Hattie McDaniel's Academy Award Acceptance Speech

Greetings All, this week, in my course on Reconstruction at UCR, we discussed a few scenes from Gone With the Wind. The discussion included Hattie McDaniel's portrayal of Mammy as well as a few notes on the actress herself. She was a fascinating woman off the screen - a outspoken supporter of civil rights, she once lobbied the city of Los Angeles to purchase a home in an exclusive all-white neighborhood. We watched her Academy Award acceptance speech for her role as Mammy as well.
What does this suggest to you about race, historical memory, and Hollywood in 1940?

K

Carol Burnett's Take on Gone With the Wind

Long ago - the 1970s I think, the American television viewing public found Carol Burnett amusing. She had her own ensemble cast variety show and everything. Well, here is her lampoon of Gone With the Wind, which from what I understand, was one of her most well-received. The skit features a very annoying (and white) Prissy character. Perhaps Burnett did not want to offend her viewers by including a black slave in her comical recreation the Old South, so she had a white servant affect the mannerisms of what is quite clearly a caricatured simple-minded plantation house worker (much like the original Prissy - just more irritating this time). I remember the show from the 70s and I do not recall an African American cast member, so I suppose that explains the obvious race issue - but the over-the-top antics? And where is Mammy? At least her character - while also a conventional portrayal of a black servant - had depth and complexity.

K

Better an English Girl Than a Yankee

[caption id="attachment_2121" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara"][/caption]

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

This is the last (for a while anyway) of posts relating to the epic Civil War drama - Gone With the Wind. It all stemmed from a question asked by an anonymous emailer about Hattie McDaniel...then a few other people asked some questions and well, there you have it.

Michael from Oregon wanted to know: who else was considered for the part of Scarlett? It was certainly one of the most sought after parts in Hollywood...and some of the biggest names in show business populated the list of potential Scarletts. There were at least 128 actresses suggested for the part and 32 women tested including. Lucille Ball, Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy Lamour, Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Barbara Stanwyck, and Mae West.

Some heavy hitters indeed. The favorite of course, was British actress Vivien Leigh - but producer David O. Selznick was concerned that she would not play well to southern audiences. He need not have worried - when the Georgia chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy heard the news about Leigh's casting, they summed up the South's feelings: "Better an English girl than a Yankee."

So much for reconciliation. Oh sure, the response may have been issued in good-natured tongue in cheek fashion. But there is a lot of truth in every little joke...right ladies? I wonder if the film would have been such a success in the South had Selznick cast New Yorker Lucille Ball? Hmmm....makes you think.

So - Cosmic America will be back to focusing on topics directly related to the war (and not films about the war) tomorrow. But I have had fun with the Gone With the Wind stuff. Remember, if you have any questions you want answered here or on Office Hours - just fire at will!

Peace,
Keith

Office Hours: Where is Hattie McDaniel Buried?

[caption id="attachment_2103" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Hattie McDaniel's house on W. 22nd St. in Los Angeles"][/caption]

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

An anonymous emailer wanted to know - so I did my homework and figured it out. You can find Hattie McDaniel's grave, not in Hollywood Forever where she wanted to be buried, but in Rosedale Cemetery off of Washington Street in Los Angeles. Racism dogged McDaniel to her grave. At the 1939 Academy Awards ceremony, where she won an Oscar for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Mammy in Gone With the Wind, she and her husband had to sit in a separate area outside the segregated main auditorium. In 1942, she had to launch a class action suit to purchase a home in what was then an exclusive all-white neighborhood - on the corner of W. 22nd Street and Harvard Avenue. When she died in 1952, Hollywood Forever, where she wished to be interred, was reserved for white people.

[caption id="attachment_2104" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind"][/caption]

And thus her final resting place is Rosedale, established in 1892 - one of the few cemeteries in Los Angeles that allowed black interments. You can easily find her modest headstone today - near the Washington St. entrance and just to the left of the driveway. There is nothing there denoting her accomplishments either as an actress or an activist. Just her name and years of birth and death. While she is not surrounded by Hollywood superstars as she would have been at Hollywood Forever, she is in good company. Buried within Rosedale's 65 acres are several Civil War veterans, some of note, and a number of Los Angeles mayors and other prominent citizens.

