In 1939, David O Selznick produced a film of Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gone with the Wind. The movie proved to be among the most important in the history of world cinema. To this day, in fact, it remains the American box office champion when adjusted for inflation. In 1940, the film won a record-breaking eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Recently, however, Gone with the Wind has increasingly come under fire due to allegations of racism in the movie. Consequently, its reputation has fallen in many critical circles.
The film tells the story of a Southern family who fight on the side of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. Scarlett O’Hara, the main character, is a slave owner whose civilization goes to war to preserve the right to own and degrade African Americans. Life before the Civil War, during the days of slavery, is depicted as a golden age.
Scarlett’s maid and confidante, Mammy, is not even given a first name in the script. Meanwhile, Butterfly McQueen, who portrayed Prissy, a house servant whom Scarlett slaps across the face at one point in the film, was told by the director to deliver a hysterical performance emphasizing the character’s dim-wittedness, speaking to age-old negative stereotypes. Civil rights activist Malcolm X wrote of his embarrassment seeing Butterfly McQueen’s performance as Prissy that it made him want to crawl under the rug of the theater.
For all of these reasons, when watching Gone with the Wind today, modern viewers cannot help but feel admiration for how far the movie industry has come since its infancy. There is much to be embarrassed about in the early days of Hollywood films.
While the reading passage emphasizes the idea that racism in “Gone With the Wind” has tarnished the film’s reputation, the lecture suggests that this trend is unfair, and the film is actually being misrepresented by many critics.
According to the lecturer, although “Gone With the Wind” is from the perspective of white Southerners, the South is never overly romanticized in the film. In fact, they are criticized for going to war. Their civilization is also critiqued for its treatment of women, who actually gain opportunities after the Civil War. This stands in contrast to the emphasis in the reading passage on the idea that “Gone With the Wind”glorified the South, portraying the days of slavery as a golden age.
In the reading passage, the character of Mammy is used as an example of the screenwriters’ lack of development of black characters. After all, she does not even have a first name in the script. The lecturer, however, points out that the character is actually among the wisest and most complex in the entire film. Hattie McDaniel portrayed a character who was unafraid to speak her mind. She won an Academy Award for her role, making history as the first African American to win that honor.
Finally, the author of the reading passage and the lecturer also disagree about the role of Prissy. According to the passage, Prissy is a dimwitted personality whose presence on screen embarrassed certain viewers. The lecturer, however, suggests that the character is actually rebellious. She is disobedient toward her owner. He suggests that some critics might have been misled by the character’s comedic high pitched voice into overlooking her complexity.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 420, Rule ID: NO_SPACE_CLOSING_QUOTE[1]
Message: There should be a space after a closing quote.
Suggestion: ” glorified
...age on the idea that “Gone With the Wind”glorified the South, portraying the days of slave...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, however, if, look, so, while, after all, in contrast, in fact, in contrast to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 10.4613686534 134% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 7.30242825607 41% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 22.412803532 89% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 30.3222958057 125% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1423.0 1373.03311258 104% => OK
No of words: 274.0 270.72406181 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19343065693 5.08290768461 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.0685311056 4.04702891845 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90410291405 2.5805825403 113% => OK
Unique words: 156.0 145.348785872 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.569343065693 0.540411800872 105% => OK
syllable_count: 430.2 419.366225166 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 3.25607064018 215% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 6.0 8.23620309051 73% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 1.25165562914 240% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 2.5761589404 194% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 21.2450331126 85% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 50.1659468387 49.2860985944 102% => OK
Chars per sentence: 94.8666666667 110.228320801 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.2666666667 21.698381199 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.26666666667 7.06452816374 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 4.45695364238 179% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.133850954804 0.272083759551 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0384897590561 0.0996497079465 39% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0520266377709 0.0662205650399 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0855311711774 0.162205337803 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0570895175742 0.0443174109184 129% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 13.3589403974 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 53.8541721854 99% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 11.0289183223 93% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.82 12.2367328918 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.68 8.42419426049 103% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 63.6247240618 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 10.7273730684 107% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 10.498013245 88% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 85.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.5 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.