To be fair, the awfulness of Scarlett O’Hara was always the most interesting thing artistically about GWTW–the way you’re both supposed to root for her to survive all the Civil War chaos as well as agree that she ought to be slapped down at the end of the movie for that very same selfishness. And she’s even more awful in the book. Her crush on Ashley Wilkes seemed silly enough in the movie (what woman would pick Leslie Howard over Clark fucking Gable?) but in the book it’s EXCRUCIATINGLY obvious she should have left Ashley behind, and she never does until the very end of the book.

Also Rhett Butler at one point proclaims he’s an atheist! How did that fly with people in 1936, when we needed God to be against Hitler?