The most controversial aspect of Gone With the
Wind is the film’s depiction of race relations. Though
freed from the novel’s positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan, Gone
With the Wind’s depiction of slavery remains decidedly
simplistic. Adopting historian U. B. Phillip’s “plantation school”
view of the institution, the film shows slaves as well-treated,
blindly cheerful “darkies” loyal to their benevolent masters. Slaves
are portrayed as normal employees, are rewarded with presents like
the master’s pocket watch if they’ve been appropriately loyal, and
are allowed to scold the young mistress of the house as if they
were a part of the family. Big Sam leaves Tara only when ordered
and with extreme reluctance and later saves Scarlett at serious
risk to his own life.
Although they were rarely acknowledged and there was no
talk of pay after their emancipation, the former slaves show no
interest in leaving Scarlett. The slaves who choose to seek their
freedom are looked down on, either portrayed as unscrupulous or
as gullible pawns of the political parties. Though this attitude
is less sensationalistic than D. W. Griffith’s far more brutal caricatures
of slaves in Birth of a Nation, Gone With
the Wind’s refusal to acknowledge any of the complex racial
issues of either the Reconstruction Era or the 1930s
only supports the stereotypes presented in Griffith’s film.
More damaging than Gone With the Wind’s
simplistic view of slavery, however, is the film’s depiction of
all African Americans as stupid and childlike. Mammy manages to
escape the film with her dignity largely intact, but Pork, the only
named male house slave, is forced to appear in scene after scene
with a wide-eyed, slightly glazed expression on his face. When faced
with work duties beyond those he has always performed, he immediately
becomes overwhelmed and panics. Big Sam’s grammar is chopped down
to an extremely simplistic level, far below even that of the equally
uneducated Mammy. The worst example of this negative portrayal is
the young house slave Prissy. Perhaps intended as comic relief,
Prissy is stupid, squeamish, a liar, and becomes hysterical over
the smallest things. She is a caricature of a woman, a living holdover
from the slaveholder’s old claim that African Americans needed to
be slaves because they weren’t able to function on their own. Malcolm
X notes in his biography the deep shame he felt as a child when
he saw Gone With the Wind, specifically citing
Butterfly McQueen’s performance as Prissy. The National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People tried to arrange a boycott
of the film by black audiences and, to a lesser extent, black actors.
