This is great language I can use but I still need the info from
each person who wants to present in the form in which I asked for it.
Know Justice; Know Peace,
Rev. Dr. E-K Daufin
Professor of Communication
Media & Society Size Equity National Expert
Winner - 2000 MaryAnn Yodelis-Smith
Research Award AEJMC CSW
AEJMC MAC Membership Chair
Alabama State University
915 S. Jackson St.
Montgomery, AL 36101-0271
(334) 229-6885
www.home.earthlink.net/~ekdaufin
Your research and creative activity referrals are welcomed.
With all my heart I want to work with and for kind, competent,
strong people who love and help me and I they. Ashe!
From: FOR THE MINORITIES
AND COMMUNICATION DIV. OF AEJMC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lillie
Fears
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2011 10:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Why not a panel proposal on "THE HELP"
==>White-Authored Narratives of Black Life
Another aspect of the panel could be to have someone discuss
how there aresuccessful films out there that focus on how minority people (and
not white people) go to great extents to help save their people in their own
communities---"Lean on Me", which focuses on Principal Joe Clark's
efforts to save mainly underperforming Black, Latino and
white kids trapped in a poor performing school; and "Stand
and Deliver", which focuses on kids who were considered a bunch of
losers before Jaime Escalante came and started teaching at East L.A.'s tough
Garfield High. His kids did so well on a college placement test until the
testing service accused them of fraud----both films are great stories of how
minority people helped their own people.
Your thoughts?
Lillie M. Fears, PhD
P. O. Box 2733
State University, AR 72467
T: 870.972.3210, voice/office
From: Ilia M
Rodriguez Nazario <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 3:26 PM
Subject: Why not a panel proposal on "THE HELP"
==>White-Authored Narratives of Black Life
Hello MAC members:
I am reading with interest your comments on "The Help" and want to
suggest that one of us propose a panel on a critical reading of this film for
the 2012 convention. Maybe MAC members who have offered comments could
participate as presenters. The panel could be a teaching panel to emphasize the
use of critical race theories or other theories, historical lenses, etc. to
advance a critique of this text within the context of cultivating media
literacy skills among students. The film could be a case to explore.
Let's consider. I know Felecia has called for proposals and extended the
deadline to Oct. 19.
Cordially,
Ilia Rodriguez
University of New Mexico
On Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:44:05 -0500
"E. K. Daufin" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Thank you all who have shared so far. I will be sharing your voices
with my Mass Media & Society class. Earlier in the semester I tried
to talk about the problem with products of this type. One African
American male student (who has dropped out of sight twice and probably won’t be
in class to hear it) said, “I thought everyone KNEW it was a story written by a
White woman.” He just didn’t get it and I couldn’t reach him.
Thanks for the help.
>
> Know Justice; Know Peace,
> Rev. Dr. E-K Daufin
> Professor of Communication
> Media & Society Size Equity National Expert
> Winner - 2000 MaryAnn Yodelis-Smith
> Research Award AEJMC CSW
> AEJMC MAC Membership Chair
> Alabama State University
> 915 S. Jackson St.
> Montgomery, AL 36101-0271
> (334) 229-6885
> www.home.earthlink.net/~ekdaufin<http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ekdaufin>
> Your research and creative activity referrals are welcomed.
> With all my heart I want to work with and for kind, competent, strong
people who love and help me and I they. Ashe!
>
> From: FOR THE MINORITIES AND COMMUNICATION DIV. OF AEJMC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Kathleen Fearn
> Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 4:05 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: SEEKING OPINIONS ON "THE HELP" ==>White-Authored
Narratives of Black Life
>
> I saw the film and I can see why you didn't. I am seething that I
spent $8 to see it. I know so much more about the issues and the time
than the author and I didn't have to interview anybody. That little
addition to the recipe for the pie is small stuff compared to things that
actually happened. Also, reviews are calling it a "feel good"
movie. Who feels good -- white people? I feel bad that the central black
maid (I have blocked out the names of characters in my effort to forget the
film) was unemployed at the conclusion. What was she going to do?
