Talk:Gone with the Wind (film)

Rape section
I think the last of paragraph of the marital rape section is deeply, deeply inappropriate for the article. Whilst the source is reliable, Haskell's assertion that "women are mostly uncritical of the scene" is not based in evidence - but on an anecdotal justification that uses rape fantasies as its only basis. The justification's argument relies on the principle that we (women) have the same attitude to rape fantasies in real life as we MIGHT do privately. This is a blatant violation of WP: NPOV as far as I'm concerned. 92.0.35.8 (talk) 04:21, 3 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I think Haskell's insight probably goes a lot deeper than anecdotal evidence, even if she does not use empirical statistical techniques. I don't think she intends to give the scene a fee pass, she's simply pointing out that it plays out like a rape fantasy. I think her opinion is valid so I have tweaked the wording to try and prevent it over-reaching. If you have any further suggestions on her how to frame her point-of-view then I am happy to consider them. Betty Logan (talk) 06:19, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh okay, thanks very much :)
 * I've suddenly become very very tired. So I will look at the paragraph plus source when I wake up and give you feedback if necessary. 92.0.35.8 (talk) 18:36, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 18 July 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the pages to the proposed titles at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 05:33, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

– per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. 112.204.221.155 (talk) 04:08, 18 July 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 04:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Gone with the Wind (film) → Gone with the Wind
 * Gone with the Wind → Gone with the Wind (disambiguation)


 * Oppose – no clear case for why this must by primarytopic, given the many other uses of the term. Dicklyon (talk) 05:19, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:PRIMARYUSAGE. The dab page is averaging 116 views per day, which is high, while the film's article gets more than 5 times the views of the novel's article (the other 3 are negligible).|Gone_with_the_Wind_(film)|Gone_with_the_Wind_(novel)|Gone_with_the_Wind_(musical)|Gone_with_the_Wind_(album)|Gone_with_the_Wind_(song) A move would put the majority of those 116 daily readers where they want to be, while a hatnote to the novel will be no more difficult than currently for readers who want that article. Station1 (talk) 05:39, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps your hundred and sixteen people should have the opportunity to understand and gain a respect for the efficiency and organization of Wikipedia by navigating through a disambiguation page technicalrestrictions01 10:33, 27 July 2022 (UTC) Blocked sock.
 * Oppose - both the book and film are especially strong primary contenders, and this move will just lead to avoidable internal wikilink mistakes. -- Netoholic @ 07:23, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * this film article is more likely WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, rather than a book. According to the page analysis which had lower views. 112.204.221.155 (talk) 07:40, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If we cared only about views, we could automate RM. We have many cases where a popular film page contrasts with the slightly less popular, but long-term significant, novel that inspired the film. For these cases, it is far better to disambiguate both, so that incorrect wikilinks are minimized and the topics kept clear. There is literally no benefit to readers to make this move - clearly, high page views point to the fact that readers are easily finding this page (mostly via incoming search engine results which work far better if the page title is disambiguated). -- Netoholic @ 10:12, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that search engine results are basically unaffected by the titles we give articles. Google understands that the film is what most people are searching for, so this article is the first result for "gone with the wind" searches, despite our adding "film" to our title. That is why most people do in fact get directly to the articles they want. These types of title changes affect mostly those readers who search directly on WP. Those numbers are usually minimal, so these types of RMs are usually relatively unimportant. However, in a case like this with a popular topic, those numbers are higher than usual, and the majority of the ~116 daily readers who land on "Gone with the Wind" would in fact benefit by being where they want to be. It's true that incorrect wikilinks would be minimized, but that is a benefit to editors more than readers, since there's no evidence of any significant number of mistakes and most wikilinks are rarely used anyway; certainly a bad link would be used far fewer than 116 times a day. Station1 (talk) 17:14, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Even the minor miscapitalization "Gone with the wind" gets 26 hits a day - around a quarter of those 116 to the Gone with the Wind disambiguation page. There's no evidence that this is a problem - could be intentional views of the DAB page, could be incoming hits from certain search engine keywords, anything really... statistical noise. But any bad internal wikilinks are in fact a real problem for readers, and are damned hard to stay on top of from an editor perspective. -- Netoholic @ 06:01, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above, the book's notability is significant, even if the pageview numbers favour the film. 162 etc. (talk) 14:43, 18 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:PRIMARYUSAGE I agree with @Station1 's logic about the number of views for this article outweighing that of the book, although I don't think changing the title will transfer the novel page hits completely - considering how popular and acclaimed the book used to be by white people. I agree with @162 etc. that the book's long-term notability is significant, and it still is popular among white people - just less so than it used to be - but the film has been more popular by them for bare long, as evidenced by Station's data. And, from my perspective the long-term significance of the novel doesn't overshadow the higher pagehits of the film - especially