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”. . .
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.
=============================================================================
=============================================================================
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
...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”
...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.”
“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?
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!
"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
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@