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'Gone With the Wind' parody draws challenges, supportersNew book offers mulatto perspective on famous Civil War-era novel, movie
ATLANTA, Georgia -- Before there was the civil rights movement, before there was desegregation, and before there were congressional calls for reparations and apologies for slavery, there was "Gone With the Wind." The 1936 book by Margaret Mitchell took on mythic proportions in the years after the 1939 movie version, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. In time, "Gone With the Wind" defined how millions viewed the deep South prior to and during the Civil War. But life at the Georgia plantation of Tara, the setting for "Gone With the Wind," is missing vital voices not often heard in the 19th century South, according to author Alice Randall. This void led Randall to pen a parody of Mitchell's classic, "The Wind Done Gone," a story narrated by the offspring of a white master and black woman on the plantation "Tata." While Randall's narrator was not part of Mitchell's story, most of the characters in "The Wind Done Gone" mimic those in the original. And representatives of the late Mitchell aren't happy about it.
Which is why the Stephen Mitchell Trust brought court action against Randall and her publisher, Houghton Mifflin, hoping to close the book on the parody, set to come out in June. The two sides will meet in an Atlanta federal court on April 18, when a judge will decide whether Randall's work relies too heavily on Mitchell's romantic saga. A change in historical perspectiveMary Rose Taylor, the founder and executor of Atlanta's Margaret Mitchell House, a "Gone With the Wind" exhibit not associated with Mitchell's trust, noted Mitchell wrote her book between 1926 and 1929, when Atlanta and the entire South were segregated.
"She was a historian, [but] the historical reference materials that would have been available to her back then were not what they are today," Taylor said. "We have traveled a very long road, both as a country and as a section of the country, since then." Mitchell, who Taylor said did "extraordinary things" to help the African-American community, would have welcomed Randall's parody, according to Taylor. Randall, like her book's narrator, is of mixed African-American and white descent. "She would applaud exploring this period of history from another vantage point," Taylor said on CNN's "Talk Back Live" last month. 'Wholesale theft of characters'But Mitchell's trust disagrees. Tom Selz, one of the group's attorneys, said Randall commits "wholesale theft of major characters" -- thus endangering the value, merits and authenticity of the original. "The Wind Done Gone" includes phrases and settings from Mitchell's work and allusions to the novel's characters. The physical description of Other, the narrator's half-sister, matches that of Scarlett O'Hara. And the couple Dreamy Gentleman and Mealy Mouth are clearly Ashley and Melanie Wilkes, while a man called "R" parallels Rhett Butler. "'Gone with the Wind' has mythic status and we're trying to make a critique of the original," said Wendy Strothman, executive vice president of Houghton Mifflin. Artists, intellectuals support Randall's parody
On Thursday, a group of 20 prominent artists and intellectuals -- including "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee, historians Shelby Foote and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and novelist Charles Johnson -- publicly voiced their support for Randall. "The discussion of the painful legacy of slavery is ongoing among American citizens across the nation," a statement from the group said. "Now is the time for the American public to hear another perspective on this legend." Michael Eric Dyson, a communications professor at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, said the powerful role "Gone With the Wind" plays in American society should not prevent Randall from parodying it. "The historical epic in which Ms. Mitchell was reared, and which she died … was an apartheid, southern terroristic experience where white supremacy ruled," Dyson said on CNN's "Talk Back Live." "Ms. Mitchell, in one sense, reflected those times even as she tried to argue against them by the great deed she did in her life." A copyright question"I think African-American people have the right to write their own history," Dyson added. "A literary myth needs another literary myth to supplant it." But an expert in copyright law isn't sure Randall will win her court case. Columbia University law professor Jane Ginsburg said parody historically is only protected in brief works such as a television sketch or a short story. For a full-length book, she said, the parody defense is "a little strained." "Courts talk about taking enough to recall or conjure up the original," Ginsburg said. "The measure is how much you need to take to let people know what you're making fun (of)." At least one other attempted parody of "Gone With the Wind," a stage musical called "Scarlet Fever," was halted by an Atlanta federal judge in 1979. But Strothman is confident that Randall's book will go to print. "This is clearly a parody, a very biting, sarcastic angry book," Strothman said. "There are legal definitions of parody, and this falls smack into that category."
The Associated Press contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: Pat Conroy: 'I was raised by Scarlett O'Hara' RELATED SITES: "Gone With The Wind" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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