considering the book was published only three years before the film came out - so it only has a few years more significance in comparison. So I support the move Stephanie921 (talk) 18:32, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose The second criterion of WP:PRIMARYUSAGE states that "A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term." I don't think we can definitively say that is the case for the film. While its true that the film article gets more hits, film articles get more hits in general. People generally consume more films than books. For example, Star Wars (film) gets more page views than Hamlet, but I don't think we'd conclude that the film has more long-term significance than Shakespeare's play. The book was a Pulitzer prize winning novel and one of the most biggest selling books of the 20th century. I don't think we can conclusively say the book's long-term significance has been eclipsed by the film. Betty Logan (talk) 21:37, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * And if people watch more films than read books - leading to higher film pagehits - doesn't that mean that the film version of Gone With The Wind has more long-term significance than the book regardless of the book having an enormous amount too? This is why I feel the move should happen, cos from my perspective the book being written first is irrelevant as it only had a headstart of three years.Stephanie921 (talk) 22:08, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand your point but I disagree with your Star Wars/Hamlet example and how you've applied it here. Hamlet and Star Wars - in my view - have the same level of influence and reverence. However, Hamlet has more long-term significance than Star Wars because it was made 378-376 years beforehand. Whereas, the book version of Gone With The Wind was published only 3 years before the film was released. And, just like the book was a Pulitzer Prize winning one - the film won eight Oscars - which at that time was a record. Furthermore, it is still the highest-grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation. Stephanie921 (talk) 22:00, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would say the long-term significance of the book and the film are at a comparable level—I am not making the case that the book should be considered the primary topic. You can probably argue the case one way or the other, but I don't think it's possible to argue either have "substantially greater enduring notability and educational value" than the other. My Hamlet example was simply to illustrate that page views are a poor metric for determining long-term significance. Page views are worth considering if you are discussing two films, or two books, because you then have a level playing field so to speak, but in this case the film article gets more page views because it is a film article, rather than the film itself having more long-term significance. A good example of this is Harry Potter: the film articles consistently get 2–3x as many page views than the books. Personally I think the base name page would probably be better served as WP:BROADCONCEPT article, but that's another discussion entirely. Betty Logan (talk) 00:35, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Betty Logan. The book was a cultural prize-winning phenomenon when it was first published, and the film built on that publicity. Frankly I don't give a damn why editors would support this, but the book and the film both have co-long-term significance. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:14, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Didn't this video used to have a gun in it? Stephanie921 (talk) 03:12, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think they took out the whole war. At least Atlanta survived in the senior's version. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:45, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * [Yoinks by collar] Come on, you've been warned! Stephanie921 (talk) 10:06, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Lean support – Gone with the Wind is near the very top of the list of most culturally significant films in history; really seems like the primary topic to me, though obviously this isn't as clear-cut as The Godfather. &mdash;Will(B) 14:50, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Historical Portrayal
The historical portrayal section says the movie "promotes ... the myth of the black rapist" - and the source says the film has "strong hints" of that stereotype. Could someone please remind me which part of the movie the authors (Catherine and Johnk Silk) are referring to? Stephanie921 (talk) 20:22, 21 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I think the scene they are probably referencing is the scene where Scarlett rides through the shanty town, although one of the attackers is actually white. Later on Ashley, Frank and Rhett ride out with their Klan buddies to defend Scarlett's honor. Like most adaptations it depends what you read into the scene really. Betty Logan (talk) 03:00, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The Ku Klux Klan raid is depicted in the novel, but the film never depicted the Klan. See the following article on the topic:


 * "On reflection, though, Selznick knew that he could go too far in his faithfulness to Mitchell's text. "I, for one, have no desire to produce any anti-Negro film," he wrote in an exhaustive, exhausting memorandum to the screenwriter. "In our picture I think we have to be awfully careful that the Negroes come out decidedly on the right side of the ledger, which I do not think should be difficult." The screenplay needed only a deletion here, an elision there, starting, he told Howard, with references to the Ku Klux Klan. "A group of men can go out to 'get' the perpetrators of an attempted rape without having long white sheets over them and without having their membership in a society as a motive," Selznick wrote." Dimadick (talk) 21:22, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * They are not explicitly depicted, in that we don't see Clark Gable in a white hood string up a black man. But they do belong a "political club" and Frank gets shot. It's clearly not a debating society. Many of the original audience will have read the novel, and will have been able to join up the dots. Selznick could have cut the scene altogether and had Franked bumped off some other way, but he shows the "before" and "after" bits of the attack and