Indulging Cultural Contraband
Atlanta, GA
July 6, 2020
This weekend, while we still could, we committed a little heresy.
David was with a friend at Lake Burton in the (north) Georgia Mountains, so Rita, Alexander, and I had the place to ourselves.
With our minor away, we could stretch our boundaries, and push the envelope. But how? In what illicit activity could we engage now that our younger son was beyond range of our impending corruption?
We thought for a while till, finally, we hit upon something. We knew it would be risky, but also that we may at some point be unable to do it again.
We locked the door, pulled the shades, and dimmed the lights. With two fingers, I split the blinds, and peered intently into the darkness. I looked first left, and then right. No one was there. The coast was clear. We were safe. For now.
I then returned to the family room, where Rita and Alexander were already waiting. I gave the go-ahead, and they anxiously nodded. The tension rose. We were actually going to do this. Were we sure? Last chance. To hell with it. We’d come this far. No turning back. Like Butch and Sundance, we had to jump.
With that, we poured ourselves a drink, braced ourselves on the couch…and watched Gone with the Wind.
Alexander had never seen the movie. Rita and I hadn’t watched it in years. But when I last did, it was considered among the great films in cinema history…one that everyone should see. Now, in our contemporary rabbit hole, I felt as if we were 1950s teenagers, smuggling in a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
But sexual taboos have been replaced by racial ones. Before we could hear the famed MGM lion and hear the famous Overture, we had to endure the obligatory obeisance to modern sensibilities.
In a printed advisory, we were solemnly lectured (as if we didn’t know) that our 1930s ancestors held racial views differing from our own refined sensibilities. These views were “wrong then, and they are wrong now.” If only today’s moral beacons had been there to guide our poor benighted predecessors. But at least they are here for us.
Like a parent sending a child away for the first time, the message advised us to proceed cautiously, and to understand we’d encounter mores and manners that’d be unacceptable in our enlightened epoch. As I read this cinematic equivalent of a cigarette warning, I recalled recently watching the movie Reds, an empathetic portrayal of Soviet sympathizers, without a similar disclaimer of imminent objectionable material.
But our cultural chaperones are generous. In this instance, they were willing to risk our discretion. The film would be presented as originally shown. Warily and reluctantly…and perhaps only as long as Olivia de Havilland remains alive…they let us continue. We would be allowed to watch.
We are in Atlanta…where Margaret Mitchell wrote the book, where her house (for the time being) stands, and where much of the epic story is set. Till recently, the novel was almost required reading in this city, and highly recommended almost everywhere else.
As it should be. It is terrific literature, and paints an indelible picture of a particular time. And, of course,it’s not always an accurate one. But it’s not always an inaccurate one either. It’s like an impressionistic image rather than a detailed rendering, more Plato’s Cave than Newton’s Law.
Like Doctor Zhivago or A Tale of Two Cities, it is fiction against a backdrop of actual events. Like all great art, it allows varying interpretations from its audience, if only our intellectual gatekeepers will allow them to be rendered.
Gone with the Wind is a work of art, a story set in a specific time and told from a certain perspective. Kind of like a Ken Burns documentary, or the daily news…but without the pretense. Most don’t believe every word of Shakespeare, but still think we should read Henry V. Beethoven wrote the Eroica Symphony to honor Napoleon, but people don’t mind listening to that. Even Shostakovich still gets airtime.
To prohibit reading anachronistic literature as it was originally written, as has been done with Huckleberry Finn and other great works, is to inhibit contextual understanding and an appreciation of fine craftsmanship. It severs us from our ancestors, and limits our ability to confront difficult questions. Several arose as we watched Saturday night.
I am confident asserting that Alexander is more historically literate than most of his peers. Still, he was curious about a few things the film introduced.
On one of the occasions Scarlett was widowed, he asked about their protocol for a woman to re-enter society…and ultimately re-marry…after her husband had died. Seeing first Scarlett’s mother, and later her daughter, laid out after death, we briefly discussed the concept of a wake.
At another point, Alexander wondered why a Confederate band played “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”. Wasn’t that a Union song? Again, we paused, and talked about why, like Lorena in that war or Lili Marlene in World War II, both sides adopted it. Then, after two hours, when we reached Intermission, he had another reasonable question: “I thought that was the end. How long is this?”
And, naturally, we talked about the depiction of slaves. Why, if the war was over, were Mammy and Pork still at Tara? Why didn’t they leave? Where were the other former slaves?
The other slaves did leave, which is why Scarlett and her sisters were picking their own meager cotton after returning to the plantation. We’d expect slaves to flee their oppression, and that’s what typically occurred throughout the South during the war, and in Union states (Lincoln hadn’t freed any there) after the 13th Amendment.
But, for various motives, a minority of free slaves chose to remain at their antebellum homes. We’re not always sure why. Some didn’t have wherewithal to leave. Others may not have had the desire, possibly for security, financial, or familial reasons.
It’s hard to imagine any slave not being happy to be free, and anyone would think all of them were. But it’s easy to overlook how difficult the transition could be. Such adjustments challenged freed slaves in ancient Israel, Greece, and Rome, where slave and master were often of the same race. It was even more daunting in 19th century America. And more complicated. In history, things are seldom black or white.
The film doesn’t delve directly into all this. That wasn’t its point. But that doesn’t mean the questions and concerns raised about it now (and then) are invalid. They are among many reasons such works, even (or especially) if controversial, are beneficial. Like Caravaggio’s Death of a Virgin, or Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, they may court scandal in their time, but compel acclimation, if not agreement, forever after.
We’ve decided to revisit other classic movies we can watch together…primarily for entertainment, but also for insights. There’s a long list, and plenty to choose from.
But we won’t think about that now. We’ll think about that tomorrow.
JD
