1. BOAN vs. GWTW vs. Glory:
Spoiler – Glory Wins
Lynda Balloni
HIST 379: The Civil War & Popular Culture
May 13, 2015

2. “Hollywood has often done rewrites of history quickly and with little or no regard for the
actual story (…). Film has always been casual in its presentation of history. Driven by
commercial considerations, the need for wide audience appeal, producers consistently distorted
and sanitized the past.”[1]
In the above quotation, Bruce Chadwick observes the film industry’s willingness to alter
the truth in order to maximize their profits, in general, but he also argues that movies set in the
Civil War era take this tendency to a level that has yet to be matched by films pertaining to any
other period. American audiences have a unique fascination with the Civil War that filmmakers
have used to their own advantage through their personal monetary gain, of course, and by
permeating American consumerist culture with their own biased view of history. Historical
accuracy in most Civil War films is seriously lacking, particularly regarding the issues of slavery
and race relations. Since the dawn of feature-length films in 1906[2], movies about the Civil
War have painted a distorted picture of the past, particularly in the South, where an illusion of
slavery as a friendly, mutualistic relationship and rich, leisurely Southerners strolling about their
plantations without a care in the world started manifesting itself on the big screen. Films, like all
cultural vessels, will always be a product of their time and a reflection of their creators’ biases
and restrictions; however, when examining Civil War films specifically through the lenses of
accuracy in historical memory and race relations, Birth of A Nation and Gone with the Wind are
two of the most harmful movies to our country’s memory and Glory is one of few movies set in
this period that provides hope for a more educated public in the future.

3. Before examining the inaccuracies that were presented in Birth of a Nation and Gone
with the Wind, it is pertinent to note the impact that these movies had on the American
public. Both films are in the top five box office successes (using inflation adjusted dollars) of all
time.[3] In inflation adjusted dollars, Birth of a Nation had made $460.9 million domestically as
of 2013.[4] Gone with the Wind earned over $60 million (~$1 billion, inflation adjusted). By
1945, six years after the movie premiered, approximately 120 million Americans (roughly the
same number of adults living in the United States at the time) had seen the film. It was so
popular that for the first time, movie theaters allowed more than one showing of a film at once, it
ran for two straight years in Atlanta and four years at a theater in London, and some movie
theaters even doubled the cost of tickets for GWTW.[5] Now, the permeation of these movies
throughout American society is not benign because they both put forth historical distortions that
have tainted the memory of the Civil War and created lasting implications against the view of
African Americans to this day. Neither BOAN nor GWTW were presented as completely
fictional works; they claimed that even if a specific scene may not have taken place exactly as it
happens in the movie, the historical implications behind the event are all true (but this is not
really the case). A few of these falsehoods that Chadwick mentions include: the portrayal of all
Confederate soldiers as heroic warriors (as opposed to deserters or Union sympathizers),
ignorance of the atrocities of slavery, a “saintly” picture of President Lincoln, the
characterization of slaves as always being happy and loyal (but also foolish and incompetent),
the portrayal of Southern women as frail and girly, the portrayal of Southerners in general as all
being wealthy owners of land and slaves, and a “Reunionist” ending to top it all off – these films
almost always end with a scene symbolizing reconciliation of the Union by the reintegration of
Northerners and Southerners.[6] Generally speaking, none of these assumptions are accurate,

4. but that fact could not stop the power of these films in infiltrating Americans’ historical memory
of the Civil War and view of race for decades after their release.
“We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or
obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we
may illuminate the bright side of virtue - the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the
written word - the art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.”[7]
As previously stated, the one of the reasons movies like Birth of a Nation were so
harmful to society is that they do not present themselves as works of fiction, but as historically
accurate, nonfiction, factual, and true films. The opening sequence to BOAN begins with a scene
where “Gus, [a former slave] heavy beads of sweat on his forehead, hands extended to grab her
[a pretty, white, Southern girl], is a sadistic creature coming out of the rocks to seize carnal
satisfaction. Unwilling to submit to a black man, with death the only option, Flora
leaps.”[8] The plot of Birth of a Nation is choppy, jumping back and forth between pre-and
post-slavery America to emphasize the points that everything in the South was fine before the
War and it was the abolitionist troublemakers who caused all of their problems, black people
were happier and safer under the institution of slavery, the South never stood a chance in the war
against the better-equipped North, and Reconstruction brought a radical change to the function of
the governing bodies in the United States, which were essentially taken over by newly freed
blacks and abolitionists. None of these assumptions, which all play up the popular rhetoric that
the Civil War was a “Lost Cause” for the South from its beginning since the North had better

