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The Help has always been problematic (Make-believe courage in the face of fictionalized adversity! White heroes making white people feel better about being white when maybe they shouldn’t!) and now the Association of Black Women Historians lays out some of the reasons why.
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Who wants to bet this week’s lowest rated comment will come out of this post?
Mammy, please.
It’s such an articulate statement.
Slavery never happened.
Which time?
TOOL TIME!
I was thinking a similar thing, then scrolled down past the more rational discussion involving inglorious basterds thinking “maybe not,” then found marvelous rug’s little gem and completely died laughing. well played, good sir.
“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.” Damn…hit the nail right on the head with that. The movie and book is a piece of shit. The end.
Where is this quote from? I looked for it in the letter but didn’t see it.
Last paragraph
With the new Conan movie coming out this weekend, I am looking forward to the open statement from the Association of Barbarian Historians.
Crom, please.
Ahem…you mean The Association Of Black Female Barbarian Historians.
Is there any polite way to link to this on my [seemingly progressive] friends’ Facebook updates talking about how awesome the movie is/how excited they are to see it?
They’re probably just really excited about toilet-on-the-lawn jokes. Toilet-on-the-lawn jokes are the best. Maybe just remind them that they can watch the trailer for that?
Historically inaccurate or not, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying the movie. I mean, I’m not gonna see it, because it looks like total snoresville to me, but movies can get things wrong sometimes and still be enjoyable. Nobody complained to Quentin Tarantino that Hitler wasn’t really burned alive in a movie theater.
Is that the same thing? Seems like that was kind of a catharsis for an otherwise-cowardly way out for him, whereas this is more of an unhealthy perpetuation of a myth.
PS that was the soonest I’ve ever been Godwin’d.
There’s only a problem if people walk away from it thinking they now have a better understanding of a historical time or event, when in fact they’ve been given false information.
Not every movie has to be a history lesson, but I get annoyed when people (white people) act like they really understand something just based on what is basically a beach read, and then act all smug about it.
I hope instead that people see the movie or read the book and it piques an interest in learning about the civil rights movement. That’d be great.
As much as it saddens me, I’d be willing to bet that there were people who walked out of Inglorious Basterds believing that it was historically accurate. People will believe anything.
http://literallyunbelievable.org/
I think you’re right, but I would go so far as to say that people who enjoyed it did so based around the fact that it is a supposedly historically accurate representation of that period, which would in turn lead people to seek out reviews/accounts/etc that are consistent with what they already saw. They wouldn’t look for or even pay attention to information that is framed in a way that doesn’t line up with this, especially because in itself the plot revolves around “shining a light on information that was not easily accessible” and “giving a voice to those who were not heard.” The film/novel are probably enough to give most people the sense that they have been educated on the topic in some way.
You’re probably right, but I would lay the blame on the people who MADE the movie, not those who watch and enjoy it.
@taco, word, just extrapolating.
AGREED! It is called fiction, and it doesn’t have to be historically accurate. Few books and movies can really portray all of the horrors of past injustices. I remember a friend of mine complaining that Shindler’s List made the holocaust look less horrific than it was, in particular because of that one sceen where they herd people into the showers, and everyone expects gas to come out of the shower heads but it is water, and it is just a shower and everyone smiles and hugs each other. Does that make Shindler’s List a bad movie? No.
Yes and I am inclined to agree, except on one point: the movie is ABOUT the concept that their stories are unheard and that the truth is being exposed, and it is effectively accomplishing the opposite here.
The truth is closer than you think.
canadiantuxedo, I do not mean this as an attack at all, (nether on you, or on the book which I have not read) so I hope it is not taken that way, but I think you are perhaps taking criticism of this book and movie a little too personally. I am guessing you like it (or love it) and I know that reading a critique of a book or movie or whatever that is important to you (the hypothetical you), it can feel like an attack directly on yourself or your morals or your character, etc. At least, I know that is my knee jerk reaction oftentimes.
