Commentary: Truth blown away in sugarcoated 'Gone With the Wind'

sacbee ^ | 11-13-04

[Verginius Rufus]

Actually, there were some Whig slaveholders before the War. I believe Alcorn State University in Mississippi is named for one such. But there probably weren't any Republican slaveholders, given the rationale behind the formation of the party.

Someone is finally attacking Gone With the Wind for its portrayal of happy slaves and noble Klansmen? Hard to believe.

[Petronski]

..."GWTW" presents a picture of the pre-Civil War South in which slavery is a noble institution and slaves are content with their status.

Furthermore, it puts forth an image of Reconstruction as one in which freed blacks, the occupying Union army, Southern "scalawags" and Northern "carpetbaggers" inflict great harm on the defeated South, which is saved - along with the honor of Southern womanhood - by the bravery of KKK-like vigilantes.

This is perfectly reasonable, as the novel (though in the third person) is written from the perspective of antebellum southerners, who no doubt believed these things.

[goldfinch]

Slave owners, as a general rule, believed they behaved in a novelty manner.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. Spell check zapped me. Somehow it managed to change the work 'benevolent' (which I had misspelled) to 'novelty'...and it posted when I went to change it back. I hate it when that happens. So when reading the above post, replace 'novelty' with 'benevolent'.

[DBeers]

Yes, I know this quite well...

This 'modernistic' revisionist & social engineering mindset is also behind factions such as the NOW radicals and thier crusade to save women of the world from marital oppresion, monagamy, heterosexuality & child bearing to name a few...

The village idiots have congregated and formed 'elite' morally corrupt institutions & vile villages...

[FreedomCalls]

But there probably weren't any Republican slaveholders

Lincoln got zero popular votes in the South (excluding that part of Virginia that became West Virginia), not electoral votes mind you -- but popular votes. That should tell you something.

Given the reaction of the blue staters to Bush's election and even talk of secession, can you imagine how they would have reacted if Bush were elected with no popular votes at all from a large contiguous portion of the US? I can at least understand Southerners hostility to the Lincoln administration after he was elected.

[x]

Before history texts were revised by victimology revisionists, they did portray slavery as less awful than we think of it today.

But those texts you praise were also written by "revisionists" who strove to make slavery look like less of a problem than it was taken to be by the Civil War generation. It shouldn't be assumed that early 20th century Southern historians gave a true, "unrevised" view of slavery or that distortion or bias only came later.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think you meant Eumaeus (or Eumaios), the faithful slave in the Odyssey. Euthyphro (or Euthyphron) was an Athenian for whom one of Plato's dialogues is named.

[rellimpank]

--and it is my cynical opinion, after seeing several Civil War battlefields and memorials a year ago, that the politically correct types won't be satisfied until we posit that the war was won by the slaves with their hammers and sickles , rather than blue coated soldiers with musket and cannon---

[razorback-bert]

Alcorn State University was founded on the site originally occupied by Oakland College, a school for whites established by the Presbyterian Church.
Oakland College closed its doors at the beginning of the Civil War so that its students could answer the call to arms. Upon failing to reopen at the end of the war, the property was sold to the state of Mississippi and renamed Alcorn University in honor of James L. Alcorn in 1871, then governor of the state of Mississippi.

James Lusk Alcorn (November 4, 1816 - December 19, 1894) was a prominent political figure in Mississippi during the 19th century. He served in the state house of representatives and senate during the 1840's and 1850's. During the American Civil War, he rose to the rank of general in the Confederate Army by war's end. He later served as Republican Governor from 1870-1871, resigned to become U.S. Senator (1871-1877).

[annyokie]

No kidding. I never read GWTW for it's historical perspective. I read it for the character sketches.

[TruBluKentuckian]

I think everybody in this thread is missing the point of this subject coming up right now...

It's a slap at the "southern red states". Expect more of the same as the Dems try to rationalize their assumed superiority in all things cultural.

[wagglebee]

Maybe the Sacramento Bee would like to take a look at Disney's contribution to the anti-bellum South.

[Veto!]

It shouldn't be assumed that early 20th century Southern historians gave a true, "unrevised" view of slavery or that distortion or bias only came later.

Maybe the revisions have been revised again and again. But this is a particularly thorny issue for me, since my family -- and others -- came to the New world in 1621 as indentured servants, before the slaves arrived and did the worst of the heavy lifting. A fact that has been totally revised out of history.

[Cicero]

Yes, Eumaeus. Much obliged. I need to get out for a walk.

[Madstrider]

This guy is imminently more qualified to describe the pre-war South than Margaret Mithchell whose parents actually lived in it.

Exactly. Who is the more trusted authority on life in the antebellum South: a native Southerner or some editorial writer in California?

Note, on the other hand, that liberals tell us that we cannot pass judgment on 21st century Islamic jihadists (since we don't understand their culture).

[Born to Conserve]

Scarlet O'Hara could have been my great grandmother. She was a young lady during the war, the daughter of a plantation owner. They owned slaves who were loyal and happy.

We have pictures of my great aunts visiting down South in the A's or 30's (the family move north after THE war). The pictures are of my old aunties with their old slaves (very, very old). They all look so happy to be together again!

Many slave owners were noble. They treated their people better than the carpetbaggers from the north did after the war. They treated them better than most companies treat their employees.

If the collective opinion is that ownership of people is bad, then that is fine and I'll happily go with the crowd. But, it is simply not true that ALL slavery, and EVERYTHING about slavery was bad. If you have a contract to work for someone, than is your employer a slave owner?

There absolutely were terrible slave owners before the war, and there have been terrible employers and landlords ever since. And, there were good slave owners with loyal and happy 'people'.

Just my humble observations . . .

[jocon307]

I always think these arguments are so silly. Gone with the Wind is not a poltical novel, the movie is not a documentary.

There are good, strong black characters and weak and venal white characters, and vice versa. Scarlett is a "bitch heroine" in the mode of Becky Sharpe, THAT is a modern aspect and I'd think feminists everywhere would applaud Scarlett as a strong, if often ruthless woman. But it really is just a story for diversion, I'd be surprised if Mrs. Mitchel had more than that in mind. If she did, I'm afraid her work disappoints.

It is an historical romance, no more. I think it is a good novel and a great movie, but it is not a work of scholarship or history. Sincerely, only a moron would think that it is.

[groanup]

"Note, on the other hand, that liberals tell us that we cannot pass judgment on 21st century Islamic jihadists (since we don't understand their culture)."

Give a liberal a pen and you'll soon have a written lie. It is despicable the way Southerners have been portrayed as ignorant, slave-whipping toads. D'nesh D'souza (sp) in his book "The End of Racism" came to the conclusion that slaves in the pre-war South had a higher standard of living than most of the rest of the world at the time.

The notion that Southerners were the slavery bad guys is another that has been fed to us. Give me a break! No one was worse than the Northern traders and shippers.

And finally, when tribal kings rounded up and captured black Africans for sale to the merchant ships who is to say that if black Africans had been more powerful and advanced at the time that they would not have been rounding up white Europeans for bondage? Of course they would.

[elizabetty]

But "OLD YELLER" is still true, right?

[afraidfortherepublic]

For example, take any major modern movie and compare it to our current culture

OMG, no! It's all too painful! How I would HATE for my great grandchildren to judge this era from its movies.