As an FYI and for those interested in, I'm cutting and pasting a couple
additional sources for what has been published re "The Help" and a Call For
Papers re "The Help" and similar narratives below. First is a special issue
from (1.) JENda (a journal that focuses on African Women's Studies) that
recently came out and includes the thoughts of mostly Women's Studies
scholars on "The Help", second (2.) is a CFP for a volume to be edited by
Claire Garcia & Vershawn Young regarding white-authored narratives of
marginal experience. Please note I am not a contact person on either of
these projects but thought folks who have not yet seen them may be
interested, please reply to the contacts listed below.

All the best,
Sarah J. Jackson, PhD
Postdoctoral Teaching Associate
Department of Communication Studies
Northeastern University
Holmes 209/ 617-373-7874

1.
Dear All,

The Help has touched a nerve, and JENdA journal has now framed that nerve.

How do we understand the experiences of black women domestic workers who
worked in Klan homes during the 1960s? How do we make sense of Aibileen and
Minny’s character in 2011? How do we understand Stockett’s notion of
“sisterhood”? What does sisterhood mean between two unequal relations that
are divided by power and race? How do we understand the complex class
relationship between madams and their maids around the world?

The Help has generated some intense visceral reaction, and we at JENdA
believe that a serious critical analysis of the film is required and needed.
JENdA has just published "Issues of Our Time," a new section of the journal
devoted to prompt and timely analysis of pressing issues of national or
international concerns by scholars, activists, and intellectuals. The issue
includes short critical essays, video, poem, and historical narratives that
provide a vastly different reading and landscape that Stockett fail to see
and address. With 30 contributions in total, this is proving to be the
definitive response to The Help, and the only one by any academic,
peer-review publication.

The editorial of this inaugural issue is free. We ask that you read the
editorial first to gain a better understanding of what "Issues of Our Time"
is, the historical framework of the American south, civil rights and freedom
riders, and the plight of international domestic workers.

Editorial: Issue of Our Time on The Help (free, but requires registration to
read it)
http://www.africaknowledgeproject.org/index.php/jenda/article/view/1310/1556

Table of Contents (30 contributions in total)
http://www.africaknowledgeproject.org/index.php/jenda/issue/view/124

I would especially like to thank some of the members of WMST-L that
contributed to this inaugural issue of "Issues of Our Time." They include:

Dr. Moira K. Amado-McCoy
Prof. Ellen Moody
Prof. Janell Hobson
Prof. Linda A. Bell
Prof. Rosa Maria Pegueros
Prof. Trysh Travis

If you are not a subscriber of JENdA, we ask that you consider becoming one.
Subscription includes access to the current issue and back issues.
Individual rates can be found here:
http://www.africaknowledgeproject.org/index.php/jenda/about/subscriptions

Our institutional subscribers include Cornell University, Oberlin College,
Princeton University, Texas A & M University, University of Cape Town,
South Africa,  University of Maryland, Baltimore County, University of
West Indies, St. Augustine, Vanderbilt University, Wellesley College, and
counting.

If your institution is not listed above, we ask that you place a request to
your institution to subscribe to JENdA.

2.
CFP: Book Project, Edited Volume
Still Maids? Still Toms?:  Perspectives on The Help and Other White-Authored
Narratives of Black Life in the 'Post-Racial' Era"

The last decade has seen several very popular depictions of African-American
life created by white writers and directors,including The Help, The Secret
Life of Bees, The Blindside, Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, and
others.  Editors Claire Oberon Garcia (Colorado College) and Vershawn
Ashanti Young (University of Kentucky) seek intellectually informed but
accessibly written analyses (around 2500-4000 words, around the length of a
conference paper or longish editorial) of these narratives that respond to
these or other questions:

What do these texts—and their appeal-- have to tell us about American life
and culture and/or contemporary race and gender relations, at a time when
some claim that we are living in a “post-racial" era?

 How are notions of authorial "authority" inflected by crossing racial
lines?

How is the history of the Civil Rights movement being revised and rewritten
in the age of Obama?

What is the role of women's book clubs in creating best-sellers?

How do The Help and similar texts speak to generations born after the 60s?

What is the role of The Help and other texts in revisionary Southern
history?

Is the popularity of such books and films a sign of how far "we" have come—
or how much farther American society has to go in the quest for racial
equality and justice?

Fifty years after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird changed the
hearts and minds of millions of white readers, the novel and film adaptation
of The Help seems poised to achieve the same canonical and emotional status.
For this collection, Garcia and Young invite artists, bloggers, writers,
civil-rights activists, cultural critics, journalists, and scholars from all
disciplines to provide insight into the hopes, fantasies, fears, and
conflicts that inform and emerge  from contemporary white-authored
narratives of black life.

Submission Deadline: Jan 15th 2012
Queries and Submissions should be directed to:  Claire Garcia
[log in to unmask] and Vershawn Young [log in to unmask]

Sarah J. Jackson, PhD
Postdoctoral Teaching Associate
Department of Communication Studies
Northeastern University
Holmes 209/ 617-373-7874

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Karen Bond <[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]>
> 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]
> Website (currently under construction): www.nbcmj.org
> *~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *
> **
>
> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>
> UNTIL THE LION HAS HIS OWN HISTORIAN, THE TALE OF THE HUNT WILL ALWAYS
> GLORIFY THE HUNTER.
>
> -African Proverb
> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>



-- 
Sarah Janel Jackson, PhD
[log in to unmask]