Certainly not be a writer? And where were the black men? I think there
was one we didn't see who beat up his wife. What did black husbands
think about their wives being mistreated when they could do little to
help? What did black children think about their mother's sharing their
breasts with white babies? That's the movie that we are missing.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Oct 13, 2011, at 1:13 PM, Karen Bond <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> Dear MAC members,
> A movie written by a man about the pain experienced during childbirth
would get little attention because obviously there are women who could write
more credible accounts. So why do we always pay so much attention to
books written by whites about the pain of the black experience in
America? For me, a movie written by a white woman about the pain of the
black experience has no value. In fact, the ability for so many whites to
get rich off of this literary formula insults and belittles my experience as a
black woman.
>
>
> The signature on my email messages has always read:
> "Until the lion has his own historian, the tail of the hunt will
always glorify the hunter."
>
>
> And so it goes. "The Help" once again glorifies white
woman as the savior of black women.
>
>
> When "The Help" came out, I sent out the message below to some
of my associates seeking their opinions on the movie. Now I'm asking MAC
members what they think about the issues raised in the message below:
>
>
> ------------ Forwarded message ------------
> From: K J Bond <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Date: Aug 16, 2011
> Subject: FYI, I've decided NOT to see “The Help”. . .
>
> FYI,
>
>
> I've decided NOT to see “The Help”.
>
>
> I saw “Driving Miss Daisy”, “Crash”, and “Avatar”. On one level, I enjoyed
some of these movies. But by the the time “The Blind Side” came out, I had a
decision to make: Could I sit through one more film that perpetuated the
falsehoods of “the white savior myth”? I decided I couldn't and so I did
not see “The Blindside”. And I will not see “The Help”. I do not
want to risk the chance that my financial contribution to its box office
receipts might encourage Hollywood to continue plying the nation's
consciousness with this misinformation.
>
>
> In addition to “the white savior myth”, the negative image of Black men in
this movie is also a problem for me. As far as many of us know and have
experienced in this life, Black men are awesome. However, this fact is
rarely represented in film. Once too often I've seen the reinforcement of
an insulting and false Black male stereotype used as a handy plot device.
This is one more reason why I will not be seeing “The Help”.
>
>
> One might say that I should not pass judgment on a film I have not seen,
but this is no different than my decision not to see the “Texas Chainsaw
Massacre”. I read about the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” movie and concluded I
don't actually have to pay money to see people's limbs being severed in order
to decide this movie is not for me. Based on having seen other horror
movies of its type, I knew that I literally could not stomach seeing it.
And likewise, after researching “The Help” I believe the movie is most
definitely not for me.
>
>
> The owner of FOX television, arch-conservative Rupert Murdoch, also owns
The Wall Street Journal. Here's what The Wall Street Journal said about
“The Help”:
> “ 'The Help' is bound to be a hit. Just as readers loved the book, for
good reason—its resonant themes transcended its imperfect
craftsmanship—audiences starved for substance after a long, dry summer will
embrace the movie. They'll do so not only for the white guilt it addresses, and
deftly mitigates, but for the plot's entertaining contrivances (chief among
them a climax of cyclonic uplift), the bonds of love between whites and blacks
and a cast of outsize characters...”
>
>
> So Rupert Murdoch's movie reviewers think one important reason people will
love and “embrace” “The Help” is for how it “deftly mitigates” white guilt (mitigates,
as in “to reduce”, “to lessen”, “to decrease”). Hmmmm... interesting that THIS
is a theme (purpose?) that resonates throughout the movie for them.
>
>
> Below, I have copied some interesting opinions that helped me make up my
mind about the nature of this movie. I invite you to copy this email message to
all you feel might benefit from it. Please participate in my informal
survey - drop me a line to let me know whether you intend to contribute to The
Help's box office receipts and why.
>
>
> Thanks!
>
> ~ Karen
>
>
>
>
=============================================================================
>
=============================================================================
>
> HOW RACIST IS “THE HELP”?
> http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/how_racist_is_the_help/
> Anthony Kaufman's ReelPolitik Blog
>
> “Why should I complain about making $7,000 a week playing a maid? If I
didn’t, I’d be making $7 a week being one.”—Hattie McDaniel
>
>
> Despite Hollywood’s best intentions and well-meaning saccharine
storytelling, it gets race wrong, repeatedly. From “Driving Miss Daisy” to
“Crash” to “The Blind Side” to “Avatar,” whiteness remains Hollywood’s dominant
force, and its stories of racial redemption continually fail to grapple with
the realities of America’s horrible racism, past and present.
