Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard. The epic film, set in the American South in and around the time of the American Civil War. It tells a story of the Civil War and its aftermath from a white Southern viewpoint. The film I will be comparing with my chosen film is Gone with the Wind, which is a 1939 film about a epic tale of a woman's life during one of the most tumultuous periods in America's history. However within this film, I will be explaining not how this romantic tale was an epic tale but of a Maid named Manny and the way she was treated both onscreen and off.
Throughout history there have been many changes where society had to adapt or changes is norms to fit into the new changes for example the equally rights to women, women's movement and the rights for women to vote which came about to the wave of feminist. However this type of change didn't occur everywhere i.e. in films as women were still portrayed as sex symbols etc. This new change that has changed society and across many lands and has altered the way people perceive this certain group of people is the change in black characters being represented as protagonist, heroes, saviours etc.
However before this change occurred black people were stereotyped as weak, evil, savages and slaves which comes back to the film Gone with the Wind. This film depicts the life of a women named Manny and how her role both on screen and off screen shocked the nation as her on screen representation wasn't as bad as her off screen as she was picked on, verbal abuse was directed at her and all this was from the director of the film. This connotes how even off screen representations can have an impact upon the film. Even though she was a maid and was treated bad within the film, she was still dignified and was an intelligent, neat and caring woman who won an Oscar for her performance even though she had said “I’d rather play a maid and make $700 a week, than be a maid for $7,” which showed that she didn't like the way she was treated off screen. Another film like this is The Birth of a Nation which was a silent film directed by D.W. Griffith and created a major controversy in the way the directed revived and portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as a positive thing. As well as the obvious racism in the film, the use of blackface where a white man is painted to play a black man's role indicates the racism of films both on screen and off.
In comparison to my contemporary film Snakes on a Plan, the representation and stereotypes of black characters back then is more obvious racism rather than now, as black people have been given their right and have been portrayed as active heroine and protagonist that many people can identify with whatever the colour.
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