Frankly My Dear...

You know that perfect ending? The one where Rhett Butler turns to Scarlet after years of female, emotional abuse and says to her "frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."  It didn't matter that the seductive, elusice lady adorned in dark, lush lashes, an 18 inch waist, and a southern charm was begging him to stay.  It didn't matter that she loved him finally after having gone through two dead husbands and pining away after Ashley for all those years because Scarlett, "he just don't give a damn" anymore. You pushed him over the edge.

But what if years later, they reunited? What if Scarlett chased Rhett like he pursued her? What if she followed him to Charleston and reversed the traditional male/female roles?  Maybe Rhett would pass through another wife until she deceased (Charles, Mr. Kennedy) and another long lost love such as Belle Watland (Ashley).  Maybe by the end and an illegitimate child later, they'd end up together with Rhett forgiving all Scarlett's grievances and follies, fall madly in love and compliance again.  What if that had been the real ending--a female fantasy where the woman changes her mind to the point of insanity, breaks her man's heart, and then gets her way in teh end after much melodrama in between. 

Oh wait--that was the "new" endnig in Scarlett, the so called 1991 sequal to Gone With the Wind.  I'm sorry Alexandra Ripley; there is no other end to "frankly my dear I don't give a damn." That's why it's called Gone With the Wind.