>
>
> For all those giving a pass to “The Help,” forgiving the film’s
reactionary core for its strong performances or heartwarming uplift, I suggest
you consider the deep-seated problem of perpetuating the white savior myth—once
again. It reinforces stereotypes, powerful images of subjugation, that endure
in the public consciousness.
>
>
> I like what Boston Globe critic Wesley Morris wrote in his review of the
film:
> “The best film roles three black women will have all year require one of
them to clean Ron Howard’s daughter’s house. It’s self-reinforcing movie
imagery. White boys have always been Captain America. Black women, in one way
or another, have always been someone’s maid. These are strong figures, as that
restaurant owner might sincerely say, but couldn’t they be strong doing
something else? That’s the hardest thing to reconcile about Skeeter’s book and
‘The Help’’ in general. On one hand, it’s juicy, heartwarming, well-meant entertainment.
On the other, it’s an owner’s manual.”
>
>
> In a post called “Why Can’t Critics Just Get Along,” David Poland
criticizes critics for criticizing the fact that “The Help” was made, at all,
and not reviewing the film on its relative faults and merits. But Poland
doesn’t seem to read Morris’s point—and mine, as well—that the film’s faults
are integrally mixed with its premise. To make a film that purports to be about
the struggles of black servitude that is actually just another tale about a white
person’s empowerment is grossly irresponsible, from a political perspective,
and kind of lame, from a narrative perspective.
>
>
> In his 1965 essay, “White Man’s Guilt,” James Baldwin writes about
America’s racism: “One wishes that Americans, white Americans, would read, for
their own sakes, this record, and stop defending themselves against it. Only
then will they be enabled to change their lives. The fact that Americans, white
Americans, have not yet been able to do this - to face their history, to change
their lives - hideously menaces this country. Indeed, it menaces the entire
world.”
> Forty-six years later, it seems, the American white establishment still
can’t seem to understand that they are responsible for racial discrimination
and subjugation, and not, as “The Help” would have it, responsible for breaking
down those walls.
>
>
> I also can’t help wonder what does it say about “The Help” that Ablene
Cooper, an African American nanny and housekeeper who works for “The Help”
author Kathryn Stockett’s brother and sister-in-law, filed a lawsuit against
Stockett, claiming that the central African American maid in the novel — a
woman named Aibileen Clark and portrayed in the film by Viola Davis — was based
largely on her likeness without her approval. A judge will decide on the case
next week, as millions of Americans will fork over cash, enriching more white
Americans. The exploitation continues.
>
>
=============================================================================
> =============================================================================
>
> THE HELP: Boston Globe Movie Review
>
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2011/08/10/race_class_and_hollywood_gloss_in_the_help/?page=2
> by Wesley Morris
>
> ...Skeeter’s exposé is meant to empower both the subjects and the author,
but “The Help’’ joins everything from “To Kill a Mockingbird’’ to “The Blind
Side’’ as another Hollywood movie that sees racial progress as the province of
white do-gooderism. Skeeter [a white woman] enjoys all the self-discovery and
all the credit... The novel made a lot of people feel good. It was sneaky.
Stockett wrote tolerably in Aibileen and Minny’s voices - in a way that keeps
black vernacular inside dignified English, and avoids the literary dehumanization
that Toni Morrison has written about. But as much as the book was about race
and class, it was really about how feminism empowered Skeeter, and Stockett, to
address other injustices... Tate Taylor, a childhood friend of Stockett,
adapted and directed the movie. He applies a thick coat of gloss to most
scenes. It’s hard not to imagine what trouble the passive, largely absent
husbands of these bigoted women are up to off-screen. The death of the civil
rights activist Medgar Evers is reported on television, so white supremacy is
in the air, but the movie would have us believe that the racism of the time was
the stuff of bridge clubs. Indeed, the meanest male in the movie is the
abusive, mostly unseen black husband who, in a poorly made sequence, comes after
Minny... “The Help’’ comes out on the losing end of the movies’ social history.
>
>
=============================================================================
>
=============================================================================
>
> RACIST OR RAVING: WHAT CRITICS ARE SAYING ABOUT “THE HELP”
>
http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-racist-or-raving-what-critics-are-saying-about-the-help/
>
> by Jessica Wakeman
>
> ...Some critics, both armchair and professional, say the new flick
starring Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, and
Allison Janney is a white-washed, even racist version of the civil rights
movement that praises a white woman as the savior of the poor black folks.
