lower class person so i thought her role was in the social aspects, not in the actual running of the plantation itself. >> all right so in this case it's about morality. she's making this decision on moral grounds. that's something that women would have absolutely had the superior role in. >> doesn't he also repeatedly say we're going to wait for mrs. o'hara? she says it beforehand, too. >> ellen o'hara is a very strong woman, right? i want talk about her in a little bit. there's no question that she stands out, but let's come back to that. >> what about the nursing scenes, right? brooke brings up that the nursing scenes didn't necessarily fit what we learned in class. what is the role between the interactions of women and men in

those hospitals. >> i think brooke put in our comment too that the women weren't really around the men changing bandages but scarlet was all up in there. she's was literally watching what was going on. women usually removed from that because they were that pure for that sort of thing. she was kind of like a traditional, say your typical war nurse you would think of. that's really not what it was like. >> another thing to think about is that all of the hospital scenes that are portrayed are in the south at the end of the war so there are very few men around to help as nurses anyway. so there was a greater chance that women would take up these roles as acting as nurses whether she would do it in garb to do it is an entirely different matter but it is certainly possible to have women filling those roles in hospital. >> right.

certainly in the south, it is more likely to see this in extreme circumstances where women would step in. ?'qc okay. what about scarlet owning a mill, running a mill and galavanting, right? does that stand outside of your understanding of gender norms at this time period. >> i think after the war it would have been a little bit more acceptable because of some of the things that i've read post war for women they did have a little bit more control in finding jobs. maybe not running the mill and owning the mill, that's a stretch, but probably having more say. i'm surprised her husband didn't have more power in that. >> she married frank kennedy first to get his money and then she used his money in order to build this sort of lumber empire that she has. but she has to marry him in

order to get his money to use it. it does still belong to him to some extent. i get the feeling that legally his name is on the papers and things, but she is the one wielding the power in a social relationship. that's how she gets her business power. >> part of what we're getting to is the difference between the law and daily practice. there's no question. it's absolutely the case that frank kennedy owns that mill. now, frank kennedy is not running that mill, scarlet is running that mill. that's certainly -- it's unusual that she would have been so dominant that way, but not completely unthinkable but we're right to sort of keep in mind that what we see is not necessarily what would have been in the legal situation. >> would it have transferred to rhett when kennedy died? >> depending on the specifics of inheritance law at that time and

whether there was anything -- it depends on what frank kennedy's will said, but yeah, scarlet likely would have inherited it because they didn't have any children, and then when rhett married her it would have been gone to him. >> there's another aspect of gender relations that i just want to mention because i think there's a promotion of a particular kind of gender violence in this film. you want to? >> yeah. jul along, i thought they are all kind of rude to each other, but the scene where they are living in their really nice house at the end and both scarlet and rhett are drinking and they get into an argument and he roughs her up and takes her upstairs and rapes her,

and she wakes up all happy and perky in the morning so thanks 1930s. >> there's no question. domestic violence certainly existed at this time but the way that gets filmed. you're absolutely right. her waking up with a big smile on her face the next morning has all kinds of problematic implications what it says about rape and consent and an appropriate marriage. let's talk a little bit about costuming and sets. i'm going to allow laura michael and mary quinn to talk about why they are so annoyed by especially one particular scene. what scene was most traumatic for you? well, the wildly famous scene where scarlet is being laced

into her corset by ma'mmy who i tugging away at her. if i were being really kind and forgiving i would argue that she's trying to look period. it represents an extremely fashionable ideal. most women did not lace their corsets like this because it's not practical. they needed to breathe. i think this scene has contributed to the misunderstanding that a lot people have about 19th century fashion, that it was a very restricting sexist, impractical kind of thing, which it really wasn't. i'm not saying it wasn't an uncomfortable garment to wear but it's not like it was made out in this film. >> well, scarlet was always -- she had this little tiny waist. you can see in the scenes a lot of times when she had her dress unbuttoned and you can see there's skin.

these are pretty large under garments that they are wearing and the silhouette she has in the scenes where she's taking her nap and wearing her corset and drawers and stuff is very different from the silhouette you see at parties and things. you can't wear a period correct corset and look the way that she does. they did some things correct. they had a lot of trim on the shoulders that came into the waist which makes your shoulders look broader. there are little things they didn't do. the setting of the sleeves, for instance. the shoulder sleeves during this time were very far down because it helped to widen your shoulders to wake your waist took smaller and they had lots of modern seams that have narrow shoulders which are much more characteristics of the 30s. >> so part of what we see is an

idealization, not of the fashion of the 1850s through '70s, but a 1930s version of the 50s through 70s. >> page. especially in movie that's are made in this period of time in the early mid-90s. a lot of the accessories, a lot of some of the articles clothing that these women are wearing and even the muskets, some of those canteens and things like that are probably original. from a preservation standpoint and every time because the morning broach that scarlet wore was most certainly they would have just bought an original somewhere rather than making it with the hair and everything. just seeing that from a preservation standpoint makes me want to break the tv. >> did you want to say? >> what they were saying.

they did sort of fudge a lot of the period under garments. she wasn't wearing the corset properly. she would have passed out. it doesn't change your waist size but the way you carry yourself of it's designed to make you hold your shoulders back. when it wasn't convenient they didn't bother. the scene where scarlet shoots the yankee in the house and melanie takes her night dress off and tosses it to scarlet, if you look carefully you see she's wearing a 1930s bra under the nightshirt. so they clearly are like no one is going to notice. i will just wear a bra, no big deal. >> at this point people couldn't pause the movie while they were watching it. this is before. so they can get away with things that they can't get away with today. a couple of other things with the set. tara. entirely too big to be a country georgia house. those columns were a source of great controversy during the filming.

selznick said this is what i wanted, make it up. 12 oaks is oddly styled for an upcountry georgia plantation. architects say it looks more like something in virginia during this time period. all of this may be wouldn't matter except selznick claimed he wanted historical accuracy and claimed he used a number of historical consultants. the film implies a sort of historical authenticity. in the film's opening scene, the slaves are out in the fields picking cotton. the problem with t"k that we know it's april of 1861 because the news of ft. sumpter arrives. you don't pick cotton in april it's very early in the growing process. let's talk about the readings

yub?çwo3 jeremy? >> in the film slaves are very happy. obedient and loyal. in the readings they spoke about the abuse endured and the way families were treated on the plantations, which that's a juxtaposition. it's just wrong. >> right.

we see that in harriet jacob's staff. we get a sense of a very different experience. how about -- go ahead. >> in the reading, i forget if it's harry jacobs or james stuart but when the girl was raped every day and she said she couldn't tell her grandmother because she would be looked down upon. that really surprised me. later on in t reading she said her grandmother suspected it when she became -- when she was maturing she knew something would happen to her from the master so they surprised me when she was actually pregnant from being raped, she, you know, the grandmother looked down upon her. it kind of confused me because since the grandmother expected it because she knew this was sadly the norm and the fact that

she still -- i don't know, it just really surprised me. >> this is harriet jacob's story, "diary of a slave girl." this gets into the complexities of african slavery in the south and how to deal with these assaults by whites on blacks. >> mary chestnut's diary brings up the possibility about slavery that slavery isn't such a good thing, right? calls it a monstrous system. but there is no sense of slavery that occurs in the film. let's move onto talk about the movie as a primary source. about the time and people who made it. how does the great depression affect this film? how is it reflected in this film? amanda.