raid. This is typical Selznick: only deviate from the source material if it would harm the commercial interests of the picture, and just hint at events (a trick he also deployed in the marital rape scene). So while the KKK may not be visually depicted they are referenced. It's true that its ultimately left to the interpretation of the viewer—and perhaps one that is less obvious to the modern viewer in an age where we don't have segregation and miscegenation is no longer illegal—but it is an interpretation that many scholars hold. Betty Logan (talk) 04:15, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * you are correct. a little fox is a sledgehammer and should be treated as such. trying to be sneaky and subliminal, to satisfy the director, does not negate history. also, the article, with sources, claims that not all slaves were brutalized. that thought is a myth. the definition of slavery is brutality. this movie received a lot of flattery and its makers handed themselves a lot of awards, that they stand by, today. the fact is, that is a scary thought, in 2023. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Rape scene
Saying Rhett intends to "Have sex with" Scarlett in the plot is inaccurate, and should be changed to rape. Stephanie921 (talk) 02:21, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No.198.161.4.52 (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Why not? Stephanie921 (talk) 20:12, 28 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Because he does not actually say his intention is to rape her. He insists on his conjugal rights. The audience does not see the encounter itself. This has already been discussed in some depth at Talk:Gone with the Wind (film)/Archive 2. As you can see from that discussion I have some sympathy for your point of view, but he emphatically does not say he will rape her, and the rape itself takes place offscreen, which introduces ambiguity. Betty Logan (talk) 02:07, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * "Insists on his conjugal rights" may have been how people put it in those days, but nowadays people would call it marital rape. PatGallacher (talk) 23:21, 29 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I generally agree with @User:PatGallacher, although ofc women wouldn't have used the phrase 'insists on his conjugal rights' in those days. And @User:Betty Logan I think he does say he'll rape her. She says she wants him to leave her alone, he grabs her against his will and manipulates her (saying "It's not that easy Scarlett") before saying "you've always turned me down while you chased after Ashley Wilkes, while you dreamed of Ashley Wilkes. Well this is one night you're not turning me down!"before carrying her up the stairs in her arms. He clearly states that he think he's entitled to her, and that she should pay for "chas[ing] after Ashley". He says he's not going to listen to her even if she doesn't want to be romantic with him and carries her upstairs using a traditionally romantic position. The next morning she is euphoric - and not just in a good mood unlike the prior night. I don't think that's ambiguous Stephanie921 (talk) 11:19, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * You are welcome to your interpretation, but without actually seeing the encounter play out then it is precisely that: an interpretation. Regardless of whether he "rapes" her or not, there are several problems in describing his intentions as "rape": the concept of marital rape is a modern day definition, and not one understood by 1939 audiences and certainly not by the characters at the time the film is set, and since the encounter is not seen then it is ambiguous anyway. The plot summary accurately relays what we actually see and hear, without imposing our own—essentially revisionist interpretation—on the sequence of events. The article discusses the interpretation of the scene in detail later on and does not shy away from the fact that its now often perceived as "marital rape". This issue has been discussed at length previously and an appropriate compromise was reached. Betty Logan (talk) 12:51, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * i agree with you, Betty. i am sorry if i risk, a little, but it must be pointed out, that hollywood was then, and is now, run by men. and those in power tend to get the final word, and the source must be considered. rhett cannot demand something that scarlett does not want. it is that simple. so rape is the word. also, of course she will be photographed/depicted as having an afterglow. men directed this movie. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 11:38, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * to drive the point home, i must compare this movie to a 2020 ip that represents the total opposite of this movie, except in one sense. Bridgerton (which received far less awards from the male(one race)-run academy), also has a questionable scene. The production is run by a woman, and the scene is done on-screen. the woman tricks the man into impregnating her. he was insistent on not having children. that can be defined as marital rape. so we must have consistency with gone with the wind. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 11:50, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * i meant to say, i agree with Stephanie, not Betty, with clarification that, afterglow of scarlett is an interpretation selznick wanted us to feel, How Leigh felt about it, remains to be seen. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 08:19, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Betty is correct, the film did not follow Rhett and Scarlett up the stairs so the audience has no idea what occurred next. It would be original analysis to make a guess that he raped her and then include that guess in the text in Wikipedia's voice. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:43, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * sometimes evidence talks. her afterglow, women rebelling of a lack of female hollywood directors, is evidence of what happened. