Gone With the Wind: Problematic, Misunderstood, or Both?

April 8, 2024

The short answer is: both. But if you know me, you know I'm not going to stop at the short answer. So let's dig into it.

Despite being a controversial piece of cinema, the 1939 film Gone With the Wind is actually one of my favorite movies and has been for many years. But the way I view the movie seems to be quite different from the way many others view it. And I don't just mean in terms of negative or positive opinions. The very meaning of the movie and the messages behind it are something I think I just disagree with most people about. Since the film is currently having a very limited run on the big screen for its 85th anniversary, this seems like the perfect time to visit a topic that I've considered writing about for a long time.

There's no way for me to say this without sound elitist, so I'm just going to say it: I sometimes wonder how other people are able to watch movies and seem to miss the entire point. It's like we watch movies in completely different ways, with some people viewing it as only surface-level entertainment, and others seeing much deeper commentary within; or perhaps everyone just views things through their own lens and their own worldview. Another case in point: Star Wars.

I'll never understand how people can watch Star Wars and somehow completely miss the fact that the good-guys of the saga have always been "radical leftists" waging a fight against far-right fascists who are stripping people of their rights. Yet somehow, right-wingers in real life are able to do this -- and then complain about the more modern movies being too "woke," a.k.a. having too many women and people of color in them.

With Gone With the Wind, it isn't as obvious as that -- you do actually have to pay close attention, and since it seems a lot of people lack the ability to read between the lines, the movie is very misunderstood. The common belief is that the Confederacy are portrayed as the good guys of the story. But as someone who has seen the movie countless times and even read the novel on two or three occasions, I think it would be more accurate to say that there are no good guys in Gone With the Wind.

Unlike most stories, there also isn't a consistent antagonist throughout. There's no real ending to the story, no climactic conflict between the protagonist and their enemy, etc. The story follows 12 years of one woman's life, and during that time she encounters a few people that she views as enemies, but they come and go, never playing a very large role in the story. The Civil War starts at the beginning of those 12 years, but only lasts for about 4, so two-thirds of the story is about post-war life. The story is told more as a memoir rather than following the typical stages of a story arc. But the real twist is that it's a memoir from the point of view of somebody who is not, in fact, the good guy.

That being said, the film is controversial for a good reason. While I think we should still be able to enjoy the movie for the many reasons I'll discuss here, I don't think its problematic parts should be glossed over either, but rather used to start a conversation.

In the summer of 2020, the movie was removed from Turner Classic Movies for a short time in the turmoil following George Floyd's murder. It was returned to airplay pretty quickly, the only difference being that a new video introduction had been filmed bringing awareness to the issues.

This wasn't the first time it had been removed from airplay for similar reasons, and of course, every time something like this has happened, there has been an outcry from conservatives, claiming that "people are just too sensitive now" and, you know, all those other phrases they parrot off whenever there's any kind of effort to make a minority group safer in any way.

This particular time, this decision was made by TCM because, apparently, during all the outrage over BLM protests, many people turned to Gone With the Wind as some kind of proof that the Confederacy wasn't actually a bad thing, or something. And that is a huge problem. You'll never catch me being upset by any kind of disclaimer added to the movie or by people rightfully pointing out that situations like this occur. As much as I personally enjoy the movie, we have to acknowledge that there are people out there who are going to defend it not because of its importance to cinematic history, but simply because of their own racism. But, in my opinion, those people are way off base to begin with, because while there are certainly things in the movie that are racially insensitive, if you're actually paying attention, the movie doesn't necessarily glorify the Confederacy in the way some people assume it does.

The way Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind was very nuanced. Margaret, a Georgian herself, had many complexities to her life. She was born in the year 1900 -- only 35 years after the American Civil War ended. Her grandfather was a soldier who fought for the Confederacy, and her great-aunts would tell her Civil War stories as a child. I can only imagine the amount of propaganda she heard growing up and how steeped her own family was in revisionist history. And yes, she probably believed at least part of it, which is probably why there isn't much focus in her novel on how mistreated the slaves were, as society and likely her own family put so much effort into making it seem like slaves were happy to serve their masters.