>> talked about how scarlet's story is similar to what people went through in the great depression. she's wealthy or at least well off and then because of the north all her wealth is taken away and i kind of connected that to like new york city as being the stock market so people could blame them. even if you weren't wealthy you had a lifestyle and then you became poor and then it showed when some finally gets all the money that there's hope for when it maybe ends . so it's hope that parallels the people from the great depression and the time being depicted. >> i just want the comment that the story has parallels from stories that i used to hear from my grandmother. he was the youngest of eight. he group up during the great depression. >> i found many parallels watching the movie as with his stories. >> i think many people would have felt that parallel.

scarlet's line, as god as my witness i will never be hungry again works have resonated with deep meaningful ways with the depression audience. what does the film have to say about land? what does the film have to say about land? >> that it's the most important thing and the only thing that can't be taken away from you. i quoted when he is talking to scarlet at the beginning about what tara should mean to her. >> do you mean to tell me, i almost want to do the irish accent. i'm not going to. do you mean to tell me katie scarlet o'hara that land doesn't mean anything to you? that land is the only thing

worth dying for because it's the only thing that lasts. that's right smack in the beginning of the movie. just before the intermission when she falls on her knees before tara and swears, as god as my witness i will never go hungry again. that's very much tied to the location and at the end when rhett leaves her, before another famous line, she says, tara, home, i'll go home. right? so that's going to fix it. that's an incredibly powerful sense. >> i think this adds an element that these people weren't fighting so they could keep black people in subjugation. they wanted their land and their farms. this is where they grew up and had a right to fight for their homes. it makes them feel more look crusaders rather than the alternate view of them which is that they wanted to keep black

people working for them so they could sip their tea on their porches. >> this is a more powerful part of the lost cause myth. okay. what are some of the other ways that we see the time period affecting this particular version of history? so paige points out when the premiere emerges, there's actually actual kinds of confederate flags and veterans show up at the premiere, right? it is very explicitly about a celebration of the confederacy and of confederate heritage, right? there's no question that that's part of it. both hannah and jeremy talk about the portrayal of the north in this. how much do you think this fits into it's being made at the time period that it was?

hannah. >> apparently during the 1930s that's what historians thought of the civil war. it's the war against the northern aggression. it's very portrayed in the film. >> it's this very clear notion that this is the north's fault. >> there's the notion that the south never caught up. i read this book by president of harvard, drew -- he said they say they are still finding bodies in 1992 in the south and civil war. i think she made reference earlier. the north caused the great depression in some people's minds because they crashed the stock market. no one else was doing this sort of nonsense. when you look at the film and the locations that are very hard hit and trying to recover from the civil war. it's a very good parallel. >> right. okay.

what about gender relations. i want to return to this notion of scarlet in terms of how she fits within the gender relations of the time and kendall suggests that scarlet is a ruthless money loving woman who defies traditional gender roles, right? what is the moral of this story? what are women supposed to take from "gone with the wind?" >> the way i saw it was that you had scarlet who was never going to go hungry again so she will do what she can to make it so when she does depend on men she manipulates them like kennedy and runs a business and all of that. she eventually marries for the money. he makes her a deal. that's why she marries them. but then there's melanie who

follows the marrying ashley and has a kid, and supports the cause. everyone loves her. but everyone hates scarlet so you have the ruthless almost mannish scarlet who everyone hates but the melanie who fits into the gender roles and everyone loves her. >> what are people supposed to take from this? mary quinn? >> i thought scarlet was portrayed as a survivor. she survives the war and clearly will live to see another day. melanie dies at the end of the movie. i'm not sure what to take away from it, to be honest. >> it's complicated. fair enough. >> she's very much i'm going manipulate to get whatever i want. but every time that slick rhett guy shows up, she literally swoons with him and begs him to stay. so there is this huge conflict

of you're very independent and try to get what you want or you really need a man in your life which both are very bad things so -- >> paige. >> in portions of the movie you kind of get a sense that you need a man to get what you want because if scarlet didn't marry -- i can't remember his name but the lumber baron, kennedy, then she wouldn't have the money to start her lumber business and get what she wanted with that. >> there's no question it would be very difficult for a single woman or a widow to survive in this environment entirely on their own. anybody else on this particular issue? >> so she was widowed twice in the film? >> yes. >> would people have stopped marring her after a while? >> not rhett. >> well, i think, you know, i don't know of anything -- i mean, you might say there's bad luck. you might say that there's

something going on, but i don't know of anything that would have prevented someone marry ing with her amount of wealth. there would be somebody willing to take a chance. one last thing about why it was so popular in the 30s and 40s. why do they sell a million dollars worth of tickets in two weeks? >> it is this beautiful romantic image of a time that never really was. it's something beautiful, romantic and exciting and they can get away from how much their lives absolutely suck. >> that's why the movie industry does incredibly well during the great depression for exactly that reason. so we are to the point where we talk about what the movie does right.

12 minutes left. >> how does the movie measure up historically speaking when dealing with some of the elite white characters and their lives, better or worse than how they deal with african-americans. >> hard to be worse than the treatment of african-americans, so then better. so laura michael and brooke at the beginning talk about, i think, sort of overall southern white perceptions of race. and brooke makes the argument -- both of them make the argument that this is an accurate depiction of the way whites perceived the way things went or whites perceived the way slavery existed. an accurate portrayal of the south's memory of that time at that time.

so again to that extent, not bad for capturing that particular moment in time. i think laura michael's second sentence is a right to critique that. what about some of the individuals? scarlet's parents, how historically accurate do you think they were. >> he was irish. really irish. new to the south. i just thought it was -- and the irish, especially in the north were seen as being like the lowest of the low, just above african-americans. how likely would it have been for him to own this huge plantation. >> he's too rich but there are a number of scots and irish immigrants who go to the upcountry part of the south, the back country south and are able to get land and in some cases are able to attain slaves. he's too rich.

>> i thought i read somewhere that he had won tara in a bet? >> in the book that's the case. >> that might explain a little bit. >> in the book, he and girl o'hara are fleshed out more. in the book he has to flee ireland because he killed somebody. there's a whole different narrative that goes on that we don't see in the film. what about ellen? we talked about how she tells her husband what to do. what's her role in it? we don't see much of her actually at all in the movie. what's her role? kendall. >> she's pious. she's the caretaker. she's what scarlet is not, motherly. it's kind of -- she could also

be the foil to scarlet. the southern model for womanhood. >> she's the idealized. she is the model that everyone is supposed to follow. if anything, melanie is sort of her spiritual daughter in the film, not scarlet, right? she's everywhere. she takes care of the sick. family. helps out with the ill in the she holds the family in the plantation to a higher level of morality. that's what plantation mistresses are supposed to do. the one problem with this is the most elite women couldn't handle all of the things and spent most of their lives exhausted or fainting and gave up on it. and didn't do it. she may have depicted the ideal but not the reality. i think the general war time experience of the oharas was not

out of the realm of possibility. the way that ellen dies of disease and her death forces scarlet to take on new responsibilities. all these things are believe in the context of the civil war. >> we talk little scarlet 0 r stepping outside of the steppin boundaries of gender roles at the time. it is possible that she could have transformed from southern bell to overpower dominate force. certainly the idea of being forced into business or marriages they wouldn't have seen as ideal before the war, absolutely that happens after the war. we haven't talked about rhett butler other than to talk about how slick he is. intimidating but alluring, i think was another phrase. smooth, right?

how historically accurate is butler's character. >> he's clark gable. >> he does play a good clark gable. but that person, right? i take brooke's point that gable is such a presence that he sort of overpowers the role. i think that's a fair point. >> he's too good to be true. having a character who wasn't super patriotic and wasn't going to join the war for four years, that was a good touch. >> i was mad when he went and joined the war though. why? >> it's one of the few times i actually felt bad for scarlet, right. i didn't see that coming either. right. >> ana. >> it seems not realistic. the south doesn't have any factories how are you supposed to win this. you think it's a gentleman's war but they have more stuff than we do.

