Okay, I finally broke down and saw The Help, a movie based on the controversial fictional novel written by Kathryn Stockett. The Help is story set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960’s about three women; two black maids, Aibileen and Minny , and Eugenia, aka “Skeeter”, a young white woman and aspiring writer. Eugenia wants to chronicle Aibileen and Minny’s experiences working for white families in a book.
There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding this project, and now I see why. I hadn’t planned on seeing The Help and hadn’t been interested in reading the book, as I never found myself intrigued watching many women reading it on the train. I didn’t know exactly what the story was about, but I could ascertain from the jacket cover that I didn’t feel like taking that journey.
I have the same issue with The Help that many have in that a white woman has fictionalized the stories and voices of black women. Though her account may have accuracies, why aren’t our own voices telling our own stories as valued in Hollywood? If Hollywood wants to create this kind of project then why aren’t our books on our struggles turned into glossy flicks with “feel good” Colbie Caillat tracks playing in the commercials? And that’s another problem.
The Help isn’t a “feel good” story. And marketing it as such with happy go lucky commercials and odd social media campaigns is just an attempt to mask the ugly history of this country and it’s legalized degradation of people of color. The commercial that shows fun clips from the film with a bouncy pop song in the background is like putting cod liver oil in orange juice. It’s just a way to make the racist legacy of this country more palatable so black people will see the movie and white people won’t be afraid to. It would have made a lot more sense to market the film accurately and use Mary J. Blige’s soundtrack song “The Living Proof”.
The story of The Help may have been set in the 60’s, but as many African Americans know there are contemporary occurrences of that kind of insidious racism every single day. I had a conversation with a lovely young black couple who’d viewed the film and they were not impressed. They not only seemed to be angered by the film, but also frustrated at the lack of accuracy in some of the plot points.
The young lady pointed out that having lived in Jackson, Mississippi she knows the region still has thick racial tensions and the portrayal of Minny’s experience with her subsequent employer in the civil rights era probably wouldn’t have been as positive as it was in the film. She was not pleased with even a portion of a Hollywood-ized version of the black experience in the civil rights south. And watching how Aibileen and Minny were demeaned in other segments of the movie, I recalled my own parallel experiences working in the corporate world and in living my life.
I remember working at major music, television and entertainment entity and overhearing a white woman telling one of the other black assistants to watch me and make sure I didn’t take anything. I was appalled on many levels but more so at the lack of courage of the black woman who allowed herself to be used to do this racist woman’s cowardly dirty work.
I’ve also experienced extreme difficulties in jobs because I was accused of having “attitude” when I took offense at being asked to do things clearly outside of my administrative duties or merely expressed my dissenting opinion and/or asserted my rights the same way my white counterparts did. I was viewed as being one of those uppity Negroes who didn’t know her place.
Also, I live in Park Slope Brooklyn and though I’m generally happy here, I’ve noticed there’s been a major shift in the feeling of community and it's morphing into a gentrified microcosm of and entitled society. With all of the stroller pushing, dog walking, sidewalk hogging, iced coffee slurping self centered-ness I deal with on a frequent basis, it angers, saddens and frustrates me. And though some of the behavior is just ignorant and narcissistic, some of it has racial undercurrents.
I don’t know how many times I’ve held the door open for someone and a white person, usually a woman, walks through without offering a thank you; as if that’s my place anyway. I’ve been ignored in certain boutiques by suspicious white women. And one even asked me if she could put my backpack away for me, as if she was doing me a favor. And I’ve been followed in the Eagle Supermarket (which I no longer frequent) and have witnessed the management harassing black youth. I know firsthand the kinds of attitudes displayed in The Help are still very much present today.
I've even been eyeballed by West Indian nannies who seemingly look at me with contempt because they don't see me walking around with a white child and figure out that I live here and don't work here.
And speaking of entitled societies, a friend of mine who is in marketing just had a big meeting with the board of a gated residential community in a prestigious location. She was asked to aid in increasing the visibility of the community to attract more home buyers. One of the bones of contention was that the community is still using the word “plantation” to name their properties. Yeah, my friend, being black had major issues with this. She mentioned that the only brown faces she saw on the grounds were workers and not residents. And clearly, by continuing to use the word plantation, the board has no desire to draw black buyers. This is the world we are still living in.
So maybe I shouldn’t be necessarily surprised that here we are in 2011 with a black President and one of the most hyped movies of the year is one about black women who are maids who have a “well meaning white person” who wants to liberate them. As I sat there watching the film I imagined Viola Davis, an Academy Award nominated actress getting ready to audition for one of the most coveted roles for black women in Hollywood-a maid. And it’s not that there’s anything wrong with being a maid, it’s that again, we as black people have so many other stories than struggle and hardship and being degraded by this country. And we actually do have loving relationships! Why did Minny’s husband have to be abusive, AND invisible? We don’t even see him! It’s as if the film subliminally communicates that black husbands are imaginary.
If The Help was just one film among numerous projects displaying the range our collective and individual experiences, it wouldn’t be as controversial. But Hollywood doesn’t seem to think well rounded illustrations of our lives will sell. Every now and then we get a Jumping the Broom, which wasn’t that great. And in between we get coated with Tyler Perry’s version of the black experience, but that’s not enough.
The performances in The Help were excellent and I’m certain that at least Viola Davis will get an Oscar nom, and possibly Octavia Butler as well. But if in fact Davis or Butler gets the Oscar, though I will be thrilled for them to receive accolades for their craft, I will definitely be taken back to the image of Hattie McDaniel getting an Oscar for playing a maid….. seventy two years ago. And though there is dignity in playing the role, after seven decades, there needs to be a much wider range of notable lead roles available for black actresses in parts that portray us as empowered and LOVED in our lives. We need that.
I’m not negating that the reality of African American oppression is real, or that the stories of those who came before us and paved the way for us to even begin to think that we deserve and can get better aren’t valuable and shouldn’t be told. Absolutely not. But what I am saying is that, we deserve to tell our own stories too. And we deserve for those stories to include our love, happiness, and successes as well as the pain and suffering that is a part of overall human condition, not relegated to only black people. The Help was a well done film. I would just like more variety in the depictions of the experiences of the African Diaspora. And I would like more of those stories to be created with our own voices.
Did you see The Help or read the book? If so, how did you feel about it?
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