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I do think Gone With the Wind is as realistic, if not MORE realistic than 12 Years a Slave. Not every slave was constantly beaten and abused and some did grow very close to the families they worked for. I have no doubt that slaves like the ones in Gone With the Wind really existed in real life.
In its own admittedly twisted way, the fact that slaves were property protected many from being mistreated too harshly. Just like a farm today wouldn't purposely damage his combine or overuse his tractor to the extent that it overheats, it wouldn't be in a plantation owner's interests to kill his slaves or work them to death then they would have to spend more money buying more slaves. This was explained to me on several plantation tours in Louisiana and South Carolina and it totally makes sense to me, it was common sense even without being explained. The Rosedown Plantation in Louisiana even had a doctor on site to take care of the slaves and make sure they were healthy, yes all this was for the owners ' benefit, but movies like 12 Years a Slave or Django do not reflect the typical slave experience.
So yes, a plantation is more like the Palace of Versailles or a castle from medieval Europe than Auchwitz.
Oh yes and slaves fought to the death in the Roman Coliseum and built the Egyptian pyramids but nobody has an issue with those things. In fact it was the white Jewish slaves from the Bible who built the pyramids for the pharaohs. So if people can romanticize Medieval Europe, pre-revolutionary France, Ancient Rome, and Ancient Egypt, what's wrong with romanticizing certain elements of the antebellum South?
Read the book "Barracoon", which is a first-person account of one of the slaves who came over on the last slave ship to Alabama in 1854. His story was written from interviews with him by Zora Neale Hurston in 1927. That will give you a lot more practical information that the sanitized version you get from the plantation tour guides. BTW - most farms have a vet who visits regularly to care for the livestock.
Django is pure escapist fiction to make money, just like GWTW. "Roots" was a far more accurate story.
Read the book "Barracoon", which is a first-person account of one of the slaves who came over on the last slave ship to Alabama in 1854. His story was written from interviews with him by Zora Neale Hurston in 1927. That will give you a lot more practical information that the sanitized version you get from the plantation tour guides. BTW - most farms have a vet who visits regularly to care for the livestock.
Django is pure escapist fiction to make money, just like GWTW. "Roots" was a far more accurate story.
"Roots" has since been debunked, the story was found to be fabricated by the author and Alex Haley has been disgraced years ago. No doubt there were slaves like the ones in Gone With the Wind. Some slaves did grow very close to the planters and their families on a personal level.
And why is it okay to romanticize medieval times (an age of sexism, homophobia, inequality, and religious intolerance) but everything about the Old South is so taboo? What about how ancient Rome and Egypt had slaves, yet Roman themed stuff is perfectly fine?
Getting married in a plantation is like getting married in a European castle where the lords probably oppressed the peasants or even enslaved them.
I do think Gone With the Wind is as realistic, if not MORE realistic than 12 Years a Slave. Not every slave was constantly beaten and abused and some did grow very close to the families they worked for. I have no doubt that slaves like the ones in Gone With the Wind really existed in real life.
In its own admittedly twisted way, the fact that slaves were property protected many from being mistreated too harshly. Just like a farm today wouldn't purposely damage his combine or overuse his tractor to the extent that it overheats, it wouldn't be in a plantation owner's interests to kill his slaves or work them to death then they would have to spend more money buying more slaves. This was explained to me on several plantation tours in Louisiana and South Carolina and it totally makes sense to me, it was common sense even without being explained. The Rosedown Plantation in Louisiana even had a doctor on site to take care of the slaves and make sure they were healthy, yes all this was for the owners ' benefit, but movies like 12 Years a Slave or Django do not reflect the typical slave experience.
So yes, a plantation is more like the Palace of Versailles or a castle from medieval Europe than Auchwitz.
Oh yes and slaves fought to the death in the Roman Coliseum and built the Egyptian pyramids but nobody has an issue with those things. In fact it was the white Jewish slaves from the Bible who built the pyramids for the pharaohs. So if people can romanticize Medieval Europe, pre-revolutionary France, Ancient Rome, and Ancient Egypt, what's wrong with romanticizing certain elements of the antebellum South?
Please. 12 Years A Slave is the most realistic depiction of slavery that’s ever been made. In fact, if anything, the film understated the violence of antebellum slavery.
The big difference between a plantation manor and a feudal manor or similar is basically the passage of time. If serfdom was recent enough that my grandma was a serf who had been raped by her liege lord without recourse, prior to dying from overwork in his fields, I'd probably feel a bit salty about his feudal manor being treated like trendy romantic party spot by a bunch of vapid instagrammers, too. Let another couple hundred years pass, and allow another couple hundred years of social progress and human migration, and wounds are liable to mend somewhat. Sure, there are bodies buried pretty much everywhere on earth, but dancing on a recent grave in sight of the dead person's kin is still a grotesque thing to do.
Also, waxing poetical about how nice slavery was is really not helping your argument that "liberals" are too uptight about the risk of romanticizing plantations.
The big difference between a plantation manor and a feudal manor or similar is basically the passage of time. If serfdom was recent enough that my grandma was a serf who had been raped by her liege lord without recourse, prior to dying from overwork in his fields, I'd probably feel a bit salty about his feudal manor being treated like trendy romantic party spot by a bunch of vapid instagrammers, too. Let another couple hundred years pass, and allow another couple hundred years of social progress and human migration, and wounds are liable to mend somewhat. Sure, there are bodies buried pretty much everywhere on earth, but dancing on a recent grave in sight of the dead person's kin is still a grotesque thing to do.
Also, waxing poetical about how nice slavery was is really not helping your argument that "liberals" are too uptight about the risk of romanticizing plantations.
Thank you.
Plantations in the antebellum south are crime scenes of forced labor, murder, rapes, selling off of family members, and beatings/torture that harken back to medieval times. I wish all the damn things would burn down to matchsticks.
Please. 12 Years A Slave is the most realistic depiction of slavery that’s ever been made. In fact, if anything, the film understated the violence of antebellum slavery.
Get outta here.
Wow. I've never seen a bigger apologist for the antebellum South and slavery in a long time.
Pretty much confirmed it.
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