5. access to weaponry, a more developed infrastructure, and a higher population. These myths all
manifested into characters in BOAN that developed into common caricatures that became a
central aspect of Civil War films: the selfish, trouble-making Northerner, the innocent and
beautiful young Southern belle, her kind and generous slave-owning father, and of course the
incredibly offensive black caricatures of Mammy (the hardworking, obedient but sassy black
women) and Jim Crow (the ignorant and potentially dangerous fool of a black
man). Currently, Birth of a Nation is almost universally recognized as being an atrociously
inaccurate portrayal of this period in American history, but despite all of its criticisms, the ideas
about race and historical memory put forth by this film are still visible in American society and
culture today.
“With three hours and fifty-two minutes of celluloid, Gone with the Wind helped to quash
seven decades of Northern attacks and ridicule of the South that had forced, and kept Southerners
on the defensive. (…) It transformed Southerners into considerate landed gentry who were kind
to blacks, prayed at meals, read great books and helped give America its rich, agrarian way of
life. (…) [It] seemed to absolve whites in the 1930s of guilt for their insistence on white
supremacy.”[9]
Gone with the Wind, the book and the film, has been scrutinized for its historical
inaccuracies and offensive depiction of black people since its release. However, a defense
of GWTW, spearheaded by its author, Margaret Mitchell, has existed since its publication and
still holds up today in the eyes of some historians. Mitchell always defended her own research,

6. claiming that she checked “thousands of historical statements [she cited] for accuracy”[10], and
her sympathizers argue that although the scenes presented as being factual are mostly not correct
and even the overarching idea behind the film (the popular “Lost Cause” narrative) is not true,
“the struggles of North and South in the movie are struggles of the American people anywhere
and anytime.”[11] … Well, for now it is probably for the best to ignore the implications of that
statement and how the issues faced by former slave owners during the Reconstruction period can
be compared to the horrors their former slaves had to endure, but it is an important point to
make. … The reasons why Gone with the Wind was so successful are pretty simple: a lot of
money was put into this movie, it had a killer cast, it was put out around the end of the Great
Depression when people were finally willing to spend a little extra money, and it used its
narrative of the struggle of Southern whites as a tool to sympathize with the American audience
as it emerged from the Depression. It was easy for Americans to relate to the issues being
handled by Scarlett and her family since so many families were also scraping to get
by. Additionally, it continued the trend of using caricatures rather than characters, at least in
the case of the representation of black people in the film. The “Mammy” character had already
existed in Hollywood for decades, but Gone with the Wind outdid itself in its use of this
technique by casting Hattie MacDaniel for the role. She played the character of Mammy (in this
instance, she was named Priscilla) so well that not only did she win the Oscar for her
performance, but “Malcom X said that of all the abuses of blacks in the film, the depiction of
Prissy hit him the most.”[12] She was hardworking, loyal, and feisty, but also weak-willed and
unintelligent when compared with the white characters in the film - the exact stereotypes that
people the likes of Malcolm X dedicated part of their lives to breaking down.

