Why is Gone with the Wind (the book) so repugnantly racist?

[Dida]

The r-word is thrown around rather too much these days, but that doesn't mean Margaret Mitchell wasn't a vicious little racist. It's one thing for a book's characters to refer to negroes as "darkies", but we expect better from the author herself. I couldn't face the Reconstruction half of the novel myself, but I understand our sympathies are to lie with the "quality" negroes who yearn for the good ole days when they was looked after by the benevolent planters of Scarlett's social circle. If that's true, I don't think it's good enough to insist breezily that the author was "of her time". There were Americans in the 1860s who managed to condemn the institution of slavery as a disgraceful violation of human dignity, but the message didn't get through to Margaret Mitchell in 1930s Georgia. Sure there were lots of people who felt the same way about the "darkies" among her contemporaries, but we have a name for those people: racists. And just because racists wrote books doesn't mean we have to read them, let alone excuse them.

Critics of Mark Twain call his books racist, but Tom and Huck are probably accurate portrayals of kids growing up in that time and place (at least regarding their thoughts on slaves). To have Tom Sawyer make a comment that sounds racist to us is one thing, but in this case the author shows her own racism. A slave who came back south after visiting Boston with a Union officer complains about being expected to sit at the dinner table with the white people, who obviously didn't know that the black people were inferior and should eat in the kitchen. This was probably her view when she wrote it, but if you could go back in time I doubt if you'd have found any slaves who didn't want their freedom, or who didn't want to be treated as equals by the white people of the time.

What would the world think of a romantic novel about dashing German SS officers and a beautiful blonde "maidchen" cavorting charmingly before concentration camp slaves? All the while talking about those slaves as if they were simply "children" who didn't know any better than to be wearing striped pajamas, carrying out humiliating tasks for their "masters" and existing pleasantly and contentedly in their cute little "barracks"? Critics would be up in arms. Such a novel would fall into disrepute and no one would claim it to be a great work of literature, even if it was well-written. So why do we stand for GWTW - this travesty of lies, lies, lies?

This is a rare example where the movie is clearly superior to the book (another is Julie & Julia). The movie makers must have spent lots of effort to cleanse the movie of the outrageous racist trash (even by the standard of the time the book was written) that filled the book.

 

[warpus]

Got any other examples of her racism? I didn't read the book.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The antebellum south was racist. Most of the south was racist until the 1970s or later. MM was writing a novel, why shouldn't she depict the south the way it was? If it offends you, don't read it.

 

[Dida]

The antebellum south was racist. Most of the south was racist until the 1970s or later. MM was writing a novel, why shouldn't she depict the south the way it was? If it offends you, don't read it.

If you have so much as half a brain you will know there is a difference between depicting racist characters and the author himself being racist.

 

[Lillefix]

I haven't read the book, but is it necessarily racist that she depicts the people who want to continue to work at the plantation in a better light, than the ones who want to leave?

How does she depict those two different groups of "negroes"?

 

[Babbler]

The antebellum south was racist. Most of the south was racist until the 1970s or later. MM was writing a novel, why shouldn't she depict the south the way it was? If it offends you, don't read it.

Moreover, she was a Southern and her view are probably typical of people of that place and time. And if it really bothers you, don't read it; I don't believe it really considered a great work of art by scholars in any case.

 

[emzie]

Just to be clear, the tone of the book is unmistakably racist. It's not like Huck Finn. The author's feelings towards blacks is laced in her descriptions not her character's words.

On the other hand, it was written by a woman from Georgia during the 1930s. I'm not sure it's unexpected.

Moreover, she was a Southern and her view are probably typical of people of that place and time. And if it really bothers you, don't read it; I don't believe it really considered a great work of art by scholars in any case.

The book has its flaws, the last quarter or so of it completely loses focus. It's still a fantastic example of historical fiction. Her depiction of what happens to Georgia in Sherman's march might as well not have the "fiction" label.

