Re: [Marxism] Gone With the Wind

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 7/1/06, Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Out of morbid curiosity, I began watching this racist classic on the Turner
> Classic Movies channel. I haven't seen it in maybe 40 years. Now everybody
> knows about the pro-slavery aspect of the film. What also deserves some
> comment is the infantilization of women that I really find shocking after
> the feminist changes that have taken place in American society. Scarlett
> O'Hara is basically treated like an 11 year old, even though the character
> must be in her late teens or early 20s when the film begins. At one point,
> she is ordered to take a nap in the afternoon with a bunch of other belles.
> In a big room, all these women lie on mattresses side by side as a young
> male slave fans them. This is obviously an image that you associate with
> kindergarten children, not adults. There is something really obscene and
> vile and sick about this movie. If I get the chance, I might dig into its
> history this week. How in the hell does Hollywood make a movie like this in
> 1939 when the New Deal is in its ascendancy?

It would be interesting if Lars von Trier remade Gone with the Wind.
He could pick the elements that are already in the book and/or the
film, sharpen the characters' political differences, change the plot,
film it from slaves' and ex-slaves' points of view, and add the
voiceover narration by John Hurt.

Ashley Wilkes is a southern plantation master and member of the Ku
Klax Klan, attached to the Lost Cause.  Rhett Butler is a businessman
from a big city, who knows that the South would lose the war, is not
attached to the Lost Cause, would rather do business with Yankees than
fight them, but is not about to become a race traitor either.
Scarlett O'Hara is presented with two ruling-class political visions.
She is first attracted to Ashley's, and then she becomes disillusioned
with it, as Ashleys of the South restore white supremacy with
terrorism.  She embraces Rhett's as the "progressive" political
alternative to Ashley's, only to be disillusioned with it, too, as
Rhetts of the South decide to live with white restoration rather than
build a new South.  She moves back to Tara, alone, and tries to manage
it according to her "new South" principle, only to find her plantation
threatened to be taken over by a joint-stock company in which Ashley
and Rhett have major interests, for her "new South" plantation is
boycotted by Ashleys and Rhetts of the South.  Then, the film quotes
Scarlett's famous soliloquy, substituting Tara for Rhett: "I can't let
Tara go. I can't. There must be some way to keep it. Oh I can't think
about this now! I'll go crazy if I do! I'll think about it tomorrow.
But I must think about it. I must think about it. What is there to do?
What is there that matters?"  Scarlett's face dissolves into a montage
of scenes that show her new management style, in keeping with what it
takes to keep her plantation and make it prosper, which in turn
dissolves into a montage of modern plantations and sweatshops in
America and the rest of the world.

But von Trier has already made a film like that; it's called Manderlay.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>

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