In the event that you should create a blog which is deeply important to you, make one post, and then abandon it for months, how would you follow that up?

No, wait, I have an idea for that.

Which of the following should I review first?

• The Godfather
• Lawrence of Arabia
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Apocalypse Now
• Chinatown

Considering it was in part my frustration with Gone With the Wind and inescapable defenses thereof that prompted this endeavor, it seems a fitting place to begin. Gone With the Wind is, of course, the wildly successful and lauded cinematic adaptation of the wildly successful and lauded novel of the same name. The story of the American Civil War and Reconstruction-era South, Gone With the Wind contains some of the most frequently referenced visual cues and quotes in cinematic history. It is also one of the most frequently cited films as an example of media’s problematic history of erasure and racism, among other issues. In his 1965 autobiography, Malcolm X recalls viewing Gone With the Wind as a child and wanting to “crawl under the rug” due to the feelings of shame and embarrassment the film evoked.

The portrayal of African-Americans in Gone With the Wind is limited to slave characters lacking in agency or major criticisms of slavery, either as characters or as a result of the storylines they represent. This narrative, in which slaves and slave-owners equally benefit from the system, is one that has been scrutinized and ultimately dismissed using a depth that I cannot hope to approach here. Claims that these simplistic portrayals are reflective of historical truths are thus inaccurate, and reflective only of cultural assumptions and internalized narratives.

A common defense of the film is the argument that the problematic elements are representative of a bygone era, understood to be less progressive than the enlightened era in which we currently exist, thereby making analysis “unfair” due to unequal societal norms and institutions. At the time of the film’s release, the NAACP protested what it saw as stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans and pressured the director to remove offensive scenes. These formal protests occurred alongside boycotts and the picketing of premieres.

Gone With the Wind, if you didn’t know, was listed at #4 in the American Film Institutes list of the 100 greatest American films in 1998, and featured prominently in many of AFI’s subsequent rankings, including 100 Quotes, 100 Passions, and a spot on AFI’s “10 Top 10”. In other words: in 1998, 59 years after it was originally released, above thousands of other films during in this newly enlightened age, Gone With the Wind was viewed to be one of the best films ever created. If we persist in considering it a great film by modern standards, it is absolutely fair and absolutely necessary to hold it subject in the same way any other piece of modern media is analyzed.

The way we choose to present and memorialize narratives, in fiction and in society, matters. By choosing to ignore the problems within narratives because of sentimental value, or cultural entrenchment, we choose to ignore very real impediments to progress.

Whether you stumbled here by accident or I have badgered you into telling me what you think, it would probably be polite at this juncture to give you some background:

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a film student, nor even an English major. This is a personal project dedicated to the airing of my grievances with classic cinema.

Disclaimer the First: I am a cisgendered, heterosexual, white woman living in the United States. I try to acknowledge and manage my privilege, but in the event that I fail, I will do my best to respond maturely.

If you rolled your eyes at any point in the previous paragraph, this is probably not the blog for you.

Disclaimer the Second: I do not believe there is any objective rubric for the evaluation of art, nor do I believe in the idea of good or bad taste.

If you were offended by the above paragraph, this is definitely not the blog for you. I’m sure you’ll be able to find any number of other ones that will be better suited, and I won’t be offended.

I will try to keep the obnoxious quoting to a minimum, but I make no promises about the level of profanity.