Posted on 11/13/2004 11:12:00 AM PST by LouAvul
In the reissued version of GWTW shown on cable recently, there is a scene where Scarlett and her little retinue have returned to the plantation to try to survive, leading one cow behind the wagon. The black man says "Miz Scarlett, who's gonna milk that cow? We's house . . . servants!" I can't recall from years ago but would almost bet the word "servants" was redubbed from "n word"; at least that was pretty common usage at one time and probably even proudly used by some slaves to distinguish their status from that of common field laborers.
That is my favorite classic movie. I guess I'm not PC.
The PV crowd will even take away Sleeping Beauty..necrophilia.
Where will the madness end?
PV=PC
Don't forget the role the Arab slave-traders played in this deal. Arab slavers purchased the slaves from the African tribes (usually taken by force in tribal wars) and held them in horrid conditions and then re-sold them to the white slave traders who subsequently found a ready market for them among the British, Spanish, Dutch, & Chinese -- and lastly the North Americans.
None survived sale to the Chinese because all were rendered eunochs before thewere allowed to enter China. So there were no slave descendents born in China. Slavery continued in South America long after sales of newly arrived slaves were eliminated from North America.
The poster who mentioned the life of early Irish settlers is absolutely correct. Life amiongst the coal mines of Pennsylvania and the slate quarries of Vermont,with its company stores, lifelong servitude to the mine owners, and the risk of your family being thrown out of the company house into the cold if you lost your life in an accident, was not a lot different from slavery in the South. Poor treatment of workers by the mine owners begat the early labor union movements and unrest -- the Molly McGuires, for instance. Poor conditions in the mines also provided manpower for the Union Army because a regular paycheck from the quartermaster was better than the mine conditions at the time.
Probably the greatest misrepresentation that GWTW has perpetrated over the years is the idea that all of the whites lived lives of luxury off the backs of the blacks. That is certainly true in some respects, but there were many, many other families who worked very hard to keep their farms and plantations productive and their workers well fed and healthy.
Tour the plantations of the South sometime and look at the records. This was not an easy life for anybody, and a lot of them went broke trying it. Plantation owners were supporting huge households in good times and in bad.
Look at Thomas Jefferson's records, or George Washington's, for example. Most of their slaves had been inherited and could not be freed because there was a huge debt that went along with the inheritance.
It is like a farmer borrowing money for crop seed today. He has to repay the bank, whether the crop comes in, or not. George and Tom had to repay the debts incurred by their wealthy fathers-in-law when they originally purchased the slaves, whether they wanted to, or not; and they couldn't rid themselves of the collateral, either. After all, when you purchase a car -- you have to repay the loan, even if you wreck the car and render it undrivable.
No flames, please.
I have grown up in NYC and lived in the South for quite a while. I sense a smarminess of the industrialized North regarding the concept of blacks and slavery. Those here in the Old South seem to have a working understanding of the nearness of Reconstruction and an abiding ability to understand how to live in this modern society with the descendants of slaves. To me, it is an accomodating relationship here as opposed to an aggressive, contriving meddling relationship in the blue states.
Thjis is all my opinion and observance as I see it. I'm sure you have yours.
When I saw that skit the first time I laughed so hard I cried.
To me GWTW is more like the biggest, overhyped bore in the history of entertainment than a racist movie. Mad Magazine did a great satire of it. In Mad the war was just a one word (Boom!) minor interruption between Gable and Leigh chewing on one another.
My grandmother knew Margaret Mitchell. She went to school with her and traveled to Europe with her as a young woman. I thought she told me that Mitchell wrote much of her book while bedridden. My grandmother always maintained until the day she died that she found it hard to believe little unpretentious Margaret could have written such a sweeping epic.
I've noticed the same thing.
This whining coming from a group (liberals) that champions revisionist history.
Pot...kettle...black
Oh for goodness sake. They are just all nuts!
Who cares what a liberal can or cannot enjoy? I'm with the guy to whom you posted. I'm not going to sit there and watch Mystic River, knowing I would be filled with loathing every time Sean Penn hit the screen. How can I enjoy an experience like that? Besides, the Hollywood writers have to cram their propaganda in their scripts every time now, so why subject myself to that? If an actor is not too loathsome off-screen--and if the script isn't filled with leftist propaganda--I can go and watch a movie. But, that's becoming increasingly rare.
As for me, I've never cared what someone's politics are when seeing a movie, but it's not a big deal to me if someone else decided to pass on Mystic River or whatnot because of the stars (Robbins, Penn). I wouldn't pass up movies for that reason, but hey, to each their own.
"I saw it in the window and just had to have it."
The critic is evidently disappointed that "Gone With The Wind" was a work of fiction, not a documentary.
I wonder how this guy would view a Busby Berkeley retrospective...
I understood his point, and everything but my first sentence dealt with what he was saying. But, again, I couldn't care less if liberals feel the same way about Churchill as I do Marx. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they do. Their loss.
The sequel that was done several years ago was really
pretty well done. It sort of brought things full circle.
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