At the same time, from everything I know about her life, I get the idea that Margaret also held a significant amount of guilt over her family history, and did what she could at the time (being limited by 1930's society) to pay reparations in her own way. She was considered politically progressive for her time, and actually ostracized by her community for her "extreme" beliefs. Although slavery was no longer legal, Georgia was deeply segregated during her lifetime, something that she disagreed with. And although she did it anonymously at the time, we now know that much of the money she made from Gone With the Wind was donated toward Black causes, such as building the first hospital for African-Americans in segregated Georgia, and personally paying the medical school costs for several Black men to become doctors. Despite earning loads of money from GWTW, she chose to continue living in her small apartment and putting her money toward these causes instead, apparently paying the tuition for these medical students for the rest of her life.

Like its author, Gone With the Wind is also very complex. While there are parts that seem tone-deaf, outright racist, or in support of revisionist history, there is also evidence that points to parts of the story actually being a criticism of the Confederacy.

Because it's written from the perspective of its characters, the Confederacy often seems to be glorified, but we have to remember those opinions and words of glorification are the characters' and not the author's. Throughout the novel especially, there are many opinions stated by Scarlett O'Hara that would not be well-received if any real-life person said them, but since they are the character's opinions they are able to be written without too much criticism (I'll go into more detail later when I discuss the character of Scarlett herself).

The story itself is not actually about slavery or the Civil War. If it was, there definitely would have been more of a responsibility to talk about the horrors of slavery more than the author did. But in this case, it's merely the background setting, and while the author did attempt to get it as historically accurate as possible when it came to the war timeline and certain attitudes held by the characters, it was never the focus of the story.

The actual focus is simply Scarlett O'Hara's life. It takes place over the course of 12 years and focuses on her relationships with family, friends and lovers, her hardships, financial situation, joy, sadness, resilience, and overall circumstances.

What I think really sets GWTW apart from other stories is that the main character is... not really a good person. Despite being told from her perspective, she herself is actually kind of the villain of the story in some ways. And I don't just mean the fact that she supported the Confederacy (for which her support was actually very superficial). I'm talking about the fact that she's a selfish, cold, manipulative, and sometimes downright hateful person. Scarlett's character obviously wasn't written to say "Look, people who owned slaves were still good people" -- because she wasn't, even when it came to other things.

She did have some admirable qualities, such as being impressively feminist for the time period she lived in (or even the time period she was written in) -- although even that gets called into question when you realize how selfish she was. Was she actually a feminist, or just a woman who thought that she deserved all the things she wanted without actually taking other women into consideration? Considering her opinions of her friend and sister-in-law Melanie, the local brothel madame Belle Watling, etc., I'm thinking that's the case. She would stop at nothing to get what she wanted out of life, but was never very considerate of anybody else, including the other women around her.

She was a strong-willed, resilient, independent (as much as the 1800's would allow her to be), and highly determined woman. But she was also mean, vindictive, and willing to betray others to get what she wanted. She repeatedly tried to get a married man to cheat or run away with her; and not just any man, but the husband of her closest friend. She took advantage of a boy who was infatuated with her, and married him just because of his proximity to someone else. She stole her own sister's fiancé by telling him lies about her sister, and then married him herself just so he would pay her property taxes. When both of these men died, she barely even cared. She hated her closest friend and was horrible to all of her husbands. She lied, cheated, and manipulated her way through life.

In the book, she even hated her own children -- at least 2/3 of them. If you haven't read the book, then you probably only know about Bonnie, the daughter she had with Rhett. And even though Rhett called her a bad mother in the movie, you don't really get to see much of that; maybe she's a little uninvolved, preferring to let her servants and the child's father spend more time with her, but she otherwise seemed to at least love Bonnie.

