Yes, all of those criticisms of GWTW have been made quite a bit. As a matter of fact, some credit the book with starting or at least breathing mainstream life into the whole Southern "Lost Cause" mythology.

And yes, the slaves do seem happy with their lot, except for the sly and viciously passive-agressive Miss Prissy ("I don't know nothin bout birthin no babies"), played with such scene stealing fervor by Butterfly McQueen that she won an Oscar for the role.

It's moments of complexity like these that keep GWTW alive. It's not the product of a first rate mind, by any stretch of the imagination, but it does have its moments. And for its time, it was the height of movie making technology and it still shows a lot of skill. You couldn't make that scene with Rhett and Scarlett fleeing a burning Atlanta in a broken down old buggy any more bracing today with all the CGI in the world.

So, with caveats, yes, it is one of the greats.

It's been done. The book is called "Jubilee", but I forget the author. I had to read GWTW and its "remake", Jubilee, side by side for a Women's Lit class I had once. It was interesting, but Jubilee didn't strike me a superior story even though it's supposed to be based on the true life of the author's grandmother. I had a feeling that this could be true only in the most general sense, really. Anyone know the author offhand?

Never heard of a movie version of Jubilee.

Maybe a movie from Prissy's angle. Would love to see that....

It amazes me that no one wants to discuss the role that alcohol and drugs play in these scenarios. The woman in the Duke case was a very, very impaired young woman when found by the police and there is no reason to believe she was sober when at the frat party--even sober enough to know what was going on. She was on drugs as well.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that, knowing what goes on at frat parties, that this young lady from a foreign country probably was extremely drunk and maybe even passing in and out of consciousness when this happened.

We've already had a lot of discussions on Broadsheet about what constitutes consent when under the influence, most of them very rude and hostile. Without wanting to start that thread again, I'm going to suggest that when women are too drunk to really consent, it IS rape.

But the gal from this case may have wised up suddenly and realized that the real world still doesn't believe that, or have been convinced that it was her fault for imbibing, or whatever.

Anyway I'm going to put it out there that drinking--a lot of it--and/or drugs almost surely played a role, and I feel sorry for the victim (yes, I'm still going to call her that). I'll never understand why women still go out and get smashed knowing this kind of stuff can happen, but they do. It's a shame.

Agile Cyborg has a bone to pick of some kind, clearly. Perhaps it would help if someone were to point out that gang-rape role playing is a subset of fetish sex that doesn't have a lot of traction with mainstream women. It doesn't matter what YOU think of the morality of it, Agile C., most women think it's wrong, creepy, immoral, or just plain wouldn't like it. It's a popular porn fantasy that gets filmed a lot for men to jerk off to, and that's about it. Most women really don't want to lie on a bathroom floor with strangers taking turns on them. 'K?

Besides, it's the height of speculation to insist that this girl really, really desired this specific kind of fetish sex but couldn't bring her poor little repressed self to engage in it consciously, so she got "boozed up" and then called it something else (never mind that if she was all that boozed up, those men could be charged with rape). I mean, you've posted what now, four or five letters repeating this position? We get it already. Women want to be ganged raped but have been "conditioned" not to think so by the big bad morality police. At least that's what you think.

Do yourself a favor and go take a cold shower. Sheeeeeesh.

And as for the rest of you people who are screaming that "half" of all rape accusations are false.....WTF? HALF? 50%? Where'd you get that number? According to you, women should be routinely disbelieved rather than otherwise. News flash: they already are.

Now for the real numbers: police and court records show that about 3% of rape accusations are proved false or retracted. Since falsely accusing someone of a felony does carry a serious penalty, false accusations of rape are quite rare. In fact, rape is a very underreported crime: the great majority of rapes are never reported at all, and most rape cases that are reported to police never make it to trial or even result in an arrest. In fact, the chances of a rape victim bringing her attacker to justice are very, very small, the percentage rates of successful prosecutions being in the single digits.

Satisfied yet? To recap: men can in fact pretty much rape with impunity, these few high profile frat party cases aside. Which, from the sounds of things, is just the way you want it.

I mean, what you are really saying is that the police should not take a rape victim's complaint seriously, nor investigate aggressively, because after all there's a 50/50 chance she's just a closeted 'ho who really wanted it anyway and is lying. Right? 'Cause that's what I'm hearing.

In fact, we should jail bitches who have the temerity to go to the police with complaints and waste their time. Peachy. That'll help clear everything up and teach 'em who's boss.