"Gone with the Wind" has been criticized as having perpetuated Civil War myths and black stereotypes. David Reynolds wrote that "The white women are elegant, their menfolk are noble or at least dashing. And, in the background, the black slaves are mostly dutiful and content, clearly incapable of an independent existence." Reynolds likened "Gone with the Wind" to "The Birth of a Nation" and other re-imaginings of the South during the era of segregation, in which white Southerners are portrayed as defending traditional values, and the issue of slavery is largely ignored. The film has been described as a "regression" that promotes both the myth of the black rapist and the honorable and defensive role of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction, and as a "social propaganda" film offering a "white supremacist" view of the past.