(Cough “The Blind Side” cough.) They ask why Hollywood makes films about civil
rights through the lens of white people, instead of giving due credit to the
African-Americans who fought for their rights. And that is certainly a worthy
question to ask.
> Others (me, for instance) read and loved the book and are excited to see
the movie, imperfect as the narrative may be. (Though I agree it would be
better for Hollywood to make more films that tell a less white-centric
narrative.)...
>
>
> ...Whether you decide to see the movie or not, or to read Kathryn
Stockett’s novel or not, is up to you. To help give you an idea of some of the
controversy surrounding “The Help” I’ve rounded up the criticism from all
angles:
> From Akiba Solomon at Colorlines:
> “As a racial justice and gender writer, a pop culture observer, and an
African American woman who rides for Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Cicely Tyson
and Aunjanue Ellis, I feel obligated to see this film. But, damn it, I’m jaded,
and it has absolutely nothing to do with watching black women portray domestic workers
onscreen. (There’s no shame in domestic work, unless you’re talking about their
employers’ abuse and wage exploitation.) I just can’t bring myself to pay
$12.50 after taxes and fees to sit in an aggressively air conditioned, possibly
bed bug-infested, New York City movie theater to watch these sisters lend
gravitas to Stockett’s white heroine mythology. I’m sorry, but the trailer
alone features way too many group hugs to be trusted.”
> From Martha Southgate at Entertainment Weekly:
> “Implicit in The Help and a number of other popular works that deal with
the civil rights era is the notion that a white character is somehow crucial or
even necessary to tell this particular tale of black liberation. ... This isn’t
the first time the civil rights movement has been framed this way fictionally,
especially on film. ... Why is it ever thus? Suffice it to say that these
stories are more likely to get the green light and to have more popular appeal
(and often acclaim) if they have white characters up front. That’s a shame.”
> From Ann Hornaday at The Washington Post:
> “One of those truths, which “The Help” deserves praise for bringing to
light, is that racism should be understood less as a matter of black grievance
than of unexamined white privilege and pathology. ... [Racist character]
Hilly’s monstrousness is in keeping with “The Help’s” tendency to reduce its
characters to stock types, but it has the effect of enabling white viewers to
distance themselves from racism’s subtler, more potent expressions.”
> Tami at What Tami Said:
> “This is my worry: That even if “The Help” film gets it right, viewers
will see just another movie about a spunky, young, white girl, setting the
world on fire, while the lives, stories and agency of black women remain
invisible.”
> And last but not least, what I thought was the strongest review of “The
Help”: Wesley Morris at The Boston Globe:
> “The movie is too pious for farce and too eager to please to comment
persuasively on the racial horrors of the Deep South at that time. ... The
death of the civil rights activist Medgar Evers is reported on television, so
white supremacy is in the air, but the movie would have us believe that the
racism of the time was the stuff of bridge clubs. Indeed, the meanest male in
the movie is the abusive, mostly unseen black husband who, in a poorly made
sequence, comes after Minny. ... “The Help’’ comes out on the losing end of the
movies’ social history. The best film roles three black women will have all
year require one of them to clean Ron Howard’s daughter’s house. It’s
self-reinforcing movie imagery. White boys have always been Captain America.
Black women, in one way or another, have always been someone’s maid. These are
strong figures, as that restaurant owner might sincerely say, but couldn’t they
be strong doing something else? That’s the hardest thing to reconcile about
Skeeter’s book and “The Help’’ in general.”
>
>
=============================================================================
> =============================================================================
>
> IS VIOLA DAVIS' CHARACTER IN THE HELP JUST THE STEREOTYPICAL BLACK MAMMY?
>
http://gayblackcanadianman.com/2011/04/21/is-viola-davis-the-stereotypical-nurturing-black-mammny-in-the-civil-rights-drama-the-help/
>
> I cannot contain my anger and disappointment that Viola Davis decided to
star in the new film The Help. Hollywood produces very myopic representations
of black women. Black women are either whores like Halle Berry in Monster’s
Ball or maids like Viola Davis in The Help. The social construction of the
binary of black female sexuality is very limited. The film roles available for
black women tend to be two dimensional and not nuanced. Black women in North
America are still presented as inferior to white women. The white woman is
still placed on the pedestal as the true image of womanhood.