However, I think it would be unfair to write off everyone’s critiques without listening to them. There is (IMO) no work or art, be it fiction or film or anything else, without some problematic aspects. And I don’t think liking something that is problematic is a reflection upon one’s character. After all, if we only were able to enjoy things that had no issues, the pool of things to enjoy would be very shallow indeed. So, to finally come to a point, while I do not think that one should not attempt to write about things they do not know, care should be taken. This critique is not lambasting the author because she is a white woman. It is pointing out problems that often arise when a member of a privileged class attempts to portray an oppressed class.
The problems with The Help, though, go beyond historical inaccuracy. The whole concept of the thing is wrong for reasons already discussed. You should Like One of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic’s Life by Alice Childress which the ABWH has on their suggested reading list. I read it years ago and it’s amazing. Much more accurate fiction.
Also, I don’t mind that scene in Schindler’s List. It may have been a little cheap, but I think its purpose was to show the state of terror those people were constantly under. Every time they step in the shower, they expect to be murdered.
*should READ Like One of the Family. Don’t try and “like” One of the Family because I don’t know what that is.
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“A-fucking-men.”
Never forget.
Jokes aside, this is just straight-up excellent.
In this day and age, it’s really refreshing to read a statement against something that is civil, well-thought-out, and enlightening without resorting to name-calling and condescension. If figures that it comes from a group of academics rather than pundits.
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Forget it, Face. It’s Taco-town.
Ugh, I think I’m just feeling bitchy today. I corrected a co-worker who said he spent a few hours last night watching Netflix, because no, you don’t watch Netflix, you watch things ON Netflix. I’m going back to bed.
Kiss your baby and have a nap. No offence was taken at all. I laughed!
Do you yell at people who say they watched TV or played Nintendo too?
Oh, shit. I say this all the time. I verb it, though: “Netflixing”
I do, Dan Electrode! I also get upset when people use the word “decimate” to mean anything other than “to destroy by one-tenth.”
I’m starting to think I have a problem.
I am annoyed by the decimating thing too! We are so lame! (In a good way?) (probably not)
Dangerous Minds think alike!
This was not meant to be a reply to your comment. It was a joke about white women savior nonsense. I’m dumb.
How does it feel to be that guy? Does it feel great?
(And I’d call it unintentional ambiguity, rather than a grammatical error. But I’m just being pedantic).
Yes, awesome.
Shoot. That sounds like I’m answering your question, like some kind of asshole. I meant, “Yes! That is an awesome comment!” (Communicating is hard!)
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R2D2, I found it!
UGH. What a fitting avatar for this comment.
Yes, we know you’re inventing bullshit to complain about, but what do you think of the statement?
Their complaints are not “invented bullshit.” It’s the same complaint that Stanley Kubrick had about Schindler’s List:
“Think that’s about the Holocaust? That was about success, wasn’t it? The Holocaust is about 6 million people who get killed. Schindler’s List is about 600 who don’t.”
Telling the story of an oppressor saving his victims from the oppression his own dominant group is inflicting upon them will always be problematic. However, Schindler’s List is at least based upon a true story, there was an Oskar Schindler, who really did save the lives of over 1000 Jews during WWII.
The Help is entirely fictional, and thus has no real answer to the question: why couldn’t the story of the plight of black domestic workers in the 1960s be told without the fictional sympathetic white savior character?
As funny as it sounds, Emma Stone’s character in a film called ‘The Help’ is the same as Shia Lebeouf’s character in ‘Transformers’ is the same Neil Patrick Harris’ character in ‘The Smurfs’.
They’re all white culture conduits to help white cultured people relate to characters that they aren’t, when really the films’ focus should be on the titular characters. They even pulled this with the Hellboy film, inventing a young white guy agent to ‘help out’ with the BPRD. What the fuck? We as an audience can’t just role with a Black/Blue/Red/Robot protagonist? It’s GOTTA be a white person?
(Btw, I don’t plan on seeing any of these movies, but I can’t recommend enough the How Did This Get Made podcast episode where Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas dissect The Smurfs with special guest Paul F. Tompkins).
http://www.earwolf.com/episode/the-smurfs/
Or NPH in Beastly… because I couldn’t relate to a person who was wealthy but cursed with face tattoos by an Olsen twin after inviting her to prom but not really. Well, that’s what I got about 20 minutes into the movie… But really more like 2.5 minutes because there was a lot of fast-forwarding. It was too boring to finish. Oh, I’d like to nominate Beastly for WMOAT because as funny as it is to see an Olsen twin as a witch in a retelling of a Disney version of a folk tale from Europe that once again boils down to SETTLE YOUR DEBTS AND YOU WON’T HAVE TO SELL YOUR DAUGHTER, p.s. STAY OUT OF THE WOODS, it’s not funny enough to keep me from holding my finger on the fast-forward button.