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 17:30, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The plot summary not only has a role in relaying the events of the film, but also in how those events are framed. We as an audience do not see a rape play out on screen, regardless of whether or not one occurred. The scene before Scarlett is carted off to bed suggests she is going to be raped, but the scene when she wakes up suggests that perhaps she was not. The article does not shy away from the issue: the plot summary summarizes the events we witness in the film and we have an entire section in the article that dissects the "rapey" nature of the scene, with appropriate sourcing. The purpose of a plot summary in an article about a work of fiction is to support the encyclopedic prose, so even if she was raped the ambiguous way in which the scene plays out is important context. Betty Logan (talk) 02:56, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * that is political. a movie can be directed to appease one political side, hence the gatekeeping against women and black studio heads. that is the non fictional part about it. If not, why not hire tons more women and black studio heads, instead of the rash of taking away jobs from them? The attempt towards objectivity is missed. To put it bluntly, if a man has sex with a woman, they, each, have a different assessment. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 10:40, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @74.109.247.243 I read your post 17 times and still don't understand what you're getting at 2604:2D80:560D:4900:84FB:109C:6133:56FC (talk) 04:26, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Film credits
An IP editor has taken exception to the slaves being credited as "servants" in the cast listing. The cast section reflects the contemporary credits of the time and the film mischaracterizing the slaves as servants. I believe it is important to retain the integrity of the historical record but I was thinking of adding a footnote to clarify that they were in fact slaves. This is clearly established in the film and noted in the plot summary, but adding a footnote might make it a bit more explicit—indeed it might be helpful to readers clarify why we refer to Mammie as a slave in the plot summary but then refer to her as servant in the cast section. Does anyone have any objections to me doing this? Betty Logan (talk) 19:45, 23 November 2022 (UTC)


 * i think maintaining integrity of history has been weakened by a hollywood that has adopted the term, historical fiction. it seems integrity is only maintained when it is convenient, politically. time is not an excuse to hide the fact that the filmmakers were in favor of slavery. and that view has not changed, as this movie gets too much flattery, out of hollywood, today. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 19:28, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

They very likely were slaves, but is the film clear on this? Could there have been a small number of free blacks in Georgia? PatGallacher (talk) 18:14, 23 December 2022 (UTC)


 * The film obfuscates the whole issue. The KKK becomes a "political club" and the slaves become "house servants", and so on. The fact that they are all gone apart from Mammy when Scarlett returns to Tara tells its own story. I don't have an issue with the article recognizing they were slaves, just with retrospectively altering the credits. I think it is important for the article to present the credits as they actually were, so readers are not misled. Betty Logan (talk) 20:30, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
 * If we want to omit the phrase "house servants" from the cast listing, we can; we can just call the characters Mammy, Pork, and Prissy. After all, there are other differences between our cast listing and the film's. For example, the film labels Brent Tarleton and Stuart Tarleton as "Scarlett's beaux" just a few lines above where it lables Mammy, Pork, and Prissy as "The house servants", yet we don't have "Scarlett's beaux" in the cast listing for the Tarletons. For the people playing "minor supporting roles", the credits just have the word "And" above their names and don't identify which character they play, as we do. (We also spell out Lillian Kemble-Cooper's first name, which the credits don't, calling her "L. Kemble-Cooper".) If we want to address the use of the term "house servants" in the opening credits, we can mention it in another section such as #Historical portrayal, saying something like "The opening credits euphemistically refer to Mammy, Pork, and Prissy as 'house servants' rather than slaves." (Compare, where Drew Gilpin Faust comments, "... servants was the kind of euphemism that was so often applied in these romanticizations of the old South.") --Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:52, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The descriptions are taken directly from the film and help to provide some context for the role, euphemism or otherwise, so it wouldn't really be helpful to excise them. Such an editorial action would not be motivated by encyclopedic improvement in any case. We shouldn't be adding anything to the Historical Portrayal section unless it can be attributed to a secondary source; Wikipedia is not a platform for editorial virtue signalling, nor is Wikipedia's place to address the injustices of the past (certainly not in Wikipedia's voice at any rate). The characters are clearly described as slaves in the plot section and the rest of the article, and a note has been added to the cast list to clarify that the "servants" were in reality slaves. I think the issue has been clearly signposted to the extent that it would not be unwittingly overlooked. In fact, I think these attempts at historical revisionism actually achieve the opposite of the intended effect: while the film was progressive in some respects (especially in Mammy's characterisation for which Hattie McDaniel deservedly won an oscar) the film is a product of a time when racist attitudes were much more normalized than they are today. We are doing nobody any favors by trying to gloss over these elements—not modern readers who should learn about these things, and certainly not the people who lived through and had to experience such prejudice. Betty Logan (talk) 08:15, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Gone With The Wind (film)
I'm going to put back the AFI & Allmovie External References, because the do provide more detail to the movie, and they should not be removed at your whim Savolya (talk) 02:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I think you will find that they should not be added according to your whim per WP:EL which clearly states "No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link." Therefore it falls to the editor wishing to add an external link to obtain a consensus.