It was a little different in the book, however. She actually had three children, one from each of her husbands. But Bonnie was the only one she actually liked, most likely because Rhett was the only husband she actually liked. She didn't care for her other two children at all, including another daughter named Ella. And when Bonnie tragically died, Scarlett wondered why it couldn't have been Ella instead, whom she viewed as ugly and useless.

So despite being the main character, it's obvious that Scarlett was never written to be an example of a good person. I find it really strange that so many people don't realize this.

Another thing that has always baffled me is when people refer to it as a love story. In fact, it's even been called "one of the greatest love stories of all time." Not only am I baffled, but also a little concerned, because if you think the events of Gone With the Wind make a good love story, that might not say much for the relationships in your own life. There is nothing healthy about the relationship between Scarlett and Rhett. But just as with the war and slavery aspect of the story, the love story was never meant to be the focus of the story. It's one of the major plotlines because the story follows Scarlett's life, and naturally relationships are going to be a big part of that. But unlike certain other famous novels that feature toxic love stories (Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey come to mind), I don't think the romance in Gone With the Wind was ever meant to be held up as a positive example; if that had been the case, they would have ended up together in the end. The fact that the movie ended with Rhett leaving his wife tells me that their toxic relationship was never meant to be viewed as anything other than toxic.

The love/hate relationship between them over the course of 12 years makes for good drama and entertainment, but that's where the positivity ends. She lied to him in order to use him for his money and gifts, and married him immediately after her last husband died. He abandoned her in the middle of her journey home, leaving her to care for a sick woman who had almost died giving birth, the woman's newborn, and a horse who soon died from exhaustion. He spent a lot of time with the local prostitutes, while she was dreaming of another man. Their marriage was sprinkled with threats of violence, manipulation, and potentially even an act of marital rape.

The last one is debatable only because Scarlett is shown to be in a good mood and happy to see him the next morning, which implies that she might have consented at some point before the actual act took place, as it would be out-of-character for Scarlett to be happy after somebody had wronged her to that extent. We don't know for certain what happened between these two scenes, but there was a definite lack of consent when he angrily carried her up the stairs to the bedroom. Do I think that the author intended this sexual assault to be "romantic?" Absolutely not. Despite the fact that Scarlett seemed to enjoy it in the long-run, I've never seen that act as something that was supposed to be viewed as acceptable -- even Rhett himself said it wasn't acceptable when he came to her to apologize the next morning and ask for a divorce.

There were a few sweet moments between these two that showed they actually would have been a good couple if they both weren't so stubborn... such as when Scarlett has her PTSD-induced nightmares during their honeymoon and Rhett is there to comfort her, telling her that once she gets used to being safe and warm, the nightmares will stop -- and he's going to make sure that she is safe. This moment shows how much Rhett actually did love her and want to care for her, and in a moment of vulnerability, she actually allows it. But this is one of very few times she was actually receptive to his love, more often insisting she didn't love him back. Because they were both so stubborn, they got locked in a years-long battle of constantly trying to one-up each other (instigated by Scarlett, but definitely perpetuated by Rhett as well) instead of just allowing themselves to be happy.

This is not a good love story, and I don't think it was ever intended to be a good love story. It kind of blows my mind that people view it that way. Rhett leaving at the end of the movie was the best thing he could have done, even if Scarlett suddenly insisted that she'd loved him all along. It doesn't make for a happy ending, but it's the best one their toxic marriage could have had.

So if it isn't a love story, and it isn't a Civil War story, what is Gone With the Wind actually supposed to be about?

Well, as the title would imply, to me it's always been a story about loss -- with a healthy side of karma as well.

I know that many people admire Scarlett's determination and iron will, and that is certainly one of the positive qualities she has; but as I have already stated, the character was generally not a very good person. And throughout the novel/film -- whether it's because of the war, her own selfishness, or just circumstances of life -- she loses almost everything she cares about.