i thought he was the realism factor. >> there aren't many southern moderates, but rhett does a good job channeling their concerns and complaints. >> he was also an idealistic male for that time period. scarlet is panicking in the town when the north is coming down. rhett shows up in this white suit with white gloves on with a carriage immediately for her. he shows up. i call him slick because he literally slithers in and disappears for a couple of years. was he an ideal of what a gentleman -- >> he is a romanticized notion. full of honor, right. the problem is especially the post war period, ashley is useless. he suffers from post traumatic stressed and receipt is the

successful new south. the roguish new south. >> how is ashley supposed to be the honorable one? he can't make up his mind between scarlet or melanie, even though technically he is true to melanie. >> he doesn't act on those things and scarlet would clearly happily do so. >> doesn't he kiss her a couple of times. >> he tripped and kissed her. i think those things happen sometimes. no, they don't. he's supposed to be this honorable guy. he's supposed to be, right? part of the movie does sort of put him in an awkward position. where is an honorable guy in the post war south? he doesn't succeed. he doesn't do well. he is put in awkward situations. >> in the beginning we think that he's like -- he's like the bad guy but you know no one

really wants him. now he's forcing his way into scarlet's life and everything. at the end he loved his daughter. i adored this man. he loves scarlet and wants to take care of her. yeah, he has his flaws, but whatever. i think that also goes with someone commented on how this appeals to the women and the romantic side of the movie. obviously, this brings in a lot more people and everything. yeah, the new south and everything, but the cinematic point of view draws in women. >> so where does all of this leave us? we're almost out of time. where does all of this leave us? i think in some ways rhett and

scarlet are potentially the most historically accurate actors. they are appealing figures both of them. in 1939, millions of americans who might think that they would be marching off to war before long as well. scarlet's rather heady mixture of flawed, passion, endurance, determination, experiences did peeled to many people. the story in review of the film in the late 20th century, pointed out one of the earliest reviewers the novel noted it's one of the virtues of ms. mitchell's book that she presence the myth of the lost cause without being taken in by it or asking us to accept it. she makes clear the reasons for

its vitality and its ultimate demise. this is not true of the movie. it overindulges and wallows in lost cause romanticism. she also describes the kkk and she also describe s reconstruction as a never 18ing picnic for lazy and dangerous negroes. there was a land of cavaliers and cotton. here in this pret pretty world gallantry took their last bow. look for it only in books for it is no more than a dream remembered, a civilization gone with the wind. the prologue sets the viewer up for a theme that pervades this film.

a theme of confederate romanticism. a theme of a lost camelot. that theme is the real problem with this movie about the antebellum south. catherine described this as confederate porn. the history for her is largely a back drop for soap opera, the romance between rhett, scarlet and ashley. when the movie is about anything else, it's an idealized portrait of the idealized south as if it were reality. the plantation myth as if it were reality. the plantation myth asserted the old south had been a unique place where they where all white southerners were educated plantation owners romantic and refined were they loved their slaves and their slaves involved them where the north began the war and forced the gallant south to lose, though the south did so

with honor. federally-imposed reconstruction ruined the south forever. this confederate-tinged nostalgia is problematic to the relation in the roles of blacks and whites. in spite of working with the naacp on the script, including the use of the n-word but retaining "darky" in its place, the picture is a product of the pervasive writings of earlier 20th scholars and his students on plantation slavery and african-americans most notably the argument that the south was full of kind masters who had the loyalty of their happy slaves. to be fair, it was a view that dominated the study of american history in the first half of the 20th century. it's a view thoroughly and completely rejected by academics ever since. to be fair, selznick and the

studio were focused on capturing white audiences who had shown great interest in showing plantation epics like "birth of the nation" in the 1900s. the movie is extremely useful for us as a primary force of what whites, immigrants born wanted to believe about slavery and slavery society. it's not surprising that there are no attempts to include the racial struggles of the era and the use of blacks as caricatures or is there any reflections of the attempts by black americans to challenge then. hattie mcdaniel who won her oscar for her role as mammy could not appear the premiere of the film. why not? segregation laws prevented her from being there. in fact part of the movie popularity came from a racialized desire from a race

relations were simpler. that was a time that never existed. except perhaps in the minds of southern white elites. that doesn't minimize the appeal and not just to whites in the south in the 1930s. the movie never addresses the real problems of slavery. or racial reconstruction. it doesn't because it is a movie that wholly takes on the per expectivity of the elite southern whites who lost their world and remembered it more fondly than it actually was. the movie is an homage to the perspective of the confederate apologists. a view of the south that never existed. honly, if it wasn't so popular it wouldn't be a problem. it would occasionally run on turner movie classics or amc or so late at night that it was on in the morning and we could just leave it as a relic of its time. but that's not the case. as long as it continues to be so important to some people, it is going to continue to cause anger

and discomfort in others, including historians of the south, as it suggests new generations to its racist messages. do i think most people who like the movie care what i think. frankly my dear, i doubt they will give a damn. thank you. [ applause ] >> next week a movie with a very different civil war perspective "glory." while congress is on break this month, we are showing programming normally seen weekends here on cspan3. during american history tv. coming up, the history of the civil war and slavery as seen through hollywood depictions. we begin with a panel of history professors and their film review since the 1930s, including

"mandingo" and "12 years a slave." and then an evaluation of the film "lincoln" followed by a review of "gone with the wind." it's been 100 years since the u.s. civil war. over the next few hours, we are going to take a look at hollywood's perception of the issues. now, a panel of history professors traces the evolution of slavery as depicted in films since the 1930s. this hour and a half event is from the society of civil war historians biannual meeting in baltimore. in the past two years, three feature films who focus is american slavery and emancipation have been released to positive and often glowing reviews and all of them were profitable.

"django unchained" made 160 million. "lincoln" made 182 million. "12 years a slave" made $26 million but only cost $26 million to make. it made twice as much as its budget. roughly the same as the two films. this mini upsurge has provoked a lot of debate and discussion about the depictions of slavery and freedom of film and other forms of media, visual media and television and documentary, youtube shorts and different series. we are continuing that conversation today. all of our panelists are fierce scholars of the american south and race and gender, and they have written about, reviewed, taught courses on and consulted for films about slavery.

kathryn clinton has been teaching at queens university belfast since 2006 but will be coming back to the united states this fall to be the professor of u.s. history at the university of texas san antonio. she's the author of numerous books about gender, race and the american civil war including biographies of mary todd lincoln, harriet tubman and mary jupv&or and mary chestnut. professor clinton serves on the advisory committees to the abraham lincoln commission and virginia commission and an advisory board member of civil war history of the ford's theater in washington, d.c. and the "civil war times." she also serves as historical consultant to stephen spielberg's "lincoln." i imagine we will hear about some of that experience today. john inscoe is professor of history and university professor

at the university of georgia. he is the author of "mountain masters slavery and the sectional crisis in western north carolina." "race, war and remembrance" in the appalachian south and co-author of "the heart of the confederate appalachia. and currently editor of the new encyclopedia and georgia historical association. he recently completed a book of "riding the south" and currently working on a book on appalacha in film. >> brenda stevenson is history of professor at ucla where she served as chair of the department of history and the program of african-american studies. authored the award-winning moon graph "life in black and white,"

