As a book and a movie and a social phenomenon, "The Help" functions as a kind of Rorschach test that measures how you feel about the history of racial inequality in America. Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel is set in the profoundly segregated and hierarchical Deep South of the Jim Crow era, nearly half a century ago, and writer-director Tate Taylor's handsome and largely admirable film adaptation captures the time and place in ravishing detail. "The Help" definitely worked on me as a consummate tear-jerker with a terrific cast, and it's pretty much the summer's only decent Hollywood drama. You could also describe it as an accretion of familiar ingredients: "Mad Men" plus "Steel Magnolias" plus "To Kill a Mockingbird" plus "Mississippi Burning."
As I say, on the surface of things "The Help" is set in a distant galaxy, far, far away. It would be ludicrous to claim that things have not changed for black people in America. Somehow or other we apparently elected an African-American president -- please hold all the hate mail, just for a second! -- and even in Jackson, Miss., I doubt anyone makes the "colored maid" use an outdoor toilet these days. But you don't have to be some kind of raving leftist to see that "The Help" masquerades as an inspiring entertainment but also, along the way, invites us to look closely at contemporary attitudes and contemporary inequality, and not to feel too superior to the benighted past.
This need to fictionally whitewash the culpability one clearly feels in the horrific behaviour of one's ancestors seemingly does not get old for some white people," says Gerard Vincent, a writer in New York City who grew up in the south.
"What makes this particularly offensive is that it's set in a time where black people were actually standing up for themselves, but clearly in the author's mind a spunky, privileged white girl was needed."
That criticism is unfounded, says Penn-Danforth, since it's the maids in "The Help" who commandeer much of the action when, as they're growing increasingly angry about the myriad indignities they're subjected to every day, they choose to tell their stories to Skeeter Phelan.
"It was the black women who had the control in 'The Help' — if they wanted to pull the plug at any moment, in terms of telling their stories, they could have," Penn-Danforth says. "They decided how and when and where they were going to tell their stories. They demanded things were left in or taken out or they were going to walk. It really wasn't a rescue story."
Nonetheless, "The Help" is still not something many black people want to read or see, says Toni-Michelle Travis, a politics professor at George Mason University whose grandmothers both worked as domestic help at the White House under Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"They were functionally illiterate and my parents were both college-educated and so am I, so I'd rather not look back at that status. It was demeaning. And I think the conflicting opinions on it have to do with the distance of where people are now versus having had relatives who were domestic workers ... those who are closer are liable to say: 'I don't want to see it.'"
She adds that her husband, a Virginian whose ancestors weren't domestic employees to white people, is keen to see the movie.
Brian Babylon, a radio host and comic in Chicago, says he'll never read the book or see the film.
"That is just not a read for me," says Babylon, 37.
"We grew up with two black grandmothers who did those sorts of jobs and it's always made me feel embarrassed, the whole servitude thing. I am not saying they were slaves, but it was pretty close; they were paid terribly and had no benefits and no rights. So it's just not something I want to read or see."
Regardless of the controversy, the movie is expected to go gangbusters this weekend in the wake of largely glowing reviews and word-of-mouth buzz that's gaining steam.
The market research firm CinemaScore has given the movie a rare A+ rating, suggesting the film will haul in as much as US$30 million by the end of the weekend. The film has already made more than $5 million since its opening day on Wednesday.
Travis says she's not totally averse to Stockett's optimistic take on race relations, and points out that she's now a member of various academic clubs alongside Roosevelt's granddaughter.
"That's American upward mobility at work," she says with a laugh.
"And let's face it, the book and the film are written from an interesting perspective. Domestic workers were faceless back then, no one knew who they were or what they did or listened to their stories, and Stockett's given them a voice and a public image. That's important.
No comments:
Post a Comment