It was only a matter of time before someone brought Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind" to the stage. Well, "Gone with the Wind: The Musical" (even the title sounds like a parody) opens next month in the West End, under the direction of Trevor Nunn. The novel does have the mega musical's requisite historical sweep, and one can only imagine the swell of the orchestra at the end of Act One as Scarlett declares in full voice, "I'll never go hungry again!" Eat your heart out, Victor Hugo.
But after reading about the production in "The Independent," I have to wonder if the British think all Americans are antebellum fanatics. According the Independent piece, "It's estimated that 90 percent of Americans have seen the movie.'' Ninety percent? By whose estimate? The Margaret Mitchell estate? The piece doesn't cite a source for that true fact, and it could very well have come from a press release. But a quick Google search traces it to this Encarta entry, which claims, "By the 1970s, an estimated 90 percent of the American public had seen the film in a theater or on television." No source there, either. I hate to be a stickler for accuracy, but the U.S. Census Bureau estimates for 2006 show that about 13 percent of Americans are under the age of 10 and about 20 percent of all Americans are under the age of 14. So even if every single American above the age of 14 has seen the film -- a proposition that borders on the preposterous -- that would only account for 80 percent. I just have to wonder how anyone could regurgitate this sort of nonsense without a hint of disbelief. Is this just sloppy or are Americans viewed as harboring a romance for the Old South? Fiddle dee dee, indeed.
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