The arguments against Scarlett O’Hara are far from few and very far from far between. Selfish, petulant, demanding, spoiled – and that’s even before we get to Twelve Oaks for the barbecue in the very beginning of the movie. (The fact that she has an 18-inch waist doesn’t help her case either, but those are my issues, not hers).

There’s the man-stealing part. Like marrying Charles Hamilton just to spite the man she loves but can’t have – Ashley Wilkes. (Don’t even get me started on Ashley. A man that weak in character and resolve is not nearly worthy of Scarlett – more important, he’s nowhere near worthy of his wife, Melanie, a paean to worthiness. The fact that Scarlett wants to throw away her life for him is a major – and uncharacteristic – lapse in her endeavor to find happiness). Then there’s the fact that she marries her sister’s, Suellen’s, beau, Frank Kennedy, out from under her, not because she loves him but because she needs the financial security. Let’s face it, a few bats of those eyelashes and he’s toast.

There’s her trifling with the heart of Rhett Butler – the only man, in my opinion, who can match Scarlett’s intelligence and strength, understand her, and truly make her happy. But of course, Scarlett manages to undo that relationship with her headstrong stubbornness and more than just a little bit of self-centered shallowness. Not that Rhett doesn’t have his faults – the man is a scoundrel – but he’s the perfect match for miss Katie Scarlett O’Hara if ever there was one.

And, of course, there’s Scarlett’s ongoing scheming to win back Ashley from the story’s aforementioned beacon of goodness, Melanie. There are few (if any) purer souls in literature than Melanie – she sees only the good in people, she thinks Scarlett is incredibly loyal and loving (and maybe a bit “high-spirited” – really?), and she defends Scarlett to anyone who would dare speak against her. Personally, I find Melanie a tad boring, boring, boring with all the goodness, goodness, goodness (Scarlett’s brightly burning flame is so much more interesting) but the fact that Scarlett thinks to steal Ashley away from such a person is, well, shameful, of course.

But.

If you put all of Scarlett’s shortcomings aside (and it’s a lot, I know), what you are left with is a brave, unyielding, passionate, stubborn survivor of a woman – a relentless force of nature worthy of having a hurricane named for her. Someone who will stop at nothing to defend her family and home in the days just after the Civil War; someone who will drive through fire to get an in-labor Melanie out of burning Atlanta to return to Tara; someone who will swallow her pride and turn a pair of living-room drapes into a gown, in order to fool Rhett into thinking she is not desperate for money, when all she has left to feed her family are scraps. (Okay, that gown thing might not stand up to the two former examples, but it’s a great example of ingenuity and scrappiness – also great fodder for an extraordinarily hilarious parody by Carol Burnett.)

Scarlett is fortitude personified, not always dignified, and certainly not sanctified. Kindness and grace may not be Scarlett’s descriptors, but she is a tough, empowered woman who, I believe, does learn some life lessons along the way. No shrinking violet, but more of a brilliant, fully-thorned rose, she learns how to take care of herself when her world is ripped up and thrown away (and looks exquisite while doing it). No one throws Scarlett away.

Do I believe in Rhett and Scarlett reuniting? Hopeful romantic that I am, I do. I do give a damn about what will happen to Scarlett (and I believe that, secretly, so does Rhett).

Not that Scarlett O’Hara needs me to make her case for her.

That belle rings loud and clear.

©2026 Claudia Grossman