Ashton's Character
Was a poor attempt at reinventing Scarlett O'Hara.
shareI'm not sure if that was how it was intended, but it was definitely how Terri Garber was directed to play it.
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MovieChat Forums > North and South (1985) Discussion > Ashton's Character
Franbee57 - I said the same thing in another post and someone stated I shouldn't compare her with O'Hara. Why not -- Ashton is basically a poor man's O'Hara...the similarities are SO obvious.
-Jane
The two do have surface similarities- flirtatiousness, sex-appeal, bitchiness- but below the surface there are no similarities.
Scarlett was efficient, hard-working, took command of the situation no matter the labor; Ashton would have found all that work boring and leave it to someone else.
Scarlett would not have anyone killed unless it was in real justification (self-defense; getting raped); For Ashton, all it took was getting spurned or insulted for her to go vendetta.
Scarlett would not abandon Tara because of no money (Ashton would have high-tailed it outta there)
Scarlett did not sleep around; the most infidelity she ever did was kiss Ashley twice.
Scarlett did not have any contempt for her slaves (If Mammy spoke to Ashton the same way she did to Scarlett, Ashton would have had her whipped and her wounds poured with salt water).
Even Scarlett's worst action- stealing Kennedy from Suellen- has its differences. Scarlett did it to save Tara. Ashton would have abandoned the plantation (and take inner pleasure in hurting her sister).
I did overreact on first reply, but IMO to say Ashton IS Scarlett is an insult to the latter. Ashton, though entertaining, is a black & white villainess; Scarlett is a gray anti-heroine.
The simpering was like the young Scarlett's, but Scarlett wasn't cruel like Ashton. And she wasn't a hussy like Ashton; she was much less 'sexual' than Ashton. Ashton used men to get everything she wanted, while Scarlett was willing to take charge and work hard to survive.
"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"
[deleted]
Terri Garber really only sounds and simpers like Vivian Leigh. She could have been quite good, had she been playing the role of Vivian Leigh playing Scarlett.
As for the two characters, the only similariy is that they were both strong willed.
"Fasten your seat belts!
It's going to be a bumpy night!"
It wasn't the purpose.
Ahston doesn't want to be in love, she wants to control everything with men to make sure she'll always get what she wants and expects.
And she's really mean and a negative person. She's ready to kill her own sister to "revenge" about something pretty ridiculous.
Scarlett is not afraid of love, she simply doesn't realize she appreciates characters as melanie more than she thinks. And Scarlett takes her time to discover she was made for love (not only romantic love), while Ahston has a great fun with her body very soon ...
I think Ashton was a sociopath. It was totally unrealistic for her to confess all her sins at the end of the movie.
shareShe never did any confession or show any sign of guilt in the books. I think the second movie was trying to make the characters more human at the end, or get happier endings than they did in the book. As mean as Ashton can be in the movie, she's worse in the books. (A little humanity shows up in the 3rd book for her I think with her relationship with Will though)
shareYeah, it seems like they do it a lot in movies. "Tidy it up", so to speak.
shareFIRST OF ALL, N&S IS NOT ANYWHERE CLOSE TO GWTW, SECONDLY SCARLETT SHE IS A WHORE. THIRDLY ASHTON WASNT A WHOOORAH, SHE MARRIED A BLACK MAN (INSERT GASP) SHE WAS A THIEF. COMPARING THESE TWO CLASSICS IS LIKE COMPARING TOFU TO FILET MIGNON(SP?)
Scarlett was a whore? I don't think so. The only man she loved for a very long time was Ashley, who she fell in love with before he got married, then she loved Rhett who was her husband. And she only had sex with her husbands, and only after marriage. Scarlett was a virgin when she married Charles, and she was 16, if you read the N&S books, Ashton started sex at 14, I think. She'd had at least a few lovers by the time she fell in love with Billy. And by the end of the series, she's had over 300 lovers! lol Hey, if she could do it.....if a man did that it'd be considered cool, so......
You're confusing Ashton with Virgilia, Virgilia is the character who married a black man.
I like both stories, it's just that I like GWTW because I think the characters seem more historically accurate to the times. Also, there are SO many characters in N&S and I think because of that the characters aren't as well fleshed out, some of them, because the author doesn't have time to go into them as much as he could if he didn't have so many people to focus on. Mitchell's story has only four main characters, and even the three outside of Scarlett are supporting to her.
Ashton was not married to a black man. Virgilia was. Ashton was a murderer. Ashton slept with other men while married. Scarlett never did.
shareI ADMIT I CONFUSED VIRGILIA AND ASHTON. BUT SCARLETT WAS A TRAMP. SHE STOLE HER SISTERS BEAU TO GET RICH, SHE HAD 3 CHILDREN BY BY EACH HUSBAND. THOUGH SHE WAS FRIENDS WITH MELANIE SHE KEPT TRYING TO CATCH ASHLEY. AS MUCH AS I LOVED GWTW I DESPISED SCARLETT. LOVED RHETT AND MELANIE. JMO
Well that's fine if you don't like Scarlett.:) Anytime someone watches a movie, they have their likes and dislikes and it doesn't have to fit the popular opinion.
I think she actually stole Frank from Sue Ellen to save Tara more than getting rich. Also, though she didn't want a child with Charles or Frank, at least she didn't abort them like Ashton did to that baby she conceived after her multiple partners at West Point, so, Scarlett is nicer than Ashton in that way too.
Yes, Scarlett married Frank to save Tara, because she knew Suellen wouldn't care about paying the taxes on Tara. Scarlett was foolish to marry Charles, though. She thought it would somehow hurt Ashley and Melanie, which it didn't. In the book, she also wanted to hurt Honey, because Honey had been saying vicious things about her and assumed that she would be Charles' wife.
shareBedroomeyes9216, you are Pjthof5? Why the name change?
shareThree children by each husband? No way. She had three husbands, and that would make nine children. Scarlett only had three children one at a time, by each of her three husbands: Wade, Ella, and Bonnie.
shareAnother thing I want to add to the original post, is that I think the movie producers thought of her as Scarlett O'Hara, thus why she was portrayed as such, but if they had really paid attention to her character in the book they would know she's really not. In a T.V. Guide article on Book II they call her "our Scarlett O'Hara type". She is in the sense of being a dark-haired woman who is popular with men and might marry for a reason other than love, but I wouldn't say there's much resemblance after that. They're both strong. But Ashton is much more sexual, devious and lacking in conscience than Scarlett. She has more of a violent streak.
One thing I find funny about Ashton is that she is almost like a male in some senses. She thinks about things like the size of a man's, uh, privates, and the bigger the better for her, lol. I guess it's supposed to make her seem "whorish", but I find it kind of cool in a way, because men certainly think about the size of a woman's breasts often enough, including in this book series, so why shouldn't a woman be the same?
If she'd lived in this day and age she might be a bit of a feminist, if she felt like bothering with any causes. In the third book she donates money to the suffragists, I think that was the most selfless thing she ever did in the books.
Well said. Good post.
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