The Mammy and Aunt Jemima Cover-Up

Gone with the Wind is a film that gives a distorted picture of slavery that is conveyed to a great extent in the depiction of Scarlett's Mammy, played by Hattie McDaniel.  Janell Hobson writes about the contrast between this fantasized Mammy and the real-life situation of being sexually subjugated by white men in Ms. Magazine's blog, "The Fantasy of Mammy, the Truth of Patsey" (March 5, 2014).

Gone With the Wind

Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1936) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 and was produced as a film by Victor Fleming in 1939.  The movie opens with a musical overture, and "Margaret Mitchell's story of the Old South."  Some of the musical backdrop, such as "Dixie" may seem dated -- not to say racist.

Trailers for the 1939 film by Victor Fleming:

Links:

On-line text of the novel (Gutenberg.net.au)

Frank Nugent's review of the film in the New York Times (December 20, 1939).

Margaret Mitchell House & Museum (Atlanta, Georgia).

Photographs of the Civil War from the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.).