 * You added the following links:
 * I removed the AFI link in accordance with WP:ELDUP which states "Sites that have been used as sources in the creation of an article should be cited in the article and linked as references, either in-line or in a references section. Links to these source sites are not "external links" for the purposes of this guideline, and should not normally be duplicated in an external links section." The AFI Catalog is already included as a source as citation 1. Therefore I see no valid reason for duplicating again in the external links section.
 * I removed the Allmovie link in accordance with WP:ELNO#1 which states "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article. In other words, the site should not merely repeat information that is already or should be in the article." I fail to see how the Allmovie page qualifies as a "unique resource". The information it provides is minimal, and what is there (e.g. plot summary, cast listing, awards) are already included in the article. Can you please explain to me how it qualifies as a unique resource?
 * I am happy to reconsider my position if appropriate justification is provided, but as the guideline makes clear there must be a valid reason for their inclusion which is consistent with WP:EL, and if their inclusion is challenged then the burden of justification falls on those who wish to add the links, not on those who decide to remove them. External link sections serve their purpose better if they are used sparingly. Betty Logan (talk) 03:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I removed the Allmovie link in accordance with WP:ELNO#1 which states "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article. In other words, the site should not merely repeat information that is already or should be in the article." I fail to see how the Allmovie page qualifies as a "unique resource". The information it provides is minimal, and what is there (e.g. plot summary, cast listing, awards) are already included in the article. Can you please explain to me how it qualifies as a unique resource?
 * I am happy to reconsider my position if appropriate justification is provided, but as the guideline makes clear there must be a valid reason for their inclusion which is consistent with WP:EL, and if their inclusion is challenged then the burden of justification falls on those who wish to add the links, not on those who decide to remove them. External link sections serve their purpose better if they are used sparingly. Betty Logan (talk) 03:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Length in minutes
The article says, "... including the overture, intermission, entr'acte, and exit music, Gone with the Wind lasts for 234 minutes (although some sources put its full length at 238 minutes) ...". Why is the length of the film in minutes in dispute? I realize that WP:NOR means that we can't just get a stopwatch and time the film ourselves, but surely some reliable source has published a length which is the same number of minutes we would find if we did time the film ourselves. -- Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:33, 31 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Well you would think so, but unfortunately the discrepancy does exist. I suspect there could be a couple of reasons: i) the roadshow release may have had slightly longer musical elements; ii) the film has played in different formats (i.e. 35mm/70mmm) which may be a factor. But in short, I don't know. Wikipedia should avoid coming down on either side in a debate, but it would be helpful if we could answer this question directly in the article. Betty Logan (talk) 08:24, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * In the similar case of Fantasia (1940), some of its theatrical re-releases were considerably shorter than the original version. They achieved this "by removing most of Taylor's commentary and the Toccata and Fugue". The 1946 re-release kept all of the animated segments, but shortened the live-action scenes involving "Taylor, Stokowski, and the orchestra". With a similar mentality, certain released versions of Gone with the Wind may have been edited to remove part of the music or other elements considered non-essential. Dimadick (talk) 01:27, 1 April 2024 (UTC)