The varied representations of southern history and African Americans in the two films Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind

Southern Charm: The Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind as an idealized south

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"

the eight most famous words ever uttered on screen yet also eight of the most misunderstood. Long hailed as one of Hollywood's cinematic masterpieces, Gone with the Wind was based off of Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1937 novel of the same title. After it's release, Gone with the Wind the film won ten Academy awards and has earned over $1 billion in revenue to date

It's success and romanticized portrayal of Southern Plantation living hides the very fact that Gone with the Wind is a very racist film.

Two decades prior to the release of Gone with the Wind, American director D.W. Griffith released his own epic, cinematic masterpiece -- the Birth of a Nation. It wouldn't be inappropriate to call Griffith's film the precursor to Gone with the Wind as the Birth of a Nation was the highest grossing silent film of its era. But while Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara would be remembered fondly, the Stonemans and Camerons (families in Birth of a Nation) would spark controversy for the next century.

Both of the aforementioned films present two very different visions of the role of white southerners leading up to the civil war. In D.W. Griffith's representation, we see white supremacy develop out of necessity. The Ku Klux Klansman are presented as white knights, riding to save the glory of the south from its Yankee and black invaders. Africans are portrayed as violent, aggressive, dangerous; they treat city buildings like drinking halls; they throw trash in the streets; they rape; they pillage.

Griffith's Klansman fight with guns, with sticks, with stone, with whatever they have to defend their land from the wicked invaders -- blacks. Eventually the Klan overthrows a corrupt all-black militia and reuniting the far people south under the peace of Jesus Christ.

Gone with the Wind shows the southerners as victims of political change; proud royalty upholding the beliefs of their forefathers, caught in the whirlwind of political change. Considering the author of the original book, Margaret Mitchell, grew up in Georgia in the early 20th century, she no doubt felt that way, and to her credit, many southerners were. Men open doors for women, bowing as they pass; women wear elegant gowns and speak in hush tones, never missing a batt of the eyelash. Black slaves wait in the background for their master's beck and call, never showing fear of their master, never showing fear for their lives. The slaves almost seem happy in Gone with the Wind, completely without independent thought or impulse. What this idealized version misses -- and the Birth of a Nation ignores completely -- is that the true history of slavery in the south and racism in the early 20th century is a very dark one.

Even at the premier in Atlanta, Georgia, black actors who participated in Gone with the Wind were not allowed to attend because of the Jim Crow laws at the time. Clark Gable had originally planned on skipping the premier in protest but was convinced otherwise.

The Birth of a Nation is a bit more explicit in its message but it rings to the same tune -- southern whites are victims of the civil war, not perpetrators.

Neither is an accurate portrayal of historical events but rather a symbolic representation of feelings and emotions held by whites in the pre-world war two United States. Historical evidence proves that neither Griffith nor O'Selznick were accurate in their depiction of the civil war but they do capture the fear and xenophobia riddled throughout each decade. While Griffith took inspiration from the Clansmen, O'Selznick, a Jewish New Yorker, along with his mostly Jewish writing team, likely were not trying to rewrite history but instead speaking to their audience, understanding what they were looking for.

The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind speak to an audience who's way of life had been taken away by force. Though slavery is a horrendous commodity the southern United States' entire economy revolved around the buying, selling, and trading of human slaves. The civil war crushed the economies of the south and implanted a racist hatred that exists to this day. By 1915 and the release of the Birth of a Nation and even until 1939 and Gone with the Wind Jim Crow laws made it difficult to be black in the southern states. Griffith's film served as a rallying point for the Ku Klux Klan and other supremacist groups and suggested to the public at large that perhaps history happened a little differently -- which it didn't. This desire to rewrite the past continued through till the late 40s, hence the wide, gaping appeal of Gone with the Wind. A battle in the court of public opinion, if racist white's were able to paint their ancestors as heros and victims then it would excuse the discriminatory Jim Crow laws.