The Movie Which Shall Not Be Named

Seriously, I didn't think it was possible for Twitter and the blogosphere to run a topic into the ground, but they've managed to do it.  I've had to filter :::whispering::: The Help out of my time line because two years after the book came out, people are just getting around to being enraged about it.  Oh sure, there were a few people that expressed their disgust with it back in 2009, but the people that don't read just got around to realizing it existed with the release of the movie.

From what I've read online there seems to be a misconception that The Help portrayed the maids as happy and carefree. Nothing could be further from the truth.  At no point did I ever get the feeling that Aibileen, Minnie or the countless others were happy to be domestics.  They weren't happy about it at the beginning, middle or end or the day.  It was simply a job they did.  Someone else suggested that the book and movie pretends that the women and their employers were friends.  Anyone that read the book or saw the movie would be hard pressed to make that argument.  

Other complaints I've seen were that the dialogue was thick and dated.  It was set in Mississippi in the 1960s, so yes, it was dated for that time period.  If my grandma Bessie Mae from Shuqualak, MS still talked liked that as an older woman in the 80s, I'd have to say it's pretty sure that she, and others like her, were talking like that in the 60s.

On Twitter someone said, "It doesn't portray the Jim Crow south accurately. At all." But then admitted that she hasn't seen it and won't until "It's on HBO or bootleg.  My fear is this movie is getting such buzz, it's going to further whitewash people's ideas about what the South used to be."  If you've seen the movie, if you've read the book, you know that, if anything, this movie will make people cringe at images of the South.  Whites are not portrayed in a positive light and neither are the Jim Crow policies.  Like I said in a previous post, the mirror that is being held up reflects poorly on them, not the women that worked in their households.

I saw the movie Wednesday evening, without Aunt Jean, who said, "it's too late to be ripping & running, catch me after church Sunday."  The theater I frequent has nice leather couches and love seats, so I ended up sitting next to an elderly black woman who told me I could call her Miss Annie.  Side note: While I hadn't had enough sense to grab dinner before the movie and didn't want to wait in the concession line, Miss Annie pulled a nicely made sandwich out of her purse, along with chips, as soon as the lights dimmed.  I kept hoping she'd offer me the other half, but I had to content myself with eating Jolly Ranchers I found at the bottom of my purse.

At any rate, I thought the movie was fairly decent overall.  I understand  that it's difficult to condense such a lengthy book into a 2 1/2 hour movie and still touch on all of the salient points, but I would have lessened the roles of some to increase the roles of others.  That being said, here are the problems I had with the translation from book to film:

• The book version was set over the course of two to three years, which provided a more believable time line for Skeeter to gain Aibileen's trust.  In the movie it happened within the first 15 minutes. 


• In the book, Minnie was one of the narrators and her story line was significant.  In the movie, she was relegated to a secondary role and, while parts of her story were told, her diminished role made her less developed than I would have liked to see.


• The relationship between Skeeter and her mother is more complex and explored in the book, as is her mother's illness.  In the movie, their relationship is more of the typical mother-daughter relationships we see in everyday TV and the mother's illness is glossed over, almost in a joking manner.


• The book version of Celia Foote is not the movie version. 

I've watched the PhD's of Twitter discuss this film and how the negative portrayal of black women in Hollywood and the inaccurate reflection of the Civil Rights Movement are what really bother them.  They've written lengthy blogs, and promoted them, about what's wrong with the movie they still won't see.  People are picking sides and saying that the side you choose surely says something about you and that they're glad to see people's true colors.  Really?  These are the same people that sit quietly as rappers, singers and others degrade black women in song and video daily, not to mention Twitter trending topics.  They have nothing to say about the images Tyler Perry feeds America about black women in film and on TV, and you can find one of his shows on TV daily and his films on cable weekly.  I don't mind anyone pointing a finger at inaccuracies and portrayals and calling for Hollywood to do better, but do it with all projects that show black women in a less than flattering light and not just because you don't care for the color of the person that wrote the story or adapted the film.

Miss Annie enjoyed the movie.  And noted author Pearl Cleage said on her Facebook page, "I read 'The Help' and enjoyed it.  I thought the writer did a good job of making all the characters fully formed human beings, the good, the bad and the ugly." I can't argue with either of them.

I'll Have A "Help"ing of That

I make it a point to only speak on things about which I am knowledgeable.  You won't see me jump into discussions about nuclear physics, rugby or the Twilight books because I don't know anything about them.  So it's with a little shock that I've watched several blogs discuss a book that they've admittedly never read and a movie that they admittedly will never see, The Help.  How much are some people against it? I've seen whole websites devoted to nothing but reasons why, sight unseen, they hate the book and refuse to see the movie.  Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but how do you make an informed opinion about that which you've not read?