"family in the community of slave south," and "justice, gender and origins of the l.a. riots" which just won the oah's 2001 rolle prize and "what is slavery" will be published in 2015. she has received awards from the mellon foundation, ford foundation, smithsonian institution and american association of university women. so clearly, a group of slackers. so, we will start with john inscoe and move down the table with the comments from the panels. >> thank you, megan. i think i'm here because i teach a course on slavery, fact, film and fiction. >> we start with "birth of a nation" and go through the 1930s, films like "jezebel" and

these shirley temple epics, "the little colonel" and "gone with the wind." showing clips of these and move to walt disney "song of the south" after the war of 1946. jump up to the modern era with the 1990s with movies about slavery, stephen spielberg's "amastad" and one by oprah winfrey and others and "django unchained" and "12 years a slave." in using these films with students as measures of racial progress or the lack thereof in american popular culture, hollywood in the 1930s was very much entrenched in the lost cause approaches to slavery. slaves are background figures, they are supporting casts, they are often mere comic relief who are gladly serving their masters and mistresses for the most part

are very benign and well-meaning but also firm and authoritative. sometimes frustrated at the ineptitude of their slaves. think of scarlet and prissy for example. not much had changed by 1946 when walt disney took on uncle remis in "song of the south" and is banned or not distributed by walt disney in this country and it generated considerable controversy when it came out. it shows how far or how sensitive race was in the post war era than 1930s. it took until the early '70s before it was banned. it was the early '70s walt disney finally gave in to pressure of its political incorrectness. what i have to use now is a video smuggled to me by a former student of mine who lives in

japan where it is very popular, where you can see it with japanese subtitles and multi culture georgia as well and works beautifully there to look at "song of the south" with japanese subtitles. japanese intrigued with all things southern. "gone with the wind" as well as "song of the south." the subtitles only appear when they sing. they can understand the spoken voice in japan, but once the singing starts, they need the subtitled, so you can get "zippity-do-da" with japanese translations under the song. it is a milestone of sorts. as politically incorrect as it is in many ways, it is also the first film to take a black character and make him the central character around which the plot revolves. it also makes him the most sympathetic and wisest character.

he outsmarts all the white adults in the film. nevertheless he is a contended slave there or ex-slave, as it may be. the film is very ambivalent whether or not it's set before or after the civil war. it is interesting to teach that with students and look at some of the what is it advances the cause as well as prominence of slavery and putting the slave center stage. still, some of the old guard assumptions about slavery it's very comfortable in perpetuating. by the '50s and '60s, hollywood was producing more socially conscious and cutting edge films based on race. things like "pinky," "the defiant ones" in the 1960s "guess who's coming to dinner," "in the heat of the night." it pretty much steered clear of slavery and 19th century race

relations in any significant way. it was a real leap into the modern films. i don't deal with "roots" or that great film of the 1970s, "mandingo" with students. with these modern films from the 1990s, on up until the very recent films we've seen last year, i thought i'd throw out a couple of things that strike me as worthy of discussion. one is the gender dimension here. i thought with this panel, gender might not get much play and i better cover it. [ laughter ] >> it's interesting these other films, it's totally desexualized. you never see slave couples. you never see men and women together in any sort of romantic or household context. they're usually very single asexual figures. you never see them as parents in any sort of role. they're definitely supporting casts in all issues avoided. also relatively non-issues in films like "glory," amistad" and

"lincoln" yet there are other films that make the polite of women in themes or subplots with women. two put slave women front and center. "beloved" and "the journey of august king." "the journey of august king" is set in southern and north carolina and by an author who has done a whole span covering southern appalachian history. set in 1815, very early. deals with the escape of a slave girl who is abused by her owner, who it turns out in the course of the film is also her father. and a yeoman farmer on his way to market, encounters her, be friends her and aids her in her escape. newton plays in it and jason patrick plays august king, the

yeoman who helps her out. there is a strong attraction between them and always remains chaste. this father/owner/lover is determined to get this girl back and goes to no end to mount a manhunt to go after her. i think in many ways, it's the most interesting and in some ways nuanced and sophisticated treatment of class distinctions and class attitude not only towards slaves and slave holders and tremendous resentment at a time and place slave is far more an anomaly than the norm in the mountains of north carolina in that early frontier era. the other is "beloved" adopted from tony morrison's novel. it's a gulf coast story of sorts dealing with the long term psychic stars of slavery, set in 1873, in cincinnati. it is based very much on the abuses that are only seen in brief flashbacks inflicted on the film's heroine, seth, played by oprah winfrey, who when

cornered by slave catchers in cincinnati murdered one of her own children and tried to kill another based on the real life case of market garner in 1856 in cincinnati. then, in this 1873 post emancipation period she continues to be haunted by a version of the infant girl she murdered decades earlier. she's also played by andy newton. it's a clunky film, not a great film but fascinating it was made in a film. i have students read the novel and we watch parts of the film. then, we come to "12 years a slave" and even "django unchained." i think part of what they do so well is feature female characters who take on as much or more abuse as do their male

protagonists. in "django," quentin taran tango, the most macho western spaghetti and racial revenge fantasy. it's over the top as in so many plots and an attempt to rescue "django"'s much tormented slave wife played by kerry washington makes for its most poignant moments and absurdly happy ending as they blow up the plantation and everybody in it and ride off in the sunset. in "12 years," it's the harassment, both physical and mental abuse inflicted on patty by her master and mistress that gets far more attention unfortunately in the film than in the narrative. this is something that's been

expanded on by the screenwriters and as you know earned an academy award for the actress who played patsy. it's one of the few films other than "roots," i can't think of another one that dramatized separating mothers from their children and when saul is sold, the mother and her two children. she is separated from her two children and he becomes the means that tries to comfort this woman and is paralyzed by grief at the loss of those children. it seems to me as central as fugitive as these narratives are giving a slave voice as a primary source on the american slavery, how rare we see escape narratives as part of what has been translated into screen, even solon northrop counted among the great narratives but doesn't involve an escape. his release comes from

machinations and legal dealings and brad pitt sets all this in motion and we never see any of it on-screen so the drama has to come from elsewhere. not much drama in the wagon comes up, papers shown to the owner and the gets in and drives off to freedom. the only instances we get of slave escape are those involving women. one is that in "beloved," a flashback seth in crossing the -- really harrowing scene, crossing the ohio river or getting ready to cross the ohio river she actually gives birth to the baby girl she will subsequently kill when slave catchers are out to get her. the other, the one i mentioned already, the "journey of august king" the entire narrative is driven by this escape, this manhunt, and even so typically

hollywood, you get the name of the male protagonist, "the journey of august king" rather than the slave's name. it's very much her journey as well despite the fact in real life there are far fewer women that escape or escape alone than there were men but we've seen very little of that translated to screen so far. one other observation on the gender front and then i will turn it over to my fellow panelists. i think it's very curious white women really ruled the roost in these early depictions of plantation slavery in the 1930s. think of betty davis in "jez bell," scarlet o'hara and her mother that really are the authority figures of the slaves at tara and beyond. in "song of the south," it's an elderly widow. we have no men on the premise. no slave masters. they're either absent or very

much in the background. in perhaps the most absurd example you have a 7-year-old shirley temple spends much of the littlest rebel bossing around bill bo jangles robinson or other adult slaves students find either appalling or ludicrous or both. it's only in these very recent slaves we have strong masters and we find very cruel sadistic and even demented men that lom. michael fastbender in "12 years a slave" and leonardo dicaprio in "django," echos back to simon degree in "uncle tom's cabin." and solomon dedicated it in his feature. and was impacted by her novel and wonder if the separation of family and abuse of slave women and these very cruel and sadistic owner may have been influence in some part, not to say he didn't experience all this himself, makes you wonder how many of those elements come through and stowe's novel published it the week before. that's just an observation. i don't know what we will make

of this. i'll leave it at that and concern it over to catherine. [ applause ] >> thank you. i want to thank the organizers of this panel for the opportunity to reflect. when i first began on "plantation south 40 years ago, one of my mentors insisted i go to see and accompanied me to see the film "man dingo" in time square in 1975. the year it was a top 10 box office hit. the scholar later pointed out to me a billboard in times square that featured an escort service

that was 1-800-call-tara. certainly, i was made aware of the way films could influence attitudes. that produced in my first book a chapter called "fuco meets mandingo." launching my scholarly career amidst this topic, "mandingo" was appearing in a rich available literature on slavery. mandingo was followed by the publication of "roots" and the 1977 mini series appearing on tv. this year i supervised a thesist a student writing on the impact of "roots" not just the novel and the film and the first minin series but the multiple mini series that came after it, the phenomenon. he was drawn to this topic because of the current spate of

films and media attention on the role of slavery in the american past. appearance of such films as "django" and unchained and "lincoln" and afro british director asante, the film "belle." these films not only raised the profile of american history in slavery but profile of academics and scholars not just to debate their work and students within the campus bubble but reach outside the halls of the academy and discuss this with a larger public audience. this intersects of a time of larger questions, our role in society and crisis and academics to prove they are engaged in public service and dialogue. i certainly became aware of the way academics are being invited to play a role in the reception of film during the past few decades, thinking of campaigns to woo civil war scholars with the screenings of "cold mountain." most recently "the conspirator."

