The Help

[huntergrayson]

I am still appalled at how Secret Life of Bees was marketed. It had several multiple Award-winning/nominated actors and was barely marketed just because it was a movie primarily starring black actresses. It's a lovely and underrated film.

Congrats to Octavia!

[Neurochick]

Feb 25, 2012 18:14:16 GMT -4 @huntergrayson said:

Salon had a great article/story this morning about the movie, specifically how Viola and Octavia shouldn't be told what roles they "should" be playing or judged for being in this movie.

Maybe but in 2012 when the First Lady is a black woman, it seems very wrong to have black actresses play maids. Why can't a black woman play a starship captain, or a vampire, or star in a romantic comedy? Why play domestics?

[Deleted]

Feb 27, 2012 13:21:31 GMT -4 Neurochick said:

Feb 25, 2012 18:14:16 GMT -4 @huntergrayson said:

Salon had a great article/story this morning about the movie, specifically how Viola and Octavia shouldn't be told what roles they "should" be playing or judged for being in this movie.

Maybe but in 2012 when the First Lady is a black woman, it seems very wrong to have black actresses play maids. Why can't a black woman play a starship captain, or a vampire, or star in a romantic comedy? Why play domestics?

The movie wasn't set in 2012, though. If black actors are going to be cast in period dramas set in the US before the Civil Rights movement, then they most likely aren't going to play people of high station, because that was the reality of the time. I don't think people should stop making historical films; I think roles like the First Lady or head vampire should be available to black women in addition to roles like The Help, not necessarily instead of.

[Neurochick]

Feb 27, 2012 15:09:32 GMT -4 @ronette said:

Feb 27, 2012 13:21:31 GMT -4 Neurochick said:

Maybe but in 2012 when the First Lady is a black woman, it seems very wrong to have black actresses play maids. Why can't a black woman play a starship captain, or a vampire, or star in a romantic comedy? Why play domestics?

The movie wasn't set in 2012, though. If black actors are going to be cast in period dramas set in the US before the Civil Rights movement, then they most likely aren't going to play people of high station, because that was the reality of the time. I don't think people should stop making historical films; I think roles like the First Lady or head vampire should be available to black women in addition to roles like The Help, not necessarily instead of.

I just think in 2012 I don't need to see black women playing maid. Been there, done that, it's the 21st century now.

BTW, the women in my family were teachers in the 1960's, and they were black women; too bad that reality isn't portrayed.

[jmc]

I don't mind black women playing domestic workers, I just want a movie that tells something halfway resembling the truth instead of a sanitized, ready for white audiences version of events. Since that will never happen outside of, maybe, an HBO tv movie, it's time for Hollywood to retire the maid roles. The women who did that work deserve a better story than the one Hollywood has been telling about them for the past 60 years.

[fictionista]

I don't need to see black women of high station in that era (although yes, there absolutely were some). But why can't we see some of the MANY black female civil rights activists? Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida Wells Barnett, Septima Clark, Rosa Parks (pre bus boycott), Amy Jacques Garvey, Angela Davis, etc. Hell, what about a biopic of Madam CJ Walker, the first female millionaire in America? There are so many other stories besides fucking maid or mammy.

On Topic, I've never seen this, and never will. But I'm happy to that Octavia won an Oscar in spite of the role for which she won.

[huntergrayson]

Why can't a black woman play a starship captain

Octavia and Viola actually both have sci-fi projects that they just signed on to do, including the Ender's Game adaptation for the latter. Viola was also *fantastic* in Soderbergh's Solaris. She's been a talented, hard-working character actress for years - playing a wide variety of parts from detectives and doctors. She has, as far as I know, played a maid twice out of sixty IMDB credits. So it's a bit disingenuous IMO the notion that Octavia and Viola are just reduced to "mammy stories." Not that there aren't fucked-up notions of race and gender in Hollywood. And not nearly enough movies starring female leads, much less female leads of color, are greenlit. But as I said a few pages back, hopefully the acclaim they've received and the box office success shifts these women from underappreciated supporting roles to leading ladies.

[celerydunk]

Feb 27, 2012 18:36:13 GMT -4 fictionista said:

I don't need to see black women of high station in that era (although yes, there absolutely were some). But why can't we see some of the MANY black female civil rights activists? Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida Wells Barnett, Septima Clark, Rosa Parks (pre bus boycott), Amy Jacques Garvey, Angela Davis, etc. Hell, what about a biopic of Madam CJ Walker, the first female millionaire in America? There are so many other stories besides fucking maid or mammy.

On Topic, I've never seen this, and never will. But I'm happy to that Octavia won an Oscar in spite of the role for which she won.

Black women are sassy servants to the main characters, fat people are funny side kicks. Both are allowed to reveal a sensitive side, but for no more than 1/6th of their characters screen time. I'm pretty sure that's how the law is written.

[mariposalabrown]

I just saw it and thought Jessica Chastain was both Hilly and Celia the whole time, and that that was what her Oscar nomination was all about. Man, her and Bryce Dallas Howard look identical to me, I couldn't believe it when I looked it up. I could not take my eyes off Octavia, she was amazing, and felt it was on par with the book, lightweight.

[Baby Fish Mouth]

Saw this last night. I think it paled in comparison to the book. Not that the book was a great work of literature, but the movie made the characters seem overly cartoonish.

Emma Stone was miscast - she is not at all how I pictured Skeeter, and just seemed completely out of place. Weren't Skeeter's curls supposed to be unruly and frizzy? Emma's curls were way too perfect for someone living in that kind of climate and before curl serums.