The Union Strikes Back

On This Day In History
1936: Gone With The Wind published

Quote Of The Day
"That's what's wrong with you. All your beaux have respected you too much, though God knows why, or they have been too afraid of you to really do right by you. The result is that you are unendurably uppity. You should be kissed, and by someone who knows how."
(Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind )

I left home at 6:30 to make the most of today's beautiful weather. By 10:30 I was sitting beside this summit marker atop Mount Rokko eating a picnic brunch. Wonderful.

Warning signs for bears have been added along this route since the last time I walked it. I didn't let that deter me. The chances of seeing a bear are pretty miniscule. Besides, I watched Grizzly Adams when I was a boy; nothing to worry about. I did see a Japanese rat snake lying across the path about twenty meters to the left of where the extra photo was taken. After throwing a couple of stones at it it did move to the side of the path and then I just walked past it. I didn't know whether or not these snakes were dangerous. Having now watched the video in the link, I won't be worried next time I see one.

OK, confession time. I have neither read the book nor seen the film of Gone With The Wind. However, while I was looking for today's quote, I realised that, in a manner of speaking, I have seen Gone With The Wind. The words in today's Quote Of The Day sounds very much like a condensed version of several exchanges between Han Solo and Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back. I know that Lando Calrissian was inspired by Rhett Butler and that, in draft versions of Star Wars: A New Hope, Han Solo was more like Lando Calrissian (and he was originally intended to be played by a black actor - that is, after Han Solo was changed from a bipedal lizard creature.) And the Rhett Butler/Scarlett O'Hara comparison was clearly intentional; I mean, come on, look at this. 

However, it is not just The Empire Strikes Back that reprises that archetypal relationship. I can think of several others. Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. Madeline Hayes and David Addison in Moonlighting. In a darker, violent twist, there's Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. In a film I loved as a boy, there was Sally Kellerman and Tony LoBianco in Magee and the Lady. And then, of course, there's this. As George Lucas said, there's a reason why stereotypes become stereotypes; it's because they work.

Union Of The Snake