The Help and Why It' So Problematic...

[etherealtsuki]

The Truth about the Civil Rights Era
by Martha Southgate

I resisted the fictional and soon-to-be cinematic juggernaut that is The Help for quite some time. In an otherwise extremely positive review in 2009, EW summed up my feelings quite well: ''The backstory is cringeworthy: A young, white first-time author - inspired by her own childhood

Comments

[ms_mmelissa]

Even more troubling, though, is how the structure of narratives like The Help underscores the failure of pop culture to acknowledge a central truth: Within the civil rights movement, white people were the help.

The architects, visionaries, prime movers, and most of the on-the-ground laborers of the civil rights movement were African-American. Many white Americans stood beside them, and some even died beside them, but it was not their fight - and more important, it was not their idea.

*Applause*

My sister and I turned to each other after seeing the trailer and were like "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Way to literally make black people supporting characters in their own cultural movement.

[senkig]

Trailer is definitely problematic, movie is less problematic in that the maids are co-leads (and Viola Davis is the narrator).

[ms_mmelissa]

Good to hear that about Viola Davis. Still, at the Oscar prediction website I go to they have her listed under supporting actress. :/

That's definitely how they are marketing it too.

[senkig]

Yeah, the marketing is a huge issue, but if it gets more people in the theaters to see how great Davis and Spencer are I'm okay with it. And if white people feel warm and fuzzy about themselves after the movie, they have huge issues, because the majority of white characters in that movie were awful and only a few of them were completely sympathetic.

And yeah, Oscar campaigning is always dumb (category fraud still wins out) but I hope she'll be campaigned as lead, with Spencer in supporting.

[the_laugh]

Yeah, I saw the movie in a sneak peek a month ago and as a white woman, I didn't walk out proud...I walked out upset and embarassed.

[etherealtsuki]

It doesn't matter how you felt, the movie was obviously marketed as a feel-good movie and it is a 'White woman comes and changes the poor Black people's lives!' story.