Peace,
Keith

PS - Youtube blocked my original video, which featured McDaniel's Oscar acceptance speech. Here is a clip (strangely, available on Youtube).

Office Hours: What Rhett Misses in Gone With the Wind

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Melissa from Indiana wanted me to talk a little about the scene in Gone With the Wind where Rhett enumerates the Union advantages, essentially foretelling Confederate demise. He did a nice job spoiling everyone's brandy, cigars, and dreams of victory...but he missed an important Confederate advantage. Have a look at the video to find out.

This is one of several posts I will be doing this week that deal in some fashion with the film Gone With the Wind. Arguably, this film has done more to "teach" people about the Civil War era than any other. I continue to use it as a teaching tool - not for its accuracies, but as a way to get at how many Americans (especially white southern Americans) understood the conflict in the mid-twentieth century.

Peace,

Keith

I can't let Tara go. I won't let it go while there's a breath left in my body.

[caption id="attachment_2088" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Tara in ruins - circa 1950s"][/caption]

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

Well, Scarlett - I'm afraid Tara is gone...long gone. And it never stood in Georgia either. But it did eventually (sort of) make it there. Yes indeed - the old Tara set, really just a facade, stood for quite some time in a horrible state of disrepair on a David O. Selznick studio back lot in Culver City, California. And it remained there after the lot changed hands from Selznick to RKO to Desilu.

In 1959, the set was dismantled and shipped to Atlanta for use in a theme park that never came to be - the plywood and paper pieces were stored in a barn for years, where - as the story goes - they deteriorated beyond any usefulness to anyone. I know not what became of the remnants. For all anyone knows, they still rot away in some barn in Georgia. Tara's front door and the large oil painting of Scarlett have found a home in Atlanta...at the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum.

[caption id="attachment_2089" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Culver Studios"][/caption]

For all of you film buffs, the old Selznick Studios main building still stands - now the Culver Studios - in Culver City. The building was used in the film, but only during the credits as the backdrop for the David O. Selznick logo.The entry way was used for the formal walk up to Scarlett and Rhett's new Atlanta home and is virtually unchanged. You won't see the building, though - it was covered by a giant matte painting.

Peace,

Keith

Gone With the Wind - the Boys Talk a Little Smack Before the War

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

It is hard to run out of things to say about Gone With the Wind. I have seen this film about a million times and shown it to students here and there too. It is a great way to get at the real themes of the Lost Cause interpretation of the war.

This is one of the most famous scenes when it comes to "the CSA never had a chance" theme. Rhett Butler, after an enthusiastic declaration by the other men in the room that the war would be over in one battle and the age-old claim that "a southerner can lick twenty Yankees," tells it (sort of) like it is. "There is not a single cannon factory in the whole South" - and goes on to describe how the North has all the industry and a fleet to bottle up southern harbors. All we have, claims Butler, "is cotton, slaves, and arrogance." Well - this naturally pisses the boys off, and Rhett almost has to fight it out with a young Charles Hamilton

Pretty standard stuff - but pay careful attention to some of the very first lines, when Scarlett's father, Gerald O'hara begins his rant. "It's time we made (the Yankees) understand we keep our slaves with or without their approval!" he shouts - something that seems to be the consensus among the gentlemen in the room enjoying brandy and cigars.

This is a peculiar deviation from the usual Lost Cause interpretation of the war - one that argues slavery was only incidental. This scene would suggest otherwise - indeed...slavery seems about as central as you can get - and straight from the mouth of a Georgia plantation owner.

So I have to hand it (somewhat) to Margaret Mitchell. Yeah...she follows the old "cavaliers and cotton fields" path - but at least gets at the central issue a little tiny bit. I wonder if the Daughters of the Confederacy have ever tried to get that few seconds cut from the film - or maybe somebody just coughs really loudly whenever it comes on. Who knows.

And one other thing - Ashley Wilkes might say that once the wars were over no one knew what they were about. Not in this case my friend - they knew damn well what this one was all about. Just sayin'

Peace,

Keith