First she loses her money and grandeur -- and in trying to get it back, becomes willing to do almost anything, including betraying her sister, marrying a man she doesn't even like, and abusing convicts for labor (a replacement for abusing slaves for labor, as pointed out in the dialogue). Throughout the rest of the story, she then loses her mother, her father, her child, her best friend, and her marriage. The latter two she didn't even realize she cared about until she was losing them. She hated Melanie for years until she was dying, and didn't care about Rhett until she finally realized that Ashley would never love her.

And in the end, she is still determined. Determined to return to Tara, even though her sisters probably don't want her there -- at least the one whose fiancé she stole. Determined to get Rhett to reconcile with her, despite the fact that he doesn't "give a damn." She's the type of person who never gives up, and while that can be seen as a positive attribute, the overall tone of the story makes me think that no matter how much she tries, she is going to keep losing the things she cares about until she decides to become a better person.

That's why, in my opinion, the story ends where it does. Although Scarlett ends the film on an optimistic note even in spite of the sadness she feels, there's no actual resolution. Everyone wants to know what happens next, to the point that a different author decided to write a 900-page sequel at some point (which happened to be the most boring book I've ever read, by the way). But Margaret Mitchell never wanted anyone to know, or even to know herself. She repeatedly stated that the story ends there and she had no idea what would have happened after.

The implication of the ending, as far as I'm concerned, is that there will never truly be an ending until Scarlett either dies or becomes a better person. It would just be a never-ending battle of Scarlett trying to pursue her selfish interests, but continuing to fail because karma would keep knocking her down until she began treating other people better.

And honestly, it's satisfying to watch someone as selfish as Scarlett lose everything, to watch her slowly get what she deserves for being so awful to everyone. Most awful people in real life never receive this kind of karma. I almost view GWTW as a fantasy for anyone who wants to see a selfish, uncaring, manipulative person get what's coming to them.

And when it comes to the subject of loss, it isn't just Scarlett. Obviously, the Confederacy loses the war, but to be honest, no one else fares that well by the end of the story, either. The last hour of the movie in particular is just tragedy after tragedy, leaving no one untouched.

Just like our differing opinions of Scarlett and her romance with Rhett, the loss of the war is another facet of the movie that seems to be viewed differently depending on one's perspective. Some say that the movie looks at the days of the Confederacy with nostalgia, as if lamenting the fact that they lost and romanticizing the days when slavery was still allowed.

The way I see it, though, the Confederates were portrayed as losers throughout the entire film, even before the war began. From the very beginning, they come across as overly-confident fools who don't realize their own incompetence. A big indicator of this is the scene of all the men talking at the afternoon barbecue at Twelve Oaks. The war hasn't started yet (though it does later the same day), and the men are discussing the idea of the coming fighting.

Rhett and Ashley seem to be the only ones in the room with any sense at all, with Ashley saying that he will fight for his state if he has to, but that "Most of the miseries of the world were caused by war... and when the wars were over, no one ever knew what they were about."

Rhett's opinion that the south is bound to lose the war because they're ill-equipped to fight ("All we've got is cotton and slaves and arrogance") is an unpopular one that almost gets him into a fight of his own as one of the offended "patriots" (actually Scarlett's soon-to-be fiancé) is dumb enough to challenge him on it.

All the other men are full of the arrogance Rhett speaks of, saying things like "One southerner can lick 20 yankees" and "We'll finish them in one battle!"

A few years later, when the south officially surrenders, Scarlett's sister asks, "Why did we ever fight?" While some still act like their cause was just, others realized as soon as the war was lost that they'd never stood a chance and it was foolish of them to fight in the first place.

To me, these scenes don't give a very positive opinion of the south, even if the characters, who were southerners themselves, held those positive opinions. The "romanticization" of the pre-war south is shown through the characters' eyes, while simultaneously, the view of those same characters from outside of their eyes makes them look like fools.

One line by Scarlett's father about the war stands out, too. While modern-day Confederacy apologists argue that the Civil War was about "states' rights" and not slavery, the movie wasn't denying that slavery was the major reason for the war. When Mr. O'Hara says, "It's time we make them understand we keep our slaves with or without their approval," it clearly acknowledges the fact that it was always about slavery.

