by Karen Merced Willner
Currently #1 at the box office for the third week in a row,
The Help presents uncomfortable questions to the
US film industry about persistent stereotypes and its tepid support of more valid Black narratives from African American auteurs..
True diversity in culture is found when a variety of authentic voices tell their own stories and are heard by all. When the breadth and scope of ethnic experience is fully expressed and widely accessible through an art form, there is a kind of narrative parity which moves society forward and promotes cohesion among once disparate cultures.
Minority voices continue to struggle for narrative parity in the
US mainstream motion picture.
Granted, African American stories have come a long way since the dominance of Sydney Poitier as the Lone Black Man to pierce the white veil of mainstream movie stardom.
But we seem to have reached a flat spot since the ascendance of Spike Lee’s crossover heyday.
The color caste decried in Lee’s
School Daze and
Jungle Fever persists in the limited narratives of today’s successful crossover “Black” stories, i.e.,
The Help.
Must a dark Black actress only hope to be cast as a mammy figure, are only fair-skinned
Halle Berry types accepted as romantic leads?
Why are Black men predominantly portrayed either as funny scoundrels (Chris Tucker in the
Rush Hour franchise, Eddie Murphy in the upcoming
Tower Heist), or marginalized altogether (the preacher and the unseen husband in
The Help)?
Are the only Black-perspective stories that are accessible to non-Black audiences those wrought in the visions of White directors (Steven Spielberg and
The Color Purple, Jonathan Demme and
Beloved) or the presumptions of White authors (
The Help)?
Certainly, The Help is a beautifully-acted, engaging movie. But it is also a White “feel good” movie, self-congratulatory as the White princess-savior descends upon the down-trodden Black maids to encourage and inspire them. Yes, there are exchanges and the maids rescue her right back. Not unlike Pretty Woman: despite Julia Roberts’ declaration of empowerment at the end, Pretty Woman is still about a hooker with a heart of gold, and despite its own declarations of empowerment from the central Black character’s voice-over at its end, The Help still smacks of White paternalism.
A diplomatic Roger Ebert writes:
“The Help” is a safe film about a volatile subject… We are happy for the two white women, … but as the film ends it is still
Jackson, Mississippi and Ross Barnett is still governor.
The Association of Black Women Historians concludes its published response to the film thusly:
In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own.
Stories of Whites who risked and even lost their lives for the sake of Civil Rights are valid and needed. But these are not the only stories. There are too few authentic empowerment narratives of and by African American filmmakers. Any projects with diversity behind as well as in front of the camera that reach the radar of general audiences tend to be comedies – Death at a Funeral; Madea movies and the rest of Tyler Perry’s growing canon. Serious films include two excellent and overlooked independents: Akeelah and the Bee (2006) with Laurence Fishburne and The Great Debaters (2007) with Denzel Washington. But with the exception of Spike Lee’s masterpiece Malcolm X (1992), and Kasi Lemmons Talk to Me (2007), I can think of no other major Civil Rights era theatrical films coming from Black sources over the last 20 years..
It’s nice that a well-meaning White Southern woman wrote The Help, and good for her that it was turned into a well-made and successful film. But I tend to agree with Michele Wallace, who wrote in the August 2011 issue of Essence:
I WONDER IF OTHER BLACK WOMEN who see this film will ask, When will we witness the mostly unsung heroism of the Séptima Clarks, the Ella Bakers, the Fannie Lou Hamers and so many others to the civil rights struggle in
America?
The more uncomfortable question is, if the stories of these unsung heroes do make it to the screen, will producers and distributors have the courage to invest in and promote these films as generously as The Help has been supported, and will White audiences embrace them with equal enthusiasm?
Links of interest:
Association of Black Women Historians Response to ‘The Help’:
Roger Ebert’s Review:
NPR Interview with “The Help” cast member Octavia Spencer (Minny):
Eudora Welty's Jackson: 'The Help' In Context by W. Ralph Eubanks
