Top 10 reasons to hate Gone with the Wind
#10 – Bonnie Blue
Literally everything about Bonnie Blue is designed to make me hate her. She’s (nick)named for the confederate flag. She’s a spoilt, irritating toddler, and then you grow to like her, and THEN SHE DIES. Horribly, heartbreakingly, and it is the worst. Rhett Butler refusing to bury his dead baby? THE WORST. Too sad to even watch. Plus, she’s obnoxious, and then she dies, and you can’t call dead children obnoxious. Spoiling all our fun, as usual. Damn you, Bonnie Blue.
#9 – The Rapes
Who doesn’t love a bit of marital rape? I don’t, that’s who. Nor does Scarlett O’Hara. Unfortunately, the film portrays this as being in the same league as the cheating-flirting-affairing they’ve been up to before. It’s also sort of jarring to realise what a dick the romantic hero really is. I mean, it’s Rhett! He’s wild and crazy! He isn’t received! Society hates him….and maybe that is for a reason. Damn you, Rhett.
#8 – The “I Hope You Have A Miscarriage” Scene
In case you were leaning towards forgiving Rhett for that whole rape thing, I’m directing your attention to that bit where he hopes his wife has a miscarriage, and then she falls down the stairs. Come on. Is that an accident? Is it? IS IT? (Maybe it’s an accident. But it’s still not nice.)
#7 – The Ku Klux Klan
If you believe Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan is basically the Neighbourhood Watch for massive racists. My experience, however (small Midlands village), is that the Neighbourhood Watch are already massive racists, so imagine the Neighbourhood Watch, only even more racist, mental, and armed with guns. Also, everyone you love is in it, and you have to watch them be super racist, all the time, and then your husband gets shot by the enemies of the Klan and you can’t even complain because he was literally even more racist than you are.
#6 – The Tiny, Tiny Waists
Man alive, I am jealous of that tiny waist, and I hate films that make me jealous. I don’t even want a sixteen-inch waist. None of my clothes would fit. BUT STILL.
#5 – The Slave Auction
It’s in fairly questionable taste to hold a “slave auction” of rich white women in order to raise money to keep black people literally enslaved, even leaving aside for a minute the whole “buying women” element. Did nobody at the time think it was slightly weird? Did nobody reading the novel think it was slightly weird? WHY IS THIS AN OKAY THING, PEOPLE WHO MAKE MOVIES? (Hint: it is not. Even if it makes a place for that sexy sexism of Rhett’s. It’s still almost certainly not okay.)
#4 – Prissy
I can’t really handle Prissy in any capacity, and nor should you if you’ve got any sense. Butterfly McQueen, who played her, said it was incredibly demeaning. It looks incredibly demeaning. It is incredibly demeaning. She’s a kid, stolen from her mother, to be Scarlett’s handmaiden in the middle of a warzone, and then Scarlett knocks her upside the head for not knowing how to be a midwife. Cut the kid some slack, Scarlett, you massive racist. Everything about Prissy in this movie makes me part sad, part furious.
#3 – Melly And Scarlett: The Neverending Story
Does anything make you want to die more than four hours of Melanie being sickening, and Scarlett being a mad bitch? Apparently, lots of teenagers bloody love their awful, awful, uneven friendship, which is why if you search for Gone with the Wind clips on Youtube, a lot of them are Melly/Scarlett love videos, set to Taylor Swift songs, featuring lots of lingering shots of Melly’s deathbed. (Don’t whinge at me about spoilers. Everybody dies.)
#2 – The Melodrama
Sometimes, even I just wish people would stop screeching. Just for a while. I get that there’s a war on. I get that. But- look- you know- you’re not actually the injured parties here. You’re actually the rebels. You’re actually the ones who started this by breaking the law. Please stop screeching.
#1 – Feeling Nice About Evil People
The worst thing about Gone with the Wind? The worst thing about Gone with the Wind is how it makes you feel sympathetic for something- let’s not be coy about this- that was a horrific, violent injustice. Lots of people died. Everybody in the film believes firmly in an incredibly racist, nasty cause. It’s like someone making a cheery, glorious epic about the Höss family’s life at Auschwitz. It’s like that epic being touted as the Great German Film. Which is quite a jarring thing to think, but also, probably, true.
You complain about a racist, anti feminist movie which was written to depict racist, anti feminist times. Hard to comprehend how such a book could have been written without detailing the exact things you hate. Had it not had such points, it would have been boring and, in this day and age, gone straight to video to be forgotten. Yes, lets make movies about horrific historical periods, without actually including the details. I do disagree with your post, but if anyone should be reading the daily mail, I suggest it should be you.
Cass: I haven’t read the book, so I’ll have to leave that out. In terms of the movie, I have to agree with the critic, Ella, here. I think that this is not an effort to demonize these stereotypes. If it were, we’d see a different reaction to the rape than one of, “Gee, that was great! I’m so happy now that I’ve been raped!”
#1 no the characters’re not evil they’re being NORMAL human beings. everybody has dark sides. the thing is they still have enough good qualities that readers can forget their flaws and learn to love them.
#2 melodrama? MELODRAMA? even if i agree with the “You’re actually the ones who started this by breaking the law” part, the “Please stop screeching” part is unacceptable, and since your reason’s so fallacious i just can’t even explain to you how stupid it is
#3 yes scarlett is a mad bitch. but even when she was a mad bitch and treated melly like dirt she still managed to saved melly so many fucking times. melly OWED scarlett
#4 what the fuck if you read the book you’d understand it was a horrifying situation, and prissy’s lie could lead to the melly’s death
there’re still 6 reasons yet i don’t have time to explain how unreasonable they are. guess i’ll just have to live with the fact that you hate a film because i depicts REAL things and doesn’t fabricate unpleasant facts; and also because the characters’re OBNOXIOUS, not the perfect paragon that you, my darling are
Thank goodness people called out this shit post. When I clicked the link, I expected a better writeup than this and it was this? I’m almost done with the book and your rants don’t really hold any sense. The book talks about an era that we disagree with. That’s how it is. The book isn’t glorifying it. It is a commentary on how things were back then. If you choose to hate it, then ookkkaayyy.