Actually, no one should watch this movie. It’s that bad.
COOL weather metaphor.
is anyone else really excited to show this letter to their girlfriend who loved this book?
Please report back and tell us how it went down!
“see? SEE????”
I’ll start getting your eharmony profile ready.
eHarmony has a very specific algorithm for happiness based on white (mostly suburban) Christian couples. Feeling good about a fake story about a white person helping people of color is about 20% of that equation.
You can set up the profile, facetaco, but tomjoad may not be allowed to use the site if he doesn’t understand the need for this book. (Assuming tomjoad is a male. If tomjoad is a girl than she is verboten for not being hetero and not liking this kind of trash literature.)
True story: they’ve rejected me because I’m too extroverted and not religious. My friend joined to see if they’d let him on and they did and then he met his wife through the site. So my spinsterhood and heathenism has brought people together. Because I’m magic like that. Like Emma Stone.
girlfriend: i read that book. the letter is inaccurate. the african american women do not speak in a dumbed down dialect. They do get verbally abused and they are in fear of sexual harassment. Aibleen, never says “law” instead of lord, and she never says, “you is smat.” her character is portrayed as an older wise woman.
me: ummmmmm… you’re not a historian.
Well, in the movie Aibileen says, “you is smaaahhhht,” not smat. I don’t know if that helps your argument, but we have to get the incorrect pronunciation of smart right. Right?
I doubt that the people who wrote that letter even read the book. If so, I have no idea how they came away with a feeling of nostalgia. That book reminded me how much it sucked to be a woman–of any color–back then and how awful things were for people of color not so very long ago. I also have a problem with the fact that the book (or movie) is being criticized for not telling the stories of black men. The vast majority of books and movies about any historical period focus on men, and no one has a problem with that. And the dialect? You have got to be kidding me. Mark Twain wrote in a Southern dialect and it added richness to his work. I don’t think it is up to anyone else to tell the author how to make her characters speak, and how to bring that speech to life. As for anyone who worries that women will leave the theater with a warped notion of what racism was like in the 1960s, that is just INSULTING to all women. What, we’re too stupid to not know the difference between fact and fiction? Also insulting are the comments such as “well maybe this will inspire women to go learn about civil rights.” Who says we aren’t already knowledgeable?
Women can’t read, everyone knows that. Did your husband write this for you?
I have not read the book, so I am not speaking from my own authority here. But one common critique I have read was how the author presented how the white characters spoke v. how the black characters spoke. That was what I assumed the author of this piece was discussing, but again, that is only because I have come across that critique before.
#tryingtobehelpful #probablynotsucceeding
I think what’s most problematic about the story is that it is another case of a white person heroically helping the poor blacks. And in this case, it’s complete fiction. No one ever did write a book called The Help that told the stories of southern black domestic workers. And no one has still since this book is, like the letter said, a coming of age story of a white girl. Why can’t there be a bestselling book or major film told from the black perspective?
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Isn’t White Oleander by Janet Fitch a coming of age story about a white woman? My sister’s read that book, like, 40 times. it was a movie too.
Yes yes, you are leading a hard life and that is cool, but how does this relate to MEEE? – White people who are easily bored.
Shit. I wish someone cared enough about the lives of poor modern day nannies of all ethnicities. Hello, sears, we’re still here, we’re still marginalized, and we still can’t afford to have our own children.
So many typos! I meant workers fulfilling the “Mammy” role, not just nannies, though as a nanny I watched the kids, drove them around in my boss’s car since I had none of my own, did the shopping, cleaned the house, cooked all the meals and got severely bitched out whenever I disappointed anyone in the family and/or did not live up to expectations. Also, x out ‘sears’ and replace it with ‘dears’.
I like it as “sears” better! It’s the perfect reference for being marginalized and not being able to afford anything!