Ashley, You Twit
I spent Sunday afternoon at a friend's place, drinking red wine and watching movies in preparation for the Oscars. Of course, the big guns were on that day, Casablanca, Kramer v Kramer and my personal favorite, Gone With the Wind.
I watched GWTW in 8th grade for the first time all the way through. I was living in Atlanta at the time and was surrounded by vestiges of the Civil War. Statutes of Robert E. Lee, the Cyclorama, antebellum mansions, Stone Mountain. I knew more about the Civil War than I'd ever thought to learn about the Revolutionary War, although our school system didn't go so far as to make us learn Lee's speech to the troops, as many other Georgia schoolchildren learned throughout the years.
And my mother loved the movie. Watched it every time it was on. This was back in the days of three channels, plus some weird stuff on UHF. GWTW was always a big television event. She'd let me stay up to watch some of it. Usually I got to the point that Scarlett married that milksop Charles Hamilton, earning the unending enmity of India Wilkes in the process. Once in a great while my mom would let me fall asleep on the couch, waking me up in time to see Atlanta burn and Rhett leave Scarlett in the dusty outskirts of town while he finally took up with the Glorious Cause.
So I finally saw it in 8th grade. I was so taken with the story that I read the book and became even more entranced. I wrote a paper on Margaret Mitchell for school that year. You know she was married twice--her first husband was a bit more like Rhett, while her second was more like Ashley. No children. Interesting woman, altogether.
While watching this movie with my friend the other day, we came to the conclusion that this movie impacted me in a deep and disturbing psychological way. Namely, GWTW taught me to chase after Rhett rather than Ashley.
My mother has always thrown guys like Ashley at me. "He's such a nice boy," she'd say about some guy I went to school with. And I know she was right. He was a nice boy. And that's so boring. Who wants a nice boy? Not me. I want Rhett.
And I chase after him. The more inappropriate, arrogant, untrustworthy and generally reprehensible a man might be? The more attractive I usually find him. Obviously, there has to be some veneer of gentility, much as Rhett demonstrated to Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Merriweather in an effort to get his daughter accepted into Atlanta society. But the veneer is just for show, really...just enough so you can take them to dinner and be assured that they know how to use the utensils.
While I'll always love men like Thomas Magnum or Jack from Lost in the abstract, give me relationships like Maddie and David, or Rhett and Scarlett, or Sawyer and...well, just about anyone.
Who knew that a history class could taint the rest of your life?
I watched GWTW in 8th grade for the first time all the way through. I was living in Atlanta at the time and was surrounded by vestiges of the Civil War. Statutes of Robert E. Lee, the Cyclorama, antebellum mansions, Stone Mountain. I knew more about the Civil War than I'd ever thought to learn about the Revolutionary War, although our school system didn't go so far as to make us learn Lee's speech to the troops, as many other Georgia schoolchildren learned throughout the years.
And my mother loved the movie. Watched it every time it was on. This was back in the days of three channels, plus some weird stuff on UHF. GWTW was always a big television event. She'd let me stay up to watch some of it. Usually I got to the point that Scarlett married that milksop Charles Hamilton, earning the unending enmity of India Wilkes in the process. Once in a great while my mom would let me fall asleep on the couch, waking me up in time to see Atlanta burn and Rhett leave Scarlett in the dusty outskirts of town while he finally took up with the Glorious Cause.
So I finally saw it in 8th grade. I was so taken with the story that I read the book and became even more entranced. I wrote a paper on Margaret Mitchell for school that year. You know she was married twice--her first husband was a bit more like Rhett, while her second was more like Ashley. No children. Interesting woman, altogether.
While watching this movie with my friend the other day, we came to the conclusion that this movie impacted me in a deep and disturbing psychological way. Namely, GWTW taught me to chase after Rhett rather than Ashley.
My mother has always thrown guys like Ashley at me. "He's such a nice boy," she'd say about some guy I went to school with. And I know she was right. He was a nice boy. And that's so boring. Who wants a nice boy? Not me. I want Rhett.
And I chase after him. The more inappropriate, arrogant, untrustworthy and generally reprehensible a man might be? The more attractive I usually find him. Obviously, there has to be some veneer of gentility, much as Rhett demonstrated to Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Merriweather in an effort to get his daughter accepted into Atlanta society. But the veneer is just for show, really...just enough so you can take them to dinner and be assured that they know how to use the utensils.
While I'll always love men like Thomas Magnum or Jack from Lost in the abstract, give me relationships like Maddie and David, or Rhett and Scarlett, or Sawyer and...well, just about anyone.
Who knew that a history class could taint the rest of your life?
posted by Miss Head at
4:51 AM
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