Gone With The Wind Film Analysis

The male gaze has been a prominent theme in movies, music and other areas of culture for a considerable amount of time. This is something that is primarily categorized by someone who is doing the looking. More specifically it is how the audience is viewing the people or person that is being represented. The male gaze is essentially something that in advertizing, and in movies enables women to become a commodity which enables products to sell, because we all know in society that sex sells, and especially in modern marketing. Something to take into consideration is the fact that woman have not had a considerable amount of involvement in film making over the past 100 years, and even today, this is still a fact. Although women tend to be involved

in production back up work, they are scarcely ever a driving force behind films, TV programs, advertisements, perhaps other than costume design and make-up. The reality is that many films in the 20th and 21st centuries are filtered through a man’s eye, and through the perspectives of men. Something that takes place in film and media is that men put into film and media what they see women as representing. Women are being aware and conscious of their actions, even concealing their identities because they are frequently subjected to this gaze. In the event that the theory of the male gaze is ever so prominent in the film/entertainment industry, this paper will focus on how the spectator resists the male gaze through the films “Gone With the Wind” and “Illusions”.
The male gaze theory is something that Laura Mulvey coined as a term. She is a feminist theorist who analyzed the objectification of women in film using a psycho-analytic approach. In the 1970’s Laura Mulvey wrote an essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. In this, Mulvey asserts that women are objects in film rather than a possessor. This is so because of the control of the camera comes from the basis of heterosexual men as the predominant target for most film genres. The male gaze is comprised of three gazes. The first is the filmmaker gaze. This encompasses the idea that there is male institutional control that contributes to hegemony of men over women. The second is the character. This is in suggestion of the dominant gaze, which would be the male gaze of the film, which contributes to hegemonic norms of the film industry. Lastly is the spectator. The spectator is something Laura Mulvey claims “ identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look on to that of his life, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence” (Durham& Kellner, 2012, p. 271). Laura Mulvey emphasizes on the idea of scopophelia. This can be understood as when the audience derives pleasure through film through voyeurism. More importantly, Freud described scopophelia saying it “arises from pleasure in using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight” (Durham& Kellner, 2012, p. 270).
“Gone With the Wind” is a movie where at the first watch you can see it is apparent that women are objects of scrutiny in a patriarchal society of the South.

Scarlet O’Hara, who is the protagonist in the film, really shakes up the idea of the male gaze for the spectator. Scarlet exposes in the film a different side of gender myths which embody male values that are transformed at the time of a drastic economic change due to the invasion of the Yankees. Scarlet really has an ambiguous gender identity in certain aspects of her life, with relation to economic ideals, her own gender roles and with relation to the current war that took place. In the beginning of the film, we see Scarlett saying to her Mammy “Why does a girl have to be so silly to catch a husband?” We can identify the significance of this quote here as something very ambiguous. Scarlett wants to find a husband, yet she is not necessarily overjoyed at the things she has to do in order to get one. Unlike many films in which the male gaze is something that dominates the spectator eye. What is fascinating about “Gone With the Wind” is that the protagonist that the spectator identifies with is female. What is most important to note is the paradox of personality that she displays throughout the film with regards to Scarlett encompassing throughout the film masculine ideals enclosed in a female form. Laura Mulvey talks about women with conflicting desires. She mentions “the conflicting desires, first of all, correspond closely with Freud’s argument about female sexuality quoted above, that is: an oscillation between passive femininity and regressive masculinity” (Mulvey, 1990 p.

