Gone With The Wind Reaction

We watched the movie Gone with the Wind in class and I think it was a semi-accurate depiction of the civil war. The movie takes place in Georgia in 1861. It was accurate in the sense that the slaves were not treated very well, however the movie did not show how badly they were actually treated in real life. 

We watched the movie Gone with the Wind in class and I think it was a semi-accurate depiction of the civil war. The movie takes place in Georgia in 1861. It was accurate in the sense that the slaves were not treated very well, however the movie did not show how badly they were actually treated in real life. The movie follows Scarlett O’Hara who comes from a wealthy family and is the daughter of a plantation owner. In the movie she is in search of a husband and is in love with her friend's husband, who she tries to win over throughout the film. However there is another man she meets, Rhett Butler who she begins to fall for during the movie as well. While Scarlett is trying to find a husband the civil war is beginning to get more serious. The men are talking about going off to war and how they will have to compete with the North. Some think that the film is offensive because the slavery issue was kind of pushed aside in the movie and they do not focus on it as much. But I think that it is important to remember that the movie is from the perspective of the south and they did not think slavery was wrong or unjust. Another part of the movie that can be seen as problematic is how the slaves are portrayed. Throughout the film the slaves are portrayed as dumb and incapable of fending for themselves. It reinforced the stereotype that slaves cannot take care of themselves and need their owners to stay alive. The slave Prissy was very over exaggerated and can be seen as offensive. She was a little girl who had a very high pitched voice and was very dumb. She was incoherent at times and freaked out a lot. Some say that she is a caricature and is offensive.

Town Hall Reaction

At today's town hall meeting I heard a lot of compelling arguments from both anti-slavery abolitionists and pro-slavery slaveholders and politions. A lot of people on the anti-slavery side were activists, authors and leaders of the abolitionist movement and they had a lot of powerful arguments to share. On the other end were pro-slavery presidents, founding fathers and wealthy plantation owners. 

One of the activists we heard from was Harriet Beecher Stowe who is a famous author and activist who travels around the world with her books and speeches sharing her beliefs. She wrote the famous book Uncle Tom's Cabin which was a fictional story that showed the true horrors of slavery. Her main argument against slavery was that it is inhumane and that slaves should be treated as equals. This made me look at the issue of slavery in a different way because before I never really saw my slaves as human. 

A popular argument on the anti-slavery side was the bible. In the bible God sees every human as equal and that we should not “own” other humans. This is why a lot of religious activists believe that slavery is against God's word and what the bible stands for. There were also counter arguments of this on the pro-slavery side because as some of the pro-slavery people found there are plenty of bible quotes that are in support of slavery. So overall I think the religious argument isn't very effective because there are bible verses that can argue both sides of the slavery argument. 

A popular pro-slavery argument is that it is the base of the economy here in the south. A lot of politicians, and plantation owners have become rich off of slavery so of course they are in favor of it. A lot of people on the pro-slavery argument defended slavery because they think that the south needs it in order to keep the economy up.

After hearing all of the arguments I think the anti-slavery side had more compelling and convincing arguments. So I think that the anti-slavery side won the debate and we should abolish slavery in our country.