certainly one of the best gambits of all was to include scholars on-screen as extras in the 1983 film "adaptation of killer angels gettysburg." even if we are brought on for advisors we may have crucial contributions to the screening of slavery. many of my colleagues had strident objections to the presentation of blacks in spielberg's "lincoln" or interpretation or omission of the american-african presence. i myself was impressed with the film and know it had limitations and nevertheless overwhelmed by its artistry and impact and in disclosure i did consult on the costumes and met with sally field, who was interested in someone who was more obsessed with mary lincoln than they was. i would have appreciated more complexity of the two african-americans with whom

lincoln had the most constant and certainly significant contact during his years in the white house. i thought the filmmakers did a powerful job in this particular portrait of racial dynamics within the walls of the executive mansion. as i discussed with eric phoner during the interview of civil war times and the length of our discussion was cut to fit the magazine. i remember distinctly defending tony kushner who can well defend himself and talking about the difficulty of a screenwriter squeezing everything in historians don't take into account. i did a very brief stint trying to write for the very small screen, pitching and being hired to write made for tv movies during the 1990s. what i learned is how collaborative the film business is and how challenging and impossible it is to protect the accuracy and authenticity.

eric rightly pointed out we face constraints as writers and cannot complain to critics who take us to task saying we had to leave things out. the contraband scenes that remain on the cutting floor of the lincoln project do not excuse the absence and opportunities for exploring the african-american presence in washington during 1865. i would say the arc of the film's narrative does create complications most historians have never contemplated, confronted, or finessed. how many of us would like our manuscript to go before a focus group. if you think that's what a peer-reviewed manuscript is, you're very naive and i'm sad because it's a much more difficult ordeal. i have participated in round tables and in debates informally, no shouting matches yet. i think all the discussion of spielberg's lincoln contributes to our seeking more and better interpretations of the

complexities of race within our larger culture as well as on-screen. i must confess social media has also had a powerful influence on me when i found myself embedded in a debate over interpreting "django" on a facebook conversation with two scholars. i was enlightened and enraged when scholars commented and debated a lively fashion the merits of tarantino's film. i have written a review that appreciates a 2012 film abraham lincoln vampire hunter taking it at face value. i found the 3d distracting but the narrative was compelling slave holders being portrayed as blood suckers who drained the life out of enslaved persons for their unholy empire struck a chord. of course, i would have a weakness for any film that featured two women, marilyn con and harriet tubman.

but he did motte boast -- not boast as tarantino did of the truth of his slavery. he was clearly fantasizing. on balance i was not taken by tarantino's cinematic film. "django" is a frame by frame freakish homage. the film did include some amazing insights, german slave master, german speaking concubine. the powerful drive of couples to reunite despite obstacles. i could go on and on but these would be measured against the fan as it ma gor call and introduced into the antebellum landscape. this landscape as megan pointed out had a 425 million worldwide box office compared to julie

dash's more compelling 1991 portrait, "daughters in the dust" which did $1.6 million in sales. i don't think we really think about things in terms of box office but we need to think of the way multiplex affects things in historic imagination and begun to dominate culture. for many of us sitting this room, the topic of slavery has been part of our work for decades. has any imagination had the film engagement of "12 years a slave," not for those in everyday life. and the lincoln studies i affectionately dubbed lincolnistas and even we were taken by surprise by the mass outpour following danielday-lewis' portrayal of the 16th president. i have endlessly debated the opening scene in "lincoln," which i thought was a great slight of cinematic hand. i'm a fan of the anachronistic

moment when david o'yellow, a fantastic afro-british actor, who appears. as corporal ira clark and repeats lincoln's words back to him from the gettysburg address after an exchange lincoln had with a black soldier the year before. from the pages of the "new york times" to civil war history. accuracy, authenticity, value and damage over african-american issues has been widely discussed. the blogosphere has been erupting with praise and commentary concerning solomon northrop's story but none outshow cased than yango more than steve mcqueen. this is pay back when artist carol walker tried to inject

a note of disdense to the overwhelming interpretation of northrup as hero trying to introduce patsy's perspective she was crowded out and cut off by her male co-interviewees. co-interviewees. the actress playing patsy not only won an oscar for her performance, she has won a showcase to project a platform for discussing african-american women in the culture. the black women and hollywood awards ceremony on youtube offers a wide examination of her talents and politics. in a recent review of the film, "belle," i commented on a scene in which the actor playing a lead 18th century mixed race woman raised in the home of lord somerset in the english countryside stares into the mirror rubbing her face as if it might scour her color away. an image which stays with the viewer long after the happy ending is contrived. it certainly echoes nyong'o's

speech and indeed the voices of countless african-american girls and women. this week we mourn the loss of ruby dee, activist, someone who recognized the limitations and stereotypes for african-american actors, particularly women. she spent a lifetime struggling against boundaries. looking at her emblematic career, she had a luminous role in the 1961 film "raisin in the sun," a remarkable performance in the mini series "roots," and she herself commented on the limitations on her during her five-decade career, only nominated for an oscar in 2008 for ridley scott's "american gangster." i remember her interpretation on one of the slave narratives she was one of the dozen actors who contributed to the 2003 documentary "unchained

memories." we can learn from her half century of her craft, you contribute and disseminate and struggle with the media to put complex interpretations and may see a future generation reap rewards and might even see honoring for those who came before you and yourself. yesterday's opening plenary discussed the beguilement of archives. many of us are equally beguiled by the dark cinema, just as seth is a beguiled optimist. i'm proclaiming myself as a cinematic pessimist. [ laughter ] i've been teaching on icons of late moving my classroom from northern ireland to texas. and i've been struck how students of american history, particularly students abroad look to films to help them understand the american past. rather than disputing this, i think it's better to interrogate these tales, these myths, these legends.

scholars increasingly understand that history and memory are interlocking circuits of dissemination. . many have worked so long in archives and classroom to try and convey time and place. we have at our disposal incredible films and performances which speak powerfully. screen and interpretations of slavery like so many aspects of america's past will continue to blossom with or without the academy. those committed to reaching a wider audience have to make ourselves accessible, whatever the cost despite reservations and continue to pass the popcorn as well as judgment. thank you. [ applause ] >> sorry i threw that vampire at you. >> that's interesting. we'll talk about that later. good afternoon. my opening remarks focus

principally on the contribution to "12 years a slave" in relationship to other films, film about slavery and also particularly about his portrayal of women in the film. steve mcqueen's significant ruh$is oscar winning "12 years a slave is not due to a leap forward in depictions of a slave's life dramatically or characterization. his version of northrop's story is not notable because it's the first to render its audience and unsympathetic view of america's most notorious if not peculiar institution from the perch of a black person's throne into its harrowing deaths. that's seen in "roots" and in "onstad." neither is "12 years a slave"

going to be a classic because of the heart-wrenching depiction of patsy, the brutalized sex slave of her master. these characterizations have been graphically demonstrated in "beloved" and "roots." likewise, crucial character elements of "12 years a slave's" desperate ex-concubine eliza and her counterimage are both found in diane carroll's "the courage to love." while many were stunned to view the accurate portrayal of frustration, violence, and cruelty of slave mistresses, this reality was more than adequately rendered by susan george as blanch maxwell in the 1975 "mandingo." moreover solomon himself in mcqueen's portrayal as a striking image of black manhood is a worthy protagonist.