31).
Ashley Wilks is the man Scarlett is madly in love with in the film. Ashley is a very feminine man, unlike Rhett who embodies masculinity. Scarlett jumps between Rhett, the masculine figure, and Ashley the feminine. Laura Mulvey asserted that male characters in the film were to be seen as the protagonists, while females are represented as passive, and would respond to the activity of the male character. Scarlet O’Hara is displayed as a rigorous person in the movie. The spectator can see that when Scarlet was made head of Tara she vows to lie, steal, kill, or cheat in order to avoid being hungry again. She even tries to sell her body to Rhett for tax money. Scarlett even takes part in Yankee practices towards the later part of the movie for economic purposes as a cash and carry merchant. Scarlett depicts very masculine roles and values throughout the movie which is why “Gone With the Wind” resists’ the male gaze due to the fact that we are viewing the events taking place through the protagonist which is Scarlett. She eludes this masculine energy in the greater part of the film making her simply more than just a woman who is there to please the eyes of a man. She has a purpose.
Gramsci speaks about hegemony, which is really the political, cultural dominance over others. Gramsci’s definition describes “the dominant class does not merely rule society but leads it through the exercise of intellectual and moral leadership” (Storey, 2015, p. 83). We can see how hegemony takes place and is present in “Gone With the Wind” due to the slavery that is in gone with the wind, and how that was a cultural norm and went unquestioned. The movie also displays patriarchal views where if you are a woman, you must fall to subordinate masculinity. Rhett Butler’s need to dominate Scarlett percolates through their every encounter. Scarlett and Rhett eventually get married, and there is an infamous rape scene in the movie. This scene is what exemplifies the difference of power between the male and the female in a traditional marriage. Retts power is based on his legal right to Scarlet in terms of her body, along with her things (property).
Richard Dyer focuses on stereotypes and social types. According to Dyer, stereotypes are “those whom the rules are designed to exclude” and social types are “instances which indicate those who live by the rules of society” (Durham& Kellner, 2012, p. 276). With that being said, “Gone With the Wind” has a very simplistic way of showing a classical stereotype of slavery. The film depicts the slaves as very well treated, cheerful, joyous, and dedicated to their masters who show them benevolence. Big Sam, a slave, leaves Tara when he was ordered to, and then later on he ends up saving scarlet with a huge risk to his own life. His grammar is also simplified into an extremely simple level of basic English. The film however does depict black people as stupid or childish.
Bell Hooks is an African American feminist. If she were to view “Gone With the Wind” she would focus on Butterfly McQueen, also known as “Prissy”. She is a classic stereotype of a black slave. She is by far the worst example of the negative portrayal the movie shows of any of the house slaves. Prissy is very funny, stupid. Squeamish and she becomes neurotic and hysterical over small things. She is a parody of an old fashioned slaveholder’s claim that black people need to be slaves due to the fact that they would not be able to function on their own without firm direction. She exemplifies in the movie that she has no life of her own, and that she is willing to stick with Scarlett through thick and thin, which perhaps the spectator would find difficult to find pleasure in the gaze. “Gone With the Wind” is a perfect oversimplification of black people and their class, characteristics, and morals, and ideas. The Social types enforced are the slaves living by the rules of society at that given time. There is a negative approach in representing black people in film. Bell Hooks focuses on the oppositional gaze, which is the gaze of a black woman. Hooks makes a strong point that black women are misrepresented in movies. With relation to “Gone With the Wind” there is mention that “mammies, who can ever forget the sickening spectacle of Hattie McDaniel’s waiting on the simpering Vivien Leigh hand and foot enquiring like a ninny” (Hooks, 1992 p. 201) Bell Hooks touches on a very important topic which is resisting the gaze. In film, it is mentioned in her article that in order for women to resist the male gaze, women will regress through identification. When one observes a film, the natural thing to do is to experience pleasure from the film. If you are a black woman watching a film that misrepresents black people and pushes a phallocentric gaze, it would be extremely hard to experience pleasure because of those factors. However in Bell Hooks article, it mentions a woman named Miss Pauline who is black, and how she goes about resisting the gaze as a spectator. It says “to experience pleasure, Miss Pauline sitting n the dark must imagine herself transformed, turned into a white woman portrayed on the screen” (Hooks, 1996 p. 203). It also mentions in the article that one woman stated “I could always get pleasure from movies as long as I did not look too deep” (Hooks, 1996 p. 203). This is important to understand because if one were to look to deep and accept the gaze then it would become very painful. These are a couple ways in which the spectator might resist the male gaze, and the oppositional gaze, especially in “Gone With the Wind”.