>
>
> ...Of course, the white woman saves the day since the purpose of The Help
is to promote the narrative that as black people we cannot save ourselves...
The genesis of The Help is that in order for white people to be interested in
movies about black people, a white person must always be the protagonist.
> The Help is just another form of the classic white saviour movies. Usually
in a white saviour movie, the white protagonist has an epiphany and decides to
help the black people that are constructed as victims. I am so tired of the
racist white saviour narrative that black people need to be saved by whites.
>
>
> Another problem I have with The Help is the film promotes the racist
narrative that black women have no agency. The only purpose black people have
in the film is to serve white folks. Black womanhood is constructed as just to
be loving and nurturing. The Help does not present Viola Davis or Octavia
Spencer’s characters as three dimensional women. Hollywood consistently
promotes the discourse that a black woman’s purpose in life is to exist in an
anterior time. I cringed when I heard the line in the trailer “we love them and
they love us.”
>
>
> Yes, black women loved working in the domestic sphere and served rich
white women. Of course, The Help ignores the fact that in America, black women
were blocked from higher educational opportunities for decades... The majority
of black women had to work in domestic work because that’s the only form of
work they were offered!
>
>
> Two years ago, Sandra Bullock's racist film The Blind Side, also promoted
this abhorrent narrative disavowing black agency. The Blind Side made over $200
million dollars at the North American box office. Hollywood will continue to
make racist movies such as The Help because the public supports this bigotry.
Would the general public really want to see an honest movie about black female
domestics that were raped by white men?
>
>
> ...The trailer for The Help is so racist and sexist against black women. I
just feel sick watching this racist garbage! It is so sad that the best role
Viola Davis can get since her Academy Award nomination for Doubt is just being
the black mammy! ...The Help engenders the discourse that a black woman's
purpose is to be subservient to white folks. I also find the racist narrative
of the white saviour in The Help problematic. In the 1960s civil rights
movement, my black elders helped themselves - they did not sit and wait for
white folks to gain freedom!
> ===================
> ONLINE COMMENTS:
> ===================
> "I want to read the African-American version of The Help.”
> ===================
> Erin Aubry Kaplan wonders "Why must blacks speak dialect to be
authentic? Why are Stockett's white characters free of the linguistic quirks
that white Southerners certainly have?" The Christian Science Monitor
notes the same problem, wondering about the "decision to convey only black
voices in dialect, with nary a dropped 'g' among her generally less sympathetic
Southern white characters."
> ===================
> “Many have taken issue with the core theme of the movie – a young white
girl helping to ‘empower’ black women in the South. And then there’s anger that
strong black actresses like Viola Davis are ‘reduced’ to playing maids in
2011.”
> ===================
> “I did check the book out at local public library about 2 weeks ago. But
after reading the inside jacket I got on the computer to find out who the
author was. After finding out the author was a Caucasian and, based on the
topic, I returned book to the library without even reading a page. Why? I
personally felt that if this writer wanted to write a book about her personal
life experience as a young woman growing up in Mississippi in the 60's, she
should have told the story from her own personal perspective. To try and tell
the story from her maid's perspective I felt would be superficial.”
> ==================
> “My concern is over the specific types of stories about race that get such
critical, mainstream acclaim. Stories like Precious, the Blind Side, etc.
suggest that there is a very specific set of requirements for a movie dealing
with race, and anything outside of that mold isn’t going to get that level of
attention.
> ...I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I do worry (and have seen support for
this worry in the reviews I’ve read) that this script was chosen for its
ability to be boiled down into the preferred narrative about race, one that too
often simplifies a complex issue and leaves white people feeling all warm and
fuzzy about their enlightened perspective.”
> ==================
>
>
============================================================================
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Karen J. Bond
> Executive Director
> National Black Coalition for Media Justice (NBCMJ)
> Phone: (847) 328-4849 Cell: (224) 616-1119
> Email Address: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Website (currently under construction): www.nbcmj.org<http://www.nbcmj.org>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>
> UNTIL THE LION HAS HIS OWN HISTORIAN, THE TALE OF THE HUNT WILL ALWAYS
GLORIFY THE HUNTER.
>
> -African Proverb
> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@