so, too, were others. all of these important elements of african and african-american slave life have been part of tv and big screen movies since at least the 1970s. we hear from john earlier, of course. still, steve mcqueen's "12 years a slave" is a major contribution because it probably is the first hollywood production to incorporate some version of all of these characters and scenarios of southern u.s. slavery in one film. and of course we haven't even discussed the film that come from other -- you know, depict slavery in other parts of the atlantic world. it does so unflinchingly stamping the institutions and its benefactors with a savage violent brutality, psychological, physical, and sexual that leaves no room for excuses, apologies, or civilized comprehension. "12 years a slave" is a master work, stunning cinematography

and cast and gut-wrenching story moving and suspenseful and raging and eventually uplifting. still, it is a flawed and incomplete master work. this should come as no surprise. how could one film view a 250-year-old institution involving millions of persons and different cultural backgrounds to say nothing of racial and gender differences who worked and resided in an ever expanding landscape that encompassed hundreds of thousands of miles. john ridley and steve mcqueen's predictable and understandable difficulty in capturing in one film the staggering array of elements that comprise sudden slave life, however, is not the only problem that undermines the film's effectiveness as a representation of a realistic version of slavery. the screenwriter, john ritter, who also won an oscar and the

intricacies of the institution and those touched by it left tale-tale signs not only portrayals or lack of them of a slave community, slave resistance and slave labor and diverse rows of slave women but inaccurate contextization and betrayal of lives of the free people of color and solomon northrop's of the flee north and looking at a farmer that was not very wealthy, that is epps. as a result, the film's viewing audience is left to believe mistakenly that the slaves on various plantations and farms which solomon lived did not have close ties to one another or function as communal units and slave resistance was rare an experience con finds to the actions of men and free men in the anti-bellum were indeed free and equal to their white

neighbors. this is a dramatically told biography that lacks the nuance story development and later characterization this important first account of slavery demands. catherine, you have served as a consultant for film and i want you to know they did not use a historical consultant on that film at all. so, yes, i will slam him. solomon northrop's autobiography has a rich pallet of southern slave woman hood. how well does steve mcqueen capture solomon's "12 years a slave." it turned out eliza, a concubine epitomizes a lost so many slave

women and young endure through sale. eliza had believed her sexual relationship with her owner would protect her and her family since he had promised to free all of them. instead, she and her children are sold separately and she is never able to see them again. eliza mourned her loss bitterly through the saga as well as steve mcqueen's film adaptation. in the movie version eliza becomes a symbol of the devastating impact slavery had on social life and identity and deploys eliza's defeat that she rejects. eliza is utterly vanquished unable to move past her loss to survive long enough for the hopeful day of freedom solomon is determined to have despite the hardships he has to endure. the black bond of woman hood has been captured repeatedly. "uncle tom's cabin," and many

others, for example frame fictionalized and docudrama depictions of personal devastation. screenwriters and directors have portrayed heart wrenching scenes, like the loss of kizi, for example and they convey to the audience the psychological institution and scenes of sadistic whippings such as in "roots" and the whipping to death of the captured slave woman whose baby has to be delivered postmortem. the only women in the post "roots" era that rivals the beleaguered slave mother is a sexualized slave woman

particularly the slave concubine in can be seen in characters of kizzy and ruth and betsy "in the courage to love." betty and sally in the film, sally hemmings, "an american scandal" and a 1975 film "mandingo" and "queen." noting the concubi ne is an antagonist producing multiple image of enslaved woman hood. northrop in insisted centralizing the slave woman as victim and mcqueen does not. in the latest hollywood movies that have taken on african-american slavery, the concubine not surprisingly remains the most important black female character. consider the roles are roles of the films. in "lincoln," the concubine of

famed abolitionist thaddeus stevens and another once a concubine are the only two women of characters. likewise, in quentin tarantino's blockbuster "django unchained" are either concubines or prostitutes or on their way to being. while steve mcqueen's story of enslaved women has recovery from tarantino's, he adopts his favorite hollywood trobe of a black woman bound to powerful white men in "12 years a slave" and as such, eliza is not the only con cu been in in -- concubine. all the enslaved wom are concubi

concubines. certainly, there is some merit in the inclusion of some of these women's stories in any realistic film about slavery. most enslaved women were sexually harassed and/or abused yet this abuse did not all define their lives. this point is one in which mcqueen fails to make for in this film he offers no counter or additional images of women's lives nor multi-dimensional views of the women as slaves. north northrop realized they often

succeeded to life beyond the lash and grasp of masters and mistresses. solomon emphasizes more, their amazing labor capacity and their resistant strategies. why doesn't mcqueen? thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you so much. now, we have a little bit of time, i think, if you all would like to discuss amongst yourselves or respond to elements of each other's comments. >> i didn't like "lincoln the vampire slave," because while it does suggest slaveholders are blood sucking, you know, it also only portrays slaves as vampire meat. there is nothing else that they do, they just are kind of goofy and they hang around and they drag around in a dance and they don't know they're about to be devoured.

that's all they're -- that's them. i thought that that was ridiculous. even more ridiculous than anything, i think, is that they were sort of just, you know, going into the plantation home and having a bell that ends up in them being sucked to death. so -- [ laughter ] >> sorry. >> not a happy -- >> my husband loved it, though, i have to say. my husband absolutely loved it and i absolutely hated it. >> there you go. i still think it's -- i know for a fact that tony krushner was very crushed to have this film come out the year before his film. he wanted to be able to say his film was the first film in 40 years to look at lincoln. at the same time, i think if you really believe "abraham lincoln vampire hunter" was a film about lincoln, instead i see it as a film about legends and

fantasies. this young eastern european director using the trope of american history. once in a while he hit something i found really enjoyable. most of the time i felt i was being hit by the whip in the 3d and didn't. part of it is that even a rambling vampire hunter got people debating and discussing. so much of the time, it gives us an opportunity. that npr moment they will call you up and say, is it accurate or inaccurate? of course, movies aren't meant to be accurate. is it authentic -- i'm glad you brought up steve mcqueen. if the director projects a certain vision for his film and wants to defend it, then i think we often can debate it. i'll be honest, my greatest concern with steve mcqueen is i was living in the uk and i kept hearing him on interviews

repeatedly before the film came out. he would say, direct quote, it's a film about love. >> right. >> i was sort of okay with that until i listened to the rest of the interview. it wasn't a film about -- northrop, he claimed it was about epps and patsy. >> right. >> i went, whoo whoo, let's have a time out. i don't think i'm addressing that as a scholar, addressing that as a feminist. therefore, i also can say there have been -- he also said, by the way, he thought the role of the planner, played by benedict cumber -- he was the most evil character and the evil argument. however, both of those things allow uses a scholars or us as commentate ors to jump in and critique.