“Illusions” is a 1940’s move with a female director named Julie Dash. It is interesting enough that the film is not only directed by a woman, but the film is set out to depict the life of a black woman, passing as a white woman that works in the film industry in that specific era. There are certain illusions that the director discusses in the film which sheds a light on the fact that black people were not really a significant part of Hollywood. The film is predominantly focused on Mignon Dupree, who is a biracial studio executive. In one scene, Mignon and her boss enter a sound booth, while two sound engineers continue to dub a sound for a season release. Unfortunately, the sound does not equate that of their present star. In order to rectify the situation, a young black lady by the name of Esther is hired to replace the voice of Leila Grant, a Caucasian film star. If we take a look at Leila Grant, we can see that in this era she is really the true object of desire, and an object of the gaze. All throughout the movie we can see that there are close ups of various body parts such as her face, her legs, her hands, etc which really objectifies her.
For the spectator, there are specific shots which hold multiple gazes. There is Esther looking at Leila on the screen trying to lip-synch to her, and Esther which is the object of the sound engineer, then lastly the sound engineer looking at all of this taking place. What is interesting about the way that this is set up for the spectator is that Leila is set in the top right hand corner of the screen as a large figure, which really makes her look like the star. Esther is placed in the mid bottom right hand corner singing in the studio but is noticeably smaller than Leila. The sound engineer is looking through the glass and watching Esther and Leila. We can see him through a reflection in the window, and the interesting stone face, puzzled look he has on his face.
Illusions does a phenomenal job at exploiting the ways which Hollywood creates illusions that elicits black women to the underground of the film industry, merely to be forgotten. Something that should be made clear here, and is an obvious message that the movie is sending to the spectator, is that the white, Caucasian beauty queens of Hollywood, were not always the real star of the film. Many black entertainers had been the voices of films in Hollywood. Later on in the film, Mignon states that “they see me but they can’t recognize me”. Which is alludes that they are not recognizing a human, similar to Esther as they only recognize a voice, her existence is arbitrary. In this case, it was Esther who bared the real, raw talent. Mignon also makes a statement in “Illusions” saying “people make films about themselves”. This is a grand statement which can be interpreted by the fact that the existence of power, class status, and certainly race has been a paramount feature in films as something that represents everything and everyone, which in fact this is not true, it is a misrepresentation, or better known as an illusion. In this event, it is appropriate to venture back to Bell Hooks and her writings. When looking at the film “Illusions”, the spectator would resist the gaze by reading against the grain. Bell Hooks discusses in her article that “given the context of class exploitation, and racist and sexist domination, it has only been through resistance, struggle, reading and looking against the grain that black women have been able to value our process of looking enough to publicly name it”(Hooks, 1996 p. 208).
Hegemony is apparent in “Illusions”. It is displayed in a prominent way through Leila Grant. As mentioned before she is seen as the true object of desire. She represents the ruling class, and also represents feminine hegemonic ideals through her physicality. There are also certain stereotypes that accompany this feminine hegemonic ideal. The way a woman’s hair should look, how the ideal body type of a woman should be, facial features which are predominantly known to be attractive. There are certain hegemonic ideals that are displayed throughout Hollywood as the ideal we should adhere to. What is interesting about hegemony and the interaction between Leila Grant and Esther is that there is a negotiation. John Storey describes this well when stating popular culture is “a negotiated mix of what is made both above and below both commercial and authentic; a shifting balance of forces between resistance and incorporation. This can be analyzed in many different configurations: class, gender, generation, ethnicity, race, region, religion, disability, sexuality etc” (Storey, 2015 p. 86). This can also be known as compromise equilibrium, and as Gramsci explains there is a balance between the two. Domination is not solely imposed from above but must be won by subordinate groups, which is this case is Esther and or Mignon. There is consent for cultural domination which people believe will be of assistance because it is known to be something that is common sense.
The male gaze is something that really emphasizes on identifying with the male protagonist in films. It really reduces the woman or women of film merely to a simple object that is objectified. When looking at both films, the interesting part about them is both protagonists in the movie are female. In most films which heavily depict the male gaze, the female is not meant to emulate a character that specifically affects the final outcome of the film, or even more someone who prolongs the story and keeps it going. “Gone With the Wind” and “Illusions” both reject that idea, which is also why they resist the male gaze entirely. It is also important to understand types of resistance which have been mentioned earlier. It seems to be that the most effective way to resist the male gaze in the spectator’s eyes is to read against the grain. The spectator is able to do this when watching both movies by looking deeper into the story line, contextually decipher what the protagonist’s message is that she is trying to display.

Bibliography
Durham, M. & Kellner,D. (2012). Media and Cultural Studies : Keyworks. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hooks, Bell. (1996). “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators” in hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation. Routledge.

Mulvey, Laura.(1990). “Afterthoughts on Visual Pleasure and Narrarative Cinema” in Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Ann Kaplan: Routledge.

Storey, J. (2015). Cultural theory and popular culture: an introduction. New York: Routledge.