Image Link: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3529496832/tt0031381?ref_=ttmd_md_pv
The 1939 film, "Gone With the Wind", is known for being the highest grossing film in American history, with an array of awards and recognitions. The novel-turned-film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara and her colleagues before, during, and after the Civil War in the Confederacy as proud, Southern, aristocrats. Although the film has an accurate timeline of the Civil War, it's depiction of the purpose and portrayal of the Civil War is not necessarily the most correct.
The poster (above) shows the Civil War in the South as a destructive, passionate, and romantic war. From the flaming color scheme to the steamy encounter between Rhett and Scarlett, everything about the poster serves to reflect the passionate emotions of Southerners regarding slavery and their right to a country representative of their beliefs. The depiction of the Atlanta Campaign as a fire-y ordeal of destruction (middle right of poster) shows that the Southerners believed the war to be incredibly devastating and victimizing. By making the main characters the central focus of the poster amongst a chaotic background, it humanizes Southerners as people who cared for each other in times of hardship. All in all, the poster wants to show viewers that the side of the Civil War that a majority of Americans do not focus on has its own importance, not just as a representation of Conservative, racist America, but as a humanized perception of the South.
Whereas some perceive the film as a romanticized justification for slavery and racism (akin to the justification for keeping the Confederate Flag), others view the film as a valuable resource for showing the other side of the Civil War that most Americans do not learn about. As the poster is romanticizing the Civil War as the plight of victimized Southerners, it shows the viewer that the Confederate justification for starting the war was a cover-up for the purely racist intention of keeping slavery. At the same time, however, by romanticizing the Civil War, the poster shows that the Civil War was a somber yet crucial part of their history. Therefore the poster has a dual purpose in showing how the Confederate's purpose in the Civil War was both a justification for slavery as well as a mechanism for imbuing sympathy for the Southerner's purposes.
The saturated colors and overly exaggerated acting of the actors in the poster serve to Although the portrayal of the Civil War in the poster is not the most accurate depiction of the historical reality, it is important to have the poster as a resource so that viewers may make their own interpretation of the Civil War, either as a newly discovered sympathy towards the Confederacy or a reflection of the false reality that some Southerners choose to believe.