Among these characters, who thought that fighting for the right to own other human beings was a just cause, it's not surprising that none of them are actually very worthy of being admired or emulated. Aside from Scarlett, no one else in the movie -- at least among the white characters -- is a perfect character, either.

The closest would be Melanie, who is portrayed as an incredibly kind, loving, and gentle person -- but who is still brainwashed enough to support the Confederacy. She's sweet and understanding toward everybody, even Belle Watling, the brothel madam who's shunned by every other "respectable" person in town. She is by far the closest thing to an example of a slave-owner being a good person, but through the main character's eyes, she's weak, "mealy-mouthed," and unable to stand up for herself, as well as a boring goody two-shoes, and Scarlett loathes her. Melanie is not only brainwashed in matters of social issues and politics (i.e. believing that the south's "cause" of keeping slaves is morally correct because she's grown up being told so), but highly naive in personal matters too, always believing that Scarlett is a good person despite obvious signs that she isn't, constantly coming to her defense against the insults of others, and refusing to believe the (very true) gossip about her coveting Melanie's husband. So although she's portrayed as kind, she still isn't the brightest character, or one who's able to think for herself. Her support for the Confederacy is less because she truly believes it's right, and more because she doesn't have the guts to question what society has told her is proper.

Every character shows a mixture of positive traits and negative ones. Scarlett's long-term infatuation, Ashley, is another example. Ashley is known and respected among society as an honorable man, but he emotionally cheated on his wife for 12 years as well as physically cheating on her by kissing Scarlett more than once -- in fact, he knew he had feelings for Scarlett even before marrying Melanie. Scarlett views him as brave and masculine, but in reality he has no backbone whatsoever. He's brave enough to fight in a war, but off of the battlefield, he's completely spineless, and even he himself knows it and points it out many times.

Rhett is one of the most likable characters, a very doting father, and the only white character who never owned any slaves despite having millions of dollars, describing the Confederacy as "the cause of living in the past." He's still a self-proclaimed scoundrel, a selfish war profiteer, stubborn to a fault, and let's not forget the night he was driven by jealousy into committing an act of marital rape.

The only truly likable character is Mammy, Scarlett's enslaved childhood caregiver. Described by Rhett as "a smart old soul, and one of the few people I know whose respect I'd like to have," she is caring despite her terrible circumstances, intelligent despite being uneducated, a wise and nurturing motherly presence, and brave enough to be brutally honest even to her masters, standing up to Scarlett when she does something she views as improper. You can criticize the character for remaining loyal to her white family even after the war frees her, but we have to remember that she's an old woman by that point and this life is the only thing she's ever known. Mammy, like all slaves, deserved better; but she was too old by the time she was freed to begin a new life. In fact, the movie implies this by the simple fact that the rest of the O'Haras' slaves disappear when the final days of the war give them an opportunity to escape. Only three of them stay with Scarlett in the years to come: Mammy and Pork, who are both old, and Prissy, who is kind of subtly implied to be Mammy's daughter in the movie (though in the book she was the daughter of a different enslaved woman, and Pork's step-daughter).

In my opinion, Gone With the Wind is one of the most complex stories in (relatively) modern media history. Not just because of its length, character depth, or intricacy of the plot, although those are part of it. It's also a great example of duality. It shows that characters can have some positive traits and some very negative ones; that not every character is simply going to be a bad guy or good guy. That an author can write about what they're familiar with in a way that seems uncritical at first glance, like the history of Margaret Mitchell's family and hometown, while also harboring guilt over that history and sneakily portraying their own ancestors as fools. That the opinions expressed by characters within the story, and a negative portrayal of the characters as they'll be viewed by readers, can exist side-by-side on a page. And that a story can have some problematic portrayals and still include some progressive social commentary.

