Comments

1
>Lots of people of color say that @VanessaPlace hurts them

then don't follow it or read it, you babies
2
The estate of Margaret Mitchell would have to be run by absolute idiots to rise to that bait.

3
"She believes she is participating in the fight against white supremacy by initiating a copyright dispute between herself, Mitchell's estate, and the state."

Does this make sense to anyone? Margaret Mitchell wrote about the antebellum South, sure. And she used language that demeaned Black people. Furthermore, her estate is probably benefitting from society's inherent White Supremacy (I mean, I *guess*... maybe racists really like GWTW and that's why that book still sells?). But why this book? Mitchell didn't create racism. And all White people benefit from White Supremacy, including financially.

This seems like such a strange exercise...

@2, agreed. And as an attorney, Place should know that if the Mitchell estate sued her to enforce a copyright, it is not the same thing as endorsing racism! If a string of words or notes is unique, it can be copyrighted. That's the only criterion, uniqueness, and she knows that.
4
Conceptual authors sound like people who aggregate stuff onto blogs or facebook pages or whatever. "Curate", I mean, curate, aggregate is so declassé.
5
Gone with the Wind is a book about the Civil War. In the South. And about slavery. That it is seen thru the eyes of one of the slave owners allows people to see how delusional these people were about their lives and the people they called slaves.

">>a limited social media piece. " Ha, very funny. In 2015, there is such a thing?

She wants attention, she wants the Mitchell estate to care about her sad little "situation art" project. Yawn.
6
The problem with a lot of conceptual art is the best part is the concept and once you start putting it into action it is just annoying. Why would anyone actually follow a twitter feed that is just slowly re-issuing Gone With The Wind?
7
So basically she's trying to bring to life that which has been seen on many stages already. Anybody wanna loan her 9 bucks? http://guthriestore.com/products/the-tri…
8
White people fixing racism by tweeting stuff! Congrats everybody, we did it.
10
“I am sorry for the hurt that the work has caused: the project was intended to be a limited social media piece. I did not promote the feed, and anyone who followed it was there voluntarily. […] Much of the hurt seems to have been caused when the images were used more widely in the petition campaign.”

A fantastically slithery response! In other words: “You chose to experience my racism, and really it was your sharing of your outrage over my racism that caused the pain.” Spoken like a true slime-ball lawyer. She ought to be given the David Duke Award for Serpentine Prevarication.

Place attempts to set a whole new standard for avant-creepiness, but my money's on Kenneth Goldsmith for his racist exploitation of Michael Brown’s death (http://bit.ly/1FDlLv8).
11
I read "Gone With The Wind" when I was twelve, and enjoyed it very much. I did not regard it as an historically accurate work, and wasn't lulled into an appreciation of slavery or the confederacy or anything like that. I just thought it was a good story, and much better than the movie.

A few things that I find interesting about this "social media piece":

1) In the "Gone With The Wind" universe, the character of Mammy was one of the most intelligent and reasoned people in the novel. She held the family together after Mrs. O'Hara died and Mr. O'Hara went crazy. She was a balance to Scarlett's craziness, and she resolved the dreadful situation that arose after Bonnie died. If this author was looking for an offensive character, it would have been more appropriate to use the horribly stereotypical Prissy.

2) The Picture of Hattie McDaniel is of her in character as Mammy, but it's not the worst picture of that character out there. What is far more distasteful to me is the banner image on the artist's twitter home page, which is an incredibly racist illustration of a minstrel.

3) "Gone With The Wind" is an incredibly long novel. Longer than an Ayn Rand novel (but much more entertaining). It touches on slavery, and has some rather retrograde views toward African-Americans, especially by today's standards. But at it's core it's about an incredibly self-absorbed woman who loses everything and reinvents herself by being a shrewd businesswoman and incredibly poor judge of men.

4) What could possibly be the point of tweeting an 800 page novel?
0
Context: A rewrite of Gone With the Wind, called The Wind Done Gone, told from the perspective of Scarlett's mixed-race half-sister (which reportedly removed GWTW's racial stereotyping, apparently a critique of GWTW, and IMO should be considered fair use), was sued out of existence by Mitchell's estate. The judge called it “unabated piracy.” But Place steals word-for-word and merely suffers public scorn?

Perhaps Place should change tactics and appropriatweet TWDG?

http://jacket2.org/commentary/not-repeat…
13
She's about as much an artist as the publisher of GWTW. Does just copying something word for word really make you an artist? You don't have to create anything at all?
14
This woman desperately needs a hobby. I'd suggest stamp collecting.
15
@12, Randall eventually won that case. The difference here is that Place isn't making any money with her copying exercise.
16
Oh FFS. Her bringing Walker into this is just about on par with clueless white kids who get mad because "Black people use the n-word! So why can't I?!".

Please wait...

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