anything that allows that kind of ability, thank you, filmmakers for being so -- so fantastic in your claims. so we can jump on and certainly make claims that these aren't good. you, for example, plotted there are times when a lot of films came out and when no films came out. i will ask you, do you think a bad film therefore should not 1u have been made? >> yes, i do. i do. >> that's fine. you're not -- you're from l.a. how can you think that? >> that's how i think that. >> that's a business town. >> steve mcqueen is a very interesting person. he does a couple of things i find very annoying. one of them is that he really denies the fact that people have done any film on slavery before. he says repeatedly and i saw him at an event for bet when the film first came out at their premiere on the panel with all of the actors and writer and he just would say repeatedly, this is the first time a film like

this has ever been made and the first time we've looked at slavery. i'm like what happened to all the others? he would completely deny anyone had ever done any film worth while seeing until this film first and foremost. secondly he would repeatedly say no one except for someone from britain could do this film so therefore a black woman not born in the united states could play patsy which i think is absolutely ridiculous as well. then thirdly, he would always, because he didn't do his research and because he did not have an historian work with him he would say repeatedly the story was a love story. stop. no. it was not. the guy was crazy. he was brutal. he was a frontier, on the frontier working really hard trying to, working his slaves really hard trying to make it. and so he was very sadistic. this doesn't have anything to do

with love. i think he really flipped back the time in terms of looking at these relationships across the racial line when he sees it himself as a love relationship although, thankfully, it doesn't come across that way in the film. you know? >> there was, discovering the women in slavery had a piece about mirra, a woman who was tortured. >> exactly. >> in north carolina. >> we all have historical examples but part of it is when you put a film together. i take your point but i would also like to say that i did feel that his film was an artistic achievement. >> i did, too. >> his film was amazing. i will be showing it to students. >> i will be, too. >> at the same time when you mentioned the box office issue megan i found so many of my friends saying can i go see this? will it upset me too much? i said, yes.

you will be upset. yes, you must go to see it. in a way i thought it was interesting that people were questioning when they're going to go see, oh, i don't know, arnold and people like that, you know, in other words i will say also on jango that i thought it was quite interesting in terms of male sides that samuel jackson did the most amazing job, who knew it was him when you first saw the film yet he was never singled out or featured because of the political incorrectness he played. so the politics of jango. quentin tarrant inoue said there was no film that dealt with slavery as he did and he particularly went after "roots" which was an interesting issue. he was in a way saying that was, you know, a soap opera. now i'm doing the real thing.

but all of these i think allow us to debate it not in terms of film but in terms of popular perception. >> well, i don't think "jango" is about slavery. it's a fantasy. it's a fantasy. i couldn't find one grain of reality in that film that dealt with slavery at all. i looked at it and i laughed at it. i thought it was really funny. you know, and interesting. the costumes were nice. but for me it was just not a film about slavery at all. i know quentin tarantino was upset because of what historians wrote about that and said it wasn't about slavery and he seemed to be upset when steve mcqueen's film won for best picture and people applauded it as this great film. i do think as i said in my comments that it's a master work. without a doubt it's an incredible film and achievement. you know, but there are some

things, nothing is perfect and so i look at particularly the way in which he deals with women because in solomon's narrative, it's very clear in which the way that patsy is framed, depicted. he talks -- he doesn't mention love. love is not part of it. it's not what he's talking about. he is talking about a man who owns her body, wants to own her soul. and feels it's his right to do so and acts accordingly. but i was really interested in the early films that you talked about, john. because i really had forgotten about them. i teach -- well some of them -- because i teach a class on slave narrative, novel and film. i looked at the early "uncle tom's cabin" for example. and some of the other ones. but i had forgotten shirley temple. you know? i love shirley temple. the shirley temple version. i had seen "song of the south" and i saw it as a child in the south growing up. so it was really cool to hear and i am going to include those when i teach in the fall now.

it was fantastic. >> it's also interesting to me that they raise no hackles, nobody. we think of the lost cause, nostalgia, sentiment for slavery as being a southern thing. it was an american thing. >> right. >> hollywood had no qualms about making them. nobody had any qualms about seeing them and treating them as classics. and making them box office hits. of course there was some controversy with both "birth of a nation" and "gone with the wind" but it was naacp, relatively minor, a drop in the bucket compared to the great acclaim and popularity. that they enjoyed for multiple replays over the years. that tells us something. >> it does. >> because we keep doing "uncle tom's cabin" i think at least three times, as a film probably but i think post it will be interesting to see now to see uncle tom's cabin done again. it would. >> as you say, he does dedicate

his book to harry beecher stowe, solomon northrup, and then harriet beecher stowe in which she defends her book and document that comes the year after, she sites him as saying this is the red river in louisiana that i'm speaking about so there is a kind of connective tissues between the two of them. >> another thing "12 years a slave" does, we see slaves working. >> we do. >> pictured in the cotton fields and the sugar -- >> you've got to see it. does anybody in the audience know that film? it's really a fabulous film. it wasn't a big box office film at all. but it is magnificent. >> they are harvesting cotton in april in the opening scenes of "gone with the wind." so historical inaccuracy.

>> much more cinematic. >> when you look and see that he only has eight slaves including solomon northrup then you realize how in some ways the film is just a little off in terms of it and then his house is on the national registry. >> it's in louisiana. >> it is -- i can't pronounce it correctly. it is in that parish but it is a small, tin roof house, you know, so we lose this sense of why epps is really pushing his slaves so hard because he is on the frontier, you know, on this sugar cotton frontier. he's got a few slaves only. his first home is actually owned by his wife's uncle and so he's a man on the make in other words, you know, he's that yoman farmer trying to break out and

become a planter. that's a really interesting part of a story that we miss because we see cumberbotch and he is clearly a planter and has everything. so people say therefore he is kind and gentle and whatever. we miss out this guy who we just see as a crazy person is also someone who is pushing everyone beyond recognition of what is humanity to produce all of this cotton so he can then move up to where cumberbotch is. >> you rarely see small slave holders. >> you do. >> i think journey -- >> i didn't know that film. i'm definitely going to see that. >> you can also see the skin game. make sure you see the correct version because if your students look up the french one it will

not work well in discussions. >> i'm not losing tenure over that. >> right. >> it seems this would be a good time to turn to the audience for questions. if you have a question, please raise your hand. yes, jeremy? stand up. here comes the mike. >> jeremy neely missouri state university. to pick up on your comment about small slave holders one film i haven't heard mentioned yet is "right with the devil" the 1999 film which i think one of the most interesting characters is holt whom the pro confederate guerrillas with william contrell used as a spy in various capacities. >> i haven't seen that film but i'll go see it next week. ride with the devil? >> teaching it i think as i've taught it in northern ireland, they love it because it is about ethnicity and religion.

and i've seen and also it is about the, why one is fighting the war beyond slavery. >> the missouri kansas frontier. >> and you have the ex-slave who is with his master on, you know, on the battle front in "hiding guerrilla" and it is a very complicated, interesting tale. he is telling it with his version of the war which is powerful. we can come up with 20 more -- the beguiled, wonderful clint eastwood film. but with african-american women, white women, more women than men. like it should be. there aren't enough parts or roles for women but i think, and you're mentioning for example "ride with the devil" i'm always refrakting through looking at the roles of women and i thought jewel was a particularly weak

character, the actress who played -- i am just saying that often i think the -- as looking at film they're often just looking, here we want a big screen. we want the kids to come in. i've written about bell as being a bosom movie that you're trying to get heaving bosoms and get young teenagers in to see austin, mixed race austin. >> you should see "pride and prejudice" with keira knightley, and you should see belle. >> but these filmmakers are much like the publishers we encounter today. what is the state of the business? what's its future? it's good for us to be critical. but a making period is very expensive. filmmakers don't like it, television doesn't like it, so if someone comes to you and

says, we want to do a reality show set in an antebellum southern scene. you might, like i have, said, great. like anything, it's the debate and discussion out there. my sons came up with the idea a few years ago i should take "plantation mistress" to hollywood and say, real housewives of the old south. >> you should. >> but "the patriot," at the same time, you're sitting there and these little freshmen come in, and why are you here, what's your interest? and they saw the film. part of it is to get people % excited about the past even if c