 

[Birdjaguar]

If you have so much as half a brain you will know there is a difference between depicting racist characters and the author himself being racist.

So what if MM was a racist? Many people who in RL are/were not nice, write great books or do good things. Holding up her racism 70 years after the fact is a bit silly.

 

[Bill3000]

Why on earth do you think a book glorifying the south can be anything but repugnantly racist?

 

[warpus]

Wait, the American south isn't racist anymore?

 

[Cutlass]

Wait, the American south isn't racist anymore?

I wouldn't say it's entirely free of it. But there is a certain extent to which the South had it beaten out of them, where the North did not. So the North was less racist than the South to begin with. But while racism in much of the South declined, in the North is stayed more or less constant.

 

[bhsup]

Why on earth do you think a book glorifying the south can be anything but repugnantly racist?

So if these fellows wrote a book glorifying the South, it would be racist...

 

[emzie]

So if these fellows wrote a book glorifying the South, it would be racist...

It would take an actual explanation, but yes, it would be.

 

[bathsheba666]

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

 

[Karalysia]

So if these fellows wrote a book glorifying the South, it would be racist...

Uncle Tom.

 

[BasketCase]

Pish posh. You want racist?? Try "Birth of a Nation". That was the previous century's "Avatar": epic in scale compared to anything previous, pioneered a lot of new camera techniques, and was extremely offensive to a small number of people nobody gave a crap about.

 

[emzie]

Pish posh. You want racist?? Try "Birth of a Nation". That was the previous century's "Avatar": epic in scale compared to anything previous, pioneered a lot of new camera techniques, and was extremely offensive to a small number of people nobody gave a crap about.

And it's still an artistic masterpiece, the film anyway. Like Triumph of the Will the message is abhorrent but still an amazing film.

 

[BasketCase]

Never read/seen any of them, and have no plans to.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Why? Because the author had some serious issues regarding race. I still like the book, though. However, Prissy sucks. Other main black characters are given some, however limited, dignity by the text, but Prissy exists solely to annoy the reader.

I don't actually think it's that weird to have some black domestic servants genuinely attached to their masters - some Russian domestic serfs certainly did so, and Russian serfs were de-facto slaves (though the racial part didn't come in here, of course). However, there is a fair amount of genuine racist episodes (like the slave from Boston episode in the OP, or everything involving Prissy).

Oh, and there's some racism in Huck Finn - Jim sometimes is a bit too stupid even for an uneducated slave, not to mention his complete subservience when Tom starts to use him as a toy for his Sword and Cloak ploys.

 

[Dida]

Another reason I found Gone with the Wind repugnant is that the main characters were repulsive and disgusting human beings, including the main character Scarlett O'Hara. I can't understand how she can possibly be looked upon as a romantic icon; <snip> like it. (She's better in the movie).
She marries her first husband out of spite for the husband's sister. He dies, and <snip>about him anyway. In fact, I'm gonna <snip> its worth". She had a child from the first marriage whom she actively despised. She refused to hold the child because Moderator Action: If you cannot post without swearing then stop posting! "he will make wrinkled her skirt", and sometimes forgot that the child was hers. What the hell! As a parent myself, I must say I have very low regard for people who treat their child with such utter contempt.
While she was supposedly raising her child and mourning the death of her husband, she was bored out of her mind. Why, because all the handsome lads had left for the war and there was no one left in the County to flirt with. She worked at the hospital caring for sick soldiers, but were disheartened because she could not use her charm those soldiers that were cute because of her widowhood. She went home crying at night, thinking "if only I can have Ashley, if only I can have some beaux". Wow. Unbelievable.
Eventually she stole her sister's boyfriend, and even rubs in her sister's face that she is now basically f*cking her man and has his hand in marriage. He dies, and once again, she doesn't give a rap. Her third husband she drives insane because she pines and even stares creepily at a picture of another man at a number of moments, but he sticks by her regardless in hopes her love will one day be directed at him.