7. Despite all of Gone with the Wind’s glaring issues as a historical document, some people
still defend it, particularly in comparison to Birth of a Nation. GWTW (the movie) alluded to the
role of the Ku Klux Klan as a positive force in the South during Reconstruction, but never
actually stated outright that the KKK was doing positive work. BOAN, on the other hand,
explicitly depicts the KKK as a group of men who were doing something necessary and good for
society…pretty terrifying that people ever bought this (and some still do). The downplay of the
KKK in GWTW may have actually been more harmful that its depiction in BOAN, since
“eliminating the Klan removed vigilantism from Southern makeup and undercut any thoughts
that Southerners, or anybody, should go outside the law for justice.”[13] One problem that
faced Gone with the Wind’s main critics was the timing of the movie’s release – GWTW came
out amidst the fight for integration of black actors into films, and since the movie actually
employed black people (and then humiliated them through their roles), organizations like the
NAACP had trouble publicly condemning the film. Gone with the Wind had two things all
Hollywood movies need to succeed: a big budget and good timing with its release, so even with
all of its faults, it was virtually unstoppable once it hit the American audience.
“Glory was “Made to commemorate, (and cash in on,) the 125th anniversary of the war, to
give Americans a realistic look at black soldiers and the psychological complexities of their lives
in the Civil War.”[14]
Much like the creators of Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind, everyone involved in
the making of Glory had an agenda. Ed Zwyck, the director, and Freddie Fields, the producer,

8. wanted to make a movie that told a historically accurate but fictionalized account of black
soldiers’ experience during the Civil War. Supposedly Fields got the inspiration for the film
when he happened to be in Boston and walked passed the city’s monument to the
54th Massachusetts regiment (an all-black unit) in the Union army, something he knew virtually
nothing about. After this potentially mundane experience, Fields set forth on a mission to tell the
story of black American soldiers (who had fought to support the country since the Revolutionary
War).[15] Since Gone with the Wind, no major Civil War film had even turned a profit,
but Glory would succeed in breaking that barrier in Civil War movies as well. It also was the
first movie to actually employ Civil War reenactors, and it paved the way for the conception of
television series exploring the role of black American soldiers, eg., Buffalo Soldiers.[16]
Glory also created a new enemy from its portrayal of the war; it was not the abolitionists,
the Union soldiers, or even the Confederate soldiers this time, but the institutions of slavery and
racism, more in general. It is in this manifestation of an abstract enemy that Glory reveals its
possible ulterior motive as well: it works as an allegory for the battle between “good” (the United
States/democracy/capitalism/Christianity) and “evil” (Communism/Atheism – in this instance,
not specifically the USSR or any other country since this occurred at the end of the Cold War
when the anti-Soviet rhetoric softened, a little). Glory was universally renowned by critics and
historians, and the New Republic went so far to describe it as “not only the first feature film to
treat the role of black soldiers in the Civil War, it is also the most powerful and historically
accurate movie about the war ever made. If it wins the popularity it deserves it will go far to
correct the distortions and romanticizations of such earlier blockbusters as The Birth of a
Nation and Gone with the Wind”.[17]

9. The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, and Glory all had a tremendous impact on the
way the American public viewed the Civil War, particularly its historical memory and effects on
issues with race up to the present day. These movies were so successful since their creators had
the financial means to produce some of the highest-quality films of their era, the means to reach
a wide audience (virtually the entire population of the United States), and an ulterior motive that
suited the mood of American society at that point in time. Since popular culture by definition
reaches a wide portion of the public, it has the potential to foster tremendous political and social
change and function as a means of education or propaganda as well as entertainment. The
directors, writers, and producers of these movies were aware of the power that movies can have,
so they used their talent and connections to spread their message across the world, and they have
all succeeded in this goal.
[1] Bruce Chadwick, The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film (New York: Random
House Inc., 2001), 4.
[2] “The Story of the Kelly Gang”, National Film and Sound Archive, Australia, accessed May
13, 2015.
[3] Chadwick, 12.
[4] Tim McMahon, “Highest Grossing Movies Adjusted for Inflation”, Inflationdata.com, May
16, 2013.
[5] Chadwick, 187.
[6] Ibid., 7-9.
[7] D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation, (1915: United States: Epoch Producing Co.), silent film.
[8] Chadwick, 3-4.
[9] Ibid., 212-218.
[10] Ibid., 209.

10. [11] Ibid., 13.
[12] Ibid., 191.
[13] Ibid., 197.
[14] Ibid., 283.
[15] Ibid., 280.
[16] Ibid., 279-285.
[17] Ibid., 284-285.