Jesse James: Gone With the Wind

I’ve been wondering two things for a long time. 1) Why did Sean Combs name one of his twin daughters Jesse James? 2) Why did Sandra Bullock marry someone named Jesse James? Though the 19th century bank robber is a celebrated and often assumed to be Robin Hood-like character of the Wild West, in reality he was a confederate gorilla warrior on a rampage of violence fueled by his hatred of black people and his love of slavery. Knowing this, I wasn’t surprised to learn Michelle McGee, the mistress of the husband of Sandra Bullock, posed all sexy-like in Nazi-wear. Whether the “WP” tattooed on her body stands for “White Power” or “Wet Pussy” the fact that’s a question recalls the confusion and cultural amnesia that refurbishes a criminal like the historical Jesse James into a touchstone of American frontier history in the first place. Americans love their villains, so much so a black man “Bad Boy” will name one his daughters after an avowed white supremacist. But it takes one to know one. My favorite movie from the time I was about eight: Gone With the Wind.

For hours as a child I sat riveted to either TBS or TNT watching the restored version of the movie in narrative ecstasy. From the barbecue at Twelve Oaks to the biting of the bitter potato after Tara’s destruction to Scarlet putting her hand in Frank Kennedy’s pocket and grabbing hold of all his money, no story besides Jane Eyre spoke to me in my childhood with more force. That being said, I have always been surprised when white women, usually of middle age and up, say that they wish they had been alive to experience the good old plantation days complete with hoopskirts and Mammy-made lemonade and 16-inch waists. Despite my love of the story (I read the book for the first time sick with pneumonia in 7th grade) as a black girl I never had a doubt that the right and just side had won the war. Gone With the Wind is one the most successful narratives, I venture to say, ever, because it has an utter villain for a protagonist. When white women claim the American 19th century plantation as a desirable locale for their fantasies, they are also revealing they’re desire to be on the wrong side of history.

Can you blame them? It’s hard knowing whether you’re on the right or wrong side of something when you’re blind to its dimensions. But from where I’m sitting it’s about time Jesse James got the villain label. I only hope it sticks.