Reply #99: As a lifelong resident of the Deep South... [View All]

[misanthrope]

...and a current resident of one of the most gothic of Southern towns, I recognize these archetypes. This place was a center for the cotton and slave trade where pillared mansions still flank the central thoroughfares, some with confederate flags flapping from porches. The city's teenaged females aspire to a corps of young ambassadors who dress in hoop skirts and full antebellum regalia to represent us.

Scarlett O' Hara Syndrome infects women here still. They feel there is something romantic and amusing about the character. I despise her.

In a college sociology class, this loomed one day. Our professor, who fancied herself a feminist, brought up O' Hara in discussion and I disgustingly commented that the character was "a bitch." The instructor looked around the room and said, "See, if a woman is powerful or ambitious she's called a 'bitch,'" as she laughed to herself.

"No," I interjected, "She's a 'bitch' because she was manipulative, emotionally dishonest, used anyone she came into contact with and cared about no one but herself. If she was a man, I would call her a 'bastard.' She soaked up her life from the sweat of others."

I would much prefer young women look to Barbara Jordan for inspiration and relegate O' Hara to the hall of villains.