. Scarletts husband, Frank, is shot dead during this raid.

The film and book were both products of their time, sure, but both were criticized even then for the simplistic and negative portrayal of black characters.

Quite why a Cambridge college thought that a ball based upon a GWTW theme would ever be a sensible thing to do in this day and age is beyond me; presumably they got fixated on the frocks and failed to think much beyond that.

One would have thought even a moments reflection would have highlighted just how bad an idea it was in todays multicultural society.

[ludwig]

// there may have been black Vikings, but it's hard to be sure //

Exactly. Why do we never see them in films? Lenny Henry wants about 50% - I think that's probably a bit too many, but a few here and there wouldn't go amiss.

I've got to be honest here, I've never read the book, and I've never been able to sit through the whole film. I find it about 3 hours too long.

Can I just check that I'm still ok to watch Tom and Jerry by the way? I love them, and there's a stereotypical black maid in there - probably based on the GWTW character. You only ever see her legs though.

[jno]

probably. but if you want to watch Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs you'll have to hunt it down on YouTube

[andy-hughes]

ludwig - "Can I just check that I'm still ok to watch Tom and Jerry by the way? I love them, and there's a stereotypical black maid in there - probably based on the GWTW character. You only ever see her legs though."

Apparently the cartoon makers always showed adults from a child's viewpoint because that would make sense to a child watching the cartoon.

I would not give up Tom & Jerry (Fred Quimby only - beware of modern pale imitations, and avoid any with 'dialogue'!) for anyone!

[ludwig]

Fred Quimby all the way andy. Are there any others? I refuse to recognise them.

[LazyGun]

I would not give up Tom & Jerry (Fred Quimby only - beware of modern pale imitations, and avoid any with 'dialogue'!) for anyone!"

Have to agree with this. The T&J cartoons from the Quimby era are head and shoulders above the others. Mind you I cannot recall the last time I saw a listing for a tom and jerry cartoon or a bugs bunny cartoon come to that on terrestrial TV.

[royfromaus]

Will Tom & Jerry eventually get banned too?

[royfromaus]

Ooops already been mentioned by Ludwig.
(must read the whole of the thread in future before posting)

[sandyRoe]

They could change the voice of the servant in the Tom+ Jerry cartoons. You never see anything of her except her stockinged legs.