Righting a Wrong by Writing a Parody

Several of the articles I've read while exploring the topic of fanfic have mentioned the book Wind Done Gone so I decided to investigate this title a little further.

Wind Done Gone is a parody of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind that was written by Alice Randall in an attempt to combat the outright racism she felt was conveyed in Mitchell's book. Not surprisingly, the release of this book was delayed due to a lawsuit between Mitchell's trust and Houghton Mifflin, the publisher of Randall's work. This was eventually settled when Houghton Mifflin agreed to make a sizeable donation to Moorhouse College.

Is this a case of fanfic? One could argue that it is the exact opposite of fanfic, because while Randall did love Gone with the Wind when she read it as a child, she felt the portrayal of African Americans was extremely damaging. However, Randall's main character Cynara could be seen as serving as a Mary Sue, rising above to fight the stereotypes of the original work. What is also unique about this work and this case is that Randall had the support of a major publisher (as opposed to attempting to self-publish) as well as the backing of several well-respected African American authors, including Toni Morrison.

If you're interested in learning more about this book and the case, I've included some links for Houghton Mifflin and the Freedom Forum here and under the Web Links portion of my blog.