television. and i'm thinking particularly of kind of the current trend for, like, contemporary westerns, so "hell on wheels" and "copper," both which are shows i like and they should keep being made. also "deadwood." former slaves appear, not until

the third season. but i wonder why television doesn't lend itself since we're in this renaissance of american tv with all the money and attention going there. >> you know, the hatfields and mccoys was the biggest hit and made a lot of money which did well commercially. you know, i take your point. i just remember watching all those made-for-tv movies, many of them dealing with the south. "freedom road" with mohammad ali written by howard fast. a lot was made during -- >> the autobiography of jane pitman. >> during the '70s, you did have a lot of these films and the portraits of the period i blmó thought were wrenching and amazing. i remember seeing a lynching on a small screen and thinking, this is an amazing moment. at the same time, i think that ç

when i was in the 1990s and i was often pitching stories and ideas, and i remember very distinctly, which shocked me so much, being told a story that we were trying to put across was too dangerous for television because it was black and white, and it wasn't a concubine. you could have a concubine, but anything might upset fellow advertisers. so in some ways i think television is a medium that responds so commercially and waits for -- you know, it's like something happens in film and five to ten years later, it becomes okay. and i'm thinking of this. i've been out of the country for almost ten years and i'm noticing it in the language on television, what is now acceptable.

wait, they can say that on tv? you know, that kind of thing. >> on the other hand, it used to be that to get anything made with black characters, historically prominent characters, was done on television. i'm thinking of maya angelou in not a feature film. back in the '80s i guess tv was a backup where you could afford to do things like that. "roots" of course. >> the last, i guess, the last episode of the first series of "roots" still had more viewership than any other miniseries period in u.s. television history. and so that was really the moment. you also have to think about the social, the time in which it was done. it was right after the civil rights movement and people wanted to know more about african-american history. they wanted more ability to talk in a way they didn't have to go

and read ten books or whatever. so people would look at those film and it was really a moment, as was the history itself, in which there was a lot of discourse across the racial divide, you know. and everyone was talking about various things. so now we have a time -- it's very odd in terms of the way it is represented on television. we can have something like "scandals" for example but then we can't necessarily have a film about nat turner. you know. and so it's really interesting that you could have this black woman in the white house who inr many ways is running the white house, the dream of sally hemmings, but you can't have, you know, you can't have a film about nat turner -- on the small screen again for pbs.

we're in this kind of odd place politically i think and socially with regard to race that i wouldn't know whether the figures you gave about the large screen now the small screen producers want to take a chance doing those kind of films. because often times the small screen takes the cue from the large screen. it would be interesting to see. >> and i know they were going to make a mini series about the children of pride which was derailed by "roots". "gone with the wind" was shown for the first time on television in the fall of 1976. in november. not on thanksgiving weekend but another weekend. and its two showings are still in the top ten of broadcast audiences. but "roots," the last episode, was higher. i think in terms of the dialogue and popular culture you had "gone with the wind" rearing up

again as the cultural icon and "roots" coming along and replacing it and interestingly the children of pride scuttles back into -- also when are we going to get the many more complex stories to tell both sides so we don't have the evil master. >> right. >> and as we know all the mistresses were evil because we watch all these films and we see their roles and there isn't any portrait that's not stereotyped. that's why mandingo has such continuing power because it is taking "gone with the wind" and turning it inside out and making it a grand saga. i did see more hands. >> i have to go back and see "mandingo." i haven't seen it since the '70s. oh, my gosh. how did that get on television? >> we get letters from parents about the tuition they pay.

>> i know that we're all interested as scholars that we want film makers to be interested in us but i have a hunch the film makers are in fact really interested. the reason they want you as a consultant is they actually want that to be authentic and real. and so when i watch a lot of these films i'm struck by did they have a kind of strange engagement but it is often a little bit off. when i watch a film it feels like a damage argument to me. when i watch "jango," i feel like okay. agency. this is agency. not what i meant. but in some kind of strange way there is something going on in the popular culture that kind of busted open a lot of the way

we've written history. and it is about breaking up the kind of cannon where you had two traditions, and it came to me in james mcbride's novel where he portrays fredrik douglas as a buffoon. and i thought -- so i think part of when we watch these things, we feel like they are just busting a cannon open. and in some ways maybe that is a good thing, but there's something about it is really disturbing. i wanted to hear people talk about do you feel like -- how does it relate to the way we write history? >> it is interesting you mentioned mcbride's novel. you all know good lord bird that within the national book award this year. i haven't taught it yet but i have a number of former students

reading it and getting in touch saying it is one that ought to be taught. it's been optioned. apparently it's being made into a film. might be the next film on slavery. it's a 12-year-old boy disguised as a girl taken in by john brown in kansas and follows him all the way through. we see harper's ferry and meetings with douglass through the eyes of this 12-year-old the eyes of this 12-year-old boy will smith's son is going to play it on the screen, so it is going to get done. it is interesting. what they choose to option, take a fictional book and sort of a parody, almost looks like more in the line of "jango" more than "12 years a slave." interesting to see what they'll do with john brown on film. >> i hate to disagree with you, anthony, but i think if we brought filmmakers in to hear our panels to hear people talk and promote their views and

scholarship, don't you think there's a lot of disagreement among people of interpretations? i am taking this seriously. when the filmmakers call you, they don't want the complexity, the historiography and will reject the scholar who doesn't give them what they want. >> that's exactly right. >> it strikes me, in other words they are engaging in some way. just on their own terms. >> you know, someone like steve mcqueen has an idea and he found this book. he had an idea. his wife found him the book and he put it all together and that is the narrative and the story and he has his ideas and scenes. you know, i was very struck struck powerfully by spielberg having scenes in his mind telling the historians what he saw. was it possible? could it be? what was the weather at the gettysburg address? could the flag have been flying? and then, you know, the several hundred-page screenplay gets shrunk down to a few months.

so there are ways. they're saying, can mary lincoln wear this? can she wear that? well, she was actually wearing black. she was in mourning. but the larger authenticity of the film was to portray her as a vain shopaholic, to portray her as someone difficult. so she wasn't accurate. if i had been someone who said, no. she must wear the black, otherwise it's inaccurate, you know, i think it would have -- i'm just trying to give you really concrete examples. i don't think it is quite so mean-spirited they don't want to hear it, but i am saying i found most people doing period pieces have their ideas in mind, have their scripts ready for the stamp of approval. can you go through and tick the three things we will have to eliminate or change?

you know, it depends, of course. many other filmmakers, as i said, especially documentarians are amazing the way they absorb and they consider they are taking a course. and i am very grateful someone like tony did read so widely and was able to bring lincoln to life through words that i felt like i was listening in to the people who i knew, but he was interpreting them in ways i didn't know. and i think that is a sign of a gift most of us don't have in our writing, and we should try to admire these moments, these scenes at the beginning of "12 years a slave" the opening scene. you know, i've just saying i've had more conversations with people about it and that someone could make a film that so powerfully opens, about gender, about race, about slavery, and yet who is going to tell you what it's about? you know, what i'm trying to get

at is i think that can be the power of a work of art. and sometimes i think it is very deliberate to not have it reflect good historical practice. but to be more complex and open-ended and maybe at times just plain wrong. like in "glory" when you have someone riding down the film slashing at watermelons. really? in massachusetts in april? once again, at the same time, the slicing of the watermelons by this leader of african-american troops has a larger meaning. sometimes we have to let these people have their fantasies, except for the vampires. >> it's a really excellent question because i think the filmmakers i've met and the ones who write the scripts are really smart people.