More about the movie The Help

[firecat]

Follow-on to this post.

I still haven't seen the movie. So if you think only people who have seen it are allowed to have things to say about it, you might want to skip this post.

This is a good critique of the movie The Help and link roundup of other critiques. (The person who wrote this critique has seen the film and read the book):
http://afrolez.tumblr.com/post/9120766031/im-help-ed-out-and-yet-i-still-have-some-things-to

I'm particularly struck by this tweet by @MHarrisPerry, quoted in the above critique:

#TheHelpMovie reduces systematic, violent racism, sexism & labor exploitation to a cat fight that can be won w/ cunning spunk.

This type of story -- where an individual or a small group takes on a great big oppressive system and wins -- is typical of Hollywood movies (and probably plenty of non-Hollywood movies). As an American steeped in notions of individualism, I like this sort of story; it makes me feel good. But when this sort of story is misrepresented as or misunderstood to be the actual history of a complex situation or event, or when more accurate and complete historical treatments, including the viewpoints of people who were there, are not as easily available, that's a problem.

Comments

[meloukhia]

The history of the underdog narrative is really, really interesting; I definitely see some ties with bootstrapping, and the messaging that if you want/try hard enough, you can 'do anything.' Which, of course, elides the social structures that might make this an impossibility...

[onyxlynx]

At the movies, I have noticed that upwelling of emotion when good things happen against impossible odds, and for several years now have attributed that feeling to what we used to call Disney chemicals.

[firecat]

YES!!!!!

[cleverthylacine]

I don't think that you're only allowed to talk about things you've seen, particularly not if you're saying why you don't want to see them. (I have absolutely no intention of or interest in seeing this movie, both because I am sure most of the critiques I've seen are right and also because it's so not the kind of thing I like at all.)

But I don't think you can write a good critique of something without seeing/reading/experiencing it, and when I want to talk about Twilight, which I have read, I get hellaciously annoyed when people who have never read the books get pissy with me and I can even tell which SET of critiques I disagree with in some way they're coming from.

[firecat]

Yeah, commentary in terms of "why I won't see/read this" or "why I tried to see/read this and couldn't finish" is one thing and commentary by someone who has seen/read the whole thing is another, and it's important to acknowledge where you're coming from.

Read the book, forget the movie

[mariposa_regina]

I haven't seen the movie because "a movie is a postcard from the book", and I read the novel. Which means the author gets to manipulate the story to suit her goals and to make a good story.

The tweeter is incorrect. There was no "cat fight".

The book, at least, was about the individual lives of many women who lived in a culture (our culture) where black people were dehumanized. It is about institutionalized racism and the fight for dignity. It's an important book because it informs us about our past, which is also our present. In timing it precedes the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement, gives a snapshot of the 1950's in the south, a culture that exists as only a shadow of its former self. Yet if we are to understand America today, understand women today, we need to make the attempt to understand where we've been. The Help does that. It isn't perfect, but it's a damned good story.

Re: Read the book, forget the movie

[firecat]

Thanks!

(Note that the cat fight tweet applied to the movie, not the book.)

Re: Read the book, forget the movie

[selki]

Well, I've also read the book, and although it's better than the movie, going by that tweet (definitely some conflicts between the upper-class white women, but not reducible to cat fights), it IS a rather eye-rolling book about a White Girl Who Comes Home From College And Finally Kind of Gets Some of Just How Bad The Racism Is, in large part. Yes, there are parts narrated by the help which get a little more at the systemic problems, but bleah.

[grandiva1968.livejournal.com]

True enough, but at the same time, the intent here is popular entertainment, not any kind of genuine representation or addressing any social concern in specific or substantive ways.  Even though it chaps my ass to no end, I have to give this entire phenomenon the panem et circenses brush-off and keep walking past the open windows.

And, for the record, haven’t seen it, won’t see it.  The level of historical revisionism/oversimplification even just for purely entertainment purposes is a bridge to far for me.

[firecat]

Very good points.