For instance, the fact that some of the male characters join the KKK after the war, which they believe is an "unfortunate necessity" to keep them safe, is an example of problematic content. However, I've never viewed this as an endorsement of the KKK by the author, only by the characters. Additionally, the character of Prissy and the extremely uncomfortable scene in which Scarlett slaps her are difficult to watch. While Scarlett slapped many people throughout the film, it's the power imbalance of a white slave-owner hitting their slave that makes this one the hardest to endure.

At the same time, while it isn't super obvious in the way Star Wars is, you don't have to look too deep to see the anti-war and anti-slavery messages within its dialogue.

One of the only times Ashley ever stands up to anyone in the movie is when Scarlett begins using starved and abused convicts for labor at their shared lumber business, as he claims that he refuses to profit from others' misfortune. When Scarlett fires back with "You weren't so particular about owning slaves," he insists that it was different because his family didn't mistreat them. He then says that he would have freed them all when his father died, if the war hadn't already freed them. Between this and Rhett's description of slavery as "living in the past" -- coupled with Scarlett's elderly father making it clear he wanted to keep his slaves -- it's almost as if the author was trying to convey a message of some of the younger characters being ready to move past their slave-owning history while older people tried to cling to it. While we are thankfully a few generations past legal slavery now, the concept of older people clinging to the past while their children fight for progress (but still make excuses for their parents and grandparents because they're from another time) is not unheard of to modern Americans either.

Another hilariously ironic line in the script is when the southern gentlemen are bidding on dances with the ladies of their choice, and Mrs. Merriweather, in her most derogatory tone of voice, asks Mrs. Meade how she can permit her husband to "conduct this... this slave auction?" There is hardly a better example of hypocrisy than that, and there's no way that wasn't done on purpose.

I believe that Margaret Mitchell knew the difference between writing about something and endorsing it. But since it was the early to mid-1930's when she was writing the novel, she also knew that her progressive (for the time) beliefs couldn't be openly expressed, so she included them in more subtle and nuanced ways, incorporating them into her work to the best of her ability.

Again, I could be wrong, and maybe this is just me seeing things through my own worldview, combined with a bit of wishful thinking; but I just have trouble reconciling everything I know about Mitchell's life, such as all the things she did to try to help the advancement of Black people, with somebody who held deeply racist views herself.

We should also acknowledge that, due to the atmosphere of the era in which the movie was released, the Black actors such as Hattie McDaniel (Mammy) were not allowed to attend the premiere of the movie in Atlanta, which caused some people, including the leading man of the movie, Clark Gable, to protest. Gable and McDaniel were close friends, and he said that if she wasn't able to attend, then neither would he -- he would boycott the premiere. Hattie talked him out of it and insisted he go without her. Supposedly, Clark also threatened the director that he would quit working on the movie if the set was not desegregated, after one of the Black extras on the film approached him and showed him that he and the other Black actors were not allowed to use the same bathrooms as their white co-stars. This rule was changed after Clark Gable said he would walk out otherwise.

Hattie McDaniel, the daughter of former slaves herself, later became the first African-American to win an Oscar -- or even be nominated -- for her role as Mammy, but even as a nominee, she wasn't allowed to sit with the others, and was forced to sit at a segregated table against the wall.

These facts add another level of duality to the film, as it simultaneously gave opportunities to Black actors that they'd never had before and portrayed some of the Black characters in a less than favorable way.

So in conclusion, my long answer to the question "Is Gone With the Wind problematic or misunderstood?" is the same as my short answer: a very firm both. It is one of the longest and most epic fictional stories of all time, and the movie is cinematically impressive considering the time period it was made in. Such a legendary piece of film history shouldn't be, and probably never will be, forgotten -- as proven by the fact that it is currently celebrating its 85th anniversary with a brief return to the big screen. But as rational people, we can consume our media with a grain of salt. If the movie were remade today, I would certainly hope that some particular things would be handled differently; but I still think we can appreciate it as a work of art without expecting a movie from that time period to live up to today's standards -- or failing to acknowledge its flaws.

Regardless, it's a conversation starter that makes for some very interesting discourse.

tags: gone with the wind, movies, media, racial issues