Woman in Society

In a film, the way a certain character or a certain type of character is portrayed depends on the director, writer, or even the actor playing that character. However there are times when characters are portrayed a certain way because that is how society would general portray them. If you released a movie in the 1800s about a 19th century rich and powerful black man, the odds are the movie would not sell to well. Not because it is not a good movie, but because it doesn’t truly represent the times, or how black people were viewed in the 1800s. But if you released the same movie in 21st century, as a historical drama the movie would most likely sell better then it would in the 19th century.. This is because audiences would probably see the rich powerful black man, not as a threat but as a symbol. Someone who, against all odds, still manage to make it. It would be an inspirational story. A story although set in historical 1800s inspires the people of today. This is the way to make a great movie. Even if the movie is set in historical time periods, it should still mirror or affect today’s society.

The movie Gone With the Wind, a 1930’s film about a woman and her hardships during the civil war. And Cold Mountain, a 2003 film about a man on his journey back to his love, and a woman on a mental journey to find herself, through working a farm, during the Civil war. These two movies are very similar in some ways but then very different in others. Both of the movies for example have gender stereotypes that have been placed, but the journey that the two female protagonists, Scarlet O’Hara and Ada Monroe go through are very different from one another.

Gone with the Wind follows Scarlet O’Hara and her love for Rhett Butler. But their love is not as simple as that. Throughout the movie Scarlet claims that she truly loves Ashley, the man that her cousin marries. Scarlet proclaims her love to Ashley multiple times and gets rejected. Scarlet then precedes her advancements with two other men in which she marries. Not out of love however, but out of opportunity. The first man, Charles Hamilton, whom Scarlet married just to make Ashley jealous, died shortly after going off to war. Rhett and Scarlet then start to get close. All of the girls frown upon this because Scarlet’s former husband has just died and she is now galloping around with another man. Later, the war comes to Atlanta, and Scarlet is in danger, and naturally Rhett, her new lover boy comes in for her rescue, Rhett begs Scarlet to runaway with him to Mexico but she refuses. Scarlet instead wants to go back to her plantation Tara, on the journey there are many obstacles but once again Rhett comes through and saves the day. They make it back to Tara and Scarlet finds that her mother is dead and her father is virtually insane. This is the point when Scarlet starts making a turn around from immature selfish damsel in distress, to an independent woman, with the famous lines “As God as my witness I will never be hungry again”. Scarlet tries to fix up her plantation so that she can live off of it. At one point, a straggler tries to loot her, but Scarlet kills him and takes his lootings. Scarlet finds her self in a predicament with taxes and needs some help. She runs into a man, Frank Kennedy, who she marries for the tax money. On her way to a mill Scarlet is attacked by a mob of hobos but her slave big Ben saves her. Her husbands tries to find the mob and kill them but he gets killed himself. Once again Scarlet is a widow. This is when Scarlet and Rhett start to rekindle their lover’s flame. Rhett asks Scarlet to marry him and this time Scarlet accepts. They have a baby girl. Scarlet and Rhett have a falling out, and they separate because Scarlet is still in love with Ashley. It isn’t till Scarlet’s cousin, Mellie, Ashley’s wife, finally dies that Scarlet realizes she was never in love with Ashley at all, it was always Rhett whom she loved. She tries to tell him but he doesn’t change his mind, Scarlet begs him not to go, "where shall I go .... what shall I do?" But Rhett says, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”

Gone with the Wind, I believe, is a story that shows female behavior in society. Since this movie was released in 1939, it probably showed the ideas about woman in that time period. Scarlet was a very selfish and opportunity oriented girl. She did whatever it took to get what she wanted, i.e. marrying Frank. It also showed that woman are deceitful, because Scarlet never wanted Ashley at all, but she wanted what she couldn’t have, which just happened to be her cousin’s husband. Also I noticed that Scarlet seemed to need help in certain times in the movie, especially when the war came to Atlanta, or when she was attacked by hobos. And other times she was completely fine and self reliant, like when the straggler comes to loot her but she manages to kill him. I believe what this is saying