Back in 2009 when this blog was brand spanking new and no one read it except a handful of friends, I wrote a post about how much I enjoyed the book.  In fact, it was my favorite read of 2009.  Those people that have no desire to see the book would probably question how a movie about black servants in white households could be a favorite of any person of color.  I say, easily.  The characters of all of the women, not just the white women, were very well developed.  Where other books by white authors have sometimes failed to humanize black servants, The Help gave them a face and a voice.

Regular readers of this blog know that I don't care for magical Negroes such as those found in Saving CeeCee Honeycutt and The Secret Lives of Bees.  In both books, it is black women that save struggling white children.  Ironically, several people that hate The Help without reading it have admitted to loving The Secret Lives of Bees.  Go figure.  I also take exception to books with white saviors.  I'm not a fan of The Blind Side because, while it's nice that the white family takes in the poor boy of color, black women have been raising white children for over 200 years with little to no fanfare, and certainly no Sandra Bullock Academy Award.  (By the way, the promotional items that are being sold on HSN as a tie-in to the movie are done in poor taste and, in my opinion, the studio has gone overboard.)

What I can say as someone that has read The Help is that there are no white saviors and there are no magical Negroes.  (Just to be sure I wasn't delusional, I spoke with a number of other readers of color who also read, and liked, the book and confirmed my thoughts on it.)   Instead there are black women servants, some of whom are treated poorly by their employers.  Through the words of a servant to her employer, which the employer puts down on paper, a mirror is held up for white families throughout the town.  Does the mirror change the way that they treat their servants? In some instances, yes. In others, no.  But it is still a teaching moment. And in my opinion, that is what a good book is.  It serves as a teaching instrument.

The Help has started a dialogue, whether or not it is welcomed, amongst white readers and between white and black readers, particularly women. If we, as a country, can not dialogue about race, then we will continue to see a divide and mistrust of people of other races.  NPR's Michele Norris has a section on her website called The Race Card, which she began as a conversation starter about race.  It was started in response to questions about post-racial America.  You see, a lot of people felt that once Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, racism in America was dead.  And, of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Michele's site proves time and time again though that more and more people want to discuss what race in America means.

Can we truly have this dialogue if we don't want to see, hear or talk about those periods in history that cause us to cringe?  If Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Wench is made into a movie, will it be more palatable because it was written by a woman of color?  And what about this current generation of children that have no sense of this history? This is the same generation that didn't see why it was a big deal that the United States finally elected a black president.  I think that the reason why so many white people are quick to dismiss claims of prejudice and racism by saying "Get over it" is because they are truly ignorant to how far we have not come.  There are those that seem to believe that once slavery was abolished, everyone parted amiably, while ignoring the fact that there are still people walking this earth that couldn't drink out of certain water fountains or attend certain schools.  Those are the people that need a mirror.

Talking to a lot of black authors on Twitter, I know that there is some resentment that a white author was able to write this book, have it received as well as it has been, and then have it turned into a movie.  And let's not forget, it was her debut novel.  There are authors that have toiled at their craft for years and have yet to be truly recognized by the publishing industry, let alone Hollywood.  I can understand and agree with their position 100%.  Black authors don't get the recognition they deserve.  Other than blogging and tweeting about their books, as I do here, I don't know how to change that.  I can only hope that in this post-racial America we're supposed to live in, things will get better and readers of all races will begin to see books by people of color as the norm instead of outside of the norm.

Driving around this weekend I had a conversation with my teen about the book and this post.  When I told her that her 76 year old spitfire Aunt Jean had been "the help" at one point, I could have knocked her over with a feather.  In my teen's world, Aunt Jean has always been the highly educated, sophisticated and well off matriarch of the family.  Until I told her, she didn't realize that Aunt Jean began working straight out of high school, got married at 17 and didn't start college until she was 27.  She went on to get her master's in education and retired as the principal of an elementary school.  In 1952, going to college as the oldest child of 12 wasn't really an option.  Working to help pay the bills was.  And for someone in her position, working as the help was one of the more promising jobs.  Even now in speaking to Aunt Jean, there is no shame in what she did.  It was honest work for honest pay, but it was temporary.  It didn't take away from who she was then and certainly not from who she is now.

So when The Help comes out in a few weeks, Aunt Jean and I are going to see it together.  And I'm dragging the teen, who in her middle class world can't fathom anyone in her family working as a maid, along.  Will I love the movie as much as the book? I don't know, but I won't speak on it until I see it.

Below, Viola Davis, star of The Help speaks on the criticism she has received for her portrayal of Aibileen.

Viola Davis on her decision to play a maid in The Help by CherieNic