celerydunk
Sloane Ranger
Posts: 2,521
May 3, 2005 21:57:59 GMT -4
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Post by celerydunk on Aug 20, 2011 21:16:45 GMT -4
I also didn't see any debate over whether or not the book was fictional.
I don't know that I would blame it all on the schools. A big part of what I learned about how the south was during the early 1900s was sitting down and listening to the stories from my relatives. I didn't learn how slavery and segregation impacted my family from a book. I have read a lot about it now that I am older, but nothing can compare to my great uncle handing me the only known picture of my grandfather and telling me how he died. No matter what our ethnic background is its important that we pass our stories on to the next generation.
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butternut
Lady in Waiting
Posts: 430
Nov 19, 2006 13:49:21 GMT -4
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Post by butternut on Aug 20, 2011 21:27:52 GMT -4
Well, my response was based on the fact that I honestly didn't read your question as rhetorical. That's what I get for responding to a post before noon on a Saturday morning.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Oct 5, 2024 14:31:04 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2011 22:01:14 GMT -4
Since when is the debate over whether it's actually the truth? I misread your original statement. Truth be told though in regards to who runs corporations, particularly those who run movie studios and own publishing houses, it all comes down to money. Yes, there are books written about a certain subject, in this case the history of black domestic workers written by African American writers, but if there isn't a "buzz" for these books from not only the black community but the mainstream community, these books will sit on bookshelves in bookstores and libraries without notice. Maybe this is dating me, but the book "Roots" by Alex Haley, albeit a non-fiction book, touched a nerve with all races becoming a best seller and a highly acclaimed miniseries. Like it or not, "The Help" touched a nerve. It touched a nerve the way "Roots" did thirtysomething years ago: it had crossover appeal surrounded by controversy. It stayed on the best seller list for two years. We're talking "The DaVinci Code" numbers (oh, yes, another controversial book made into a successful film). When the book was released, I didn't want to read it; however, after hearing readers from both races discussing it, I succumbed. Yes, there were historical inaccuracies, but I found it an interesting narrative. A nationwide boycott of these corporations may be an alternative; however, what's more important at this moment: the validity of a fictional book or the faltering economy? I'm pretty sure the latter is more important. I'm sure you agree with me, right?
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celerydunk
Sloane Ranger
Posts: 2,521
May 3, 2005 21:57:59 GMT -4
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Post by celerydunk on Aug 20, 2011 22:34:59 GMT -4
Nesdaq, I apologize for this, and its probably just me, but I've went back and read the last couple of pages of posts by you a couple of times and Im not entirely sure your point. Sometimes I think you are saying the studios arent doing enough to promote black films, but then I think you are trying to say we should just accept the movie as entertainment.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Oct 5, 2024 14:31:04 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2011 23:20:46 GMT -4
Nesdaq, I apologize for this, and its probably just me, but I've went back and read the last couple of pages of posts by you a couple of times and Im not entirely sure your point. Sometimes I think you are saying the studios arent doing enough to promote black films, but then I think you are trying to say we should just accept the movie as entertainment. Forgive me for the confusion I may have caused. The movie studios aren't doing enough to promote good films with African American themes such as the films I mentioned previously and I stand by this. As for the "acceptance" part, what I said was in order to avoid future "controversies" regarding books and films with historical racial themes, there has to be constructive dialogue between the major motion picture studios and book publishers and established authors, writers, and historians. The only problem with this is what is important? Many African Americans have other priorities besides books and movies such as 16 percent unemployment amongst African Americans, foreclosures, et al. Can you see black leaders and politicians fighting for this or The Help? Does this sound like "acceptance" to you? Perhaps when I said "if you don't like the film, don't see it," it may have sounded like "acceptance," but perhaps this was out of frustration over a book everyone knew was being made into a movie. Where was everyone when the movie was being made last year? Where were the African American historians when the film was in production? Why did they wait until the film was released to denounce this? Why wait until now to be heard?
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baileydash
Lady in Waiting
Posts: 316
Dec 12, 2009 17:21:35 GMT -4
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Post by baileydash on Aug 21, 2011 2:58:41 GMT -4
It was inevitable that this film would be controversial. So few films are made about the civil rights era, that the films that DO get made are inexplicably expected to be all things to all people.
I'm old enough to remember that even director Spike Lee faced a ton of criticism from members of the black intelligentsia when he was making Malcolm X.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Oct 5, 2024 14:31:04 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 3:50:35 GMT -4
It was inevitable that this film would be controversial. So few films are made about the civil rights era, that the films that DO get made are inexplicably expected to be all things to all people. That's true. The review of The Help linked on the first page complained that the movie didn't show the truth about racism because it didn't show what white men were capable of. Well, that's because the story is about women and their relationships with each other. Some of the Black Women Historian's statement was critical of the fact that there wasn't enough Civil Rights activism shown and that by not depicting the KKK, it trivialised racism into 'individual acts of meanness'. But The Help is about that; it is about what a black woman in that position might go through in her day-to-day life. Plenty of dramas use events of World War II as background, window dressing in a romance or family drama. But there are so many films about World War II that this kind of criticism is minimal.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Oct 5, 2024 14:31:04 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 6:22:48 GMT -4
I watched this movie and had issues with it. Yes, it is a story about women but that doesn't mean that men can not be a part of the story particularly if it could show a more complete view of the lives of the black maids. They had time to show a failed romance of Skeeter's that could have been better spent on just about anything else. Also, I thought at the very beginning of the movie that Skeeter's friends would be a little more complicated. Hilly said something kind to Skeeter and I thought that it would be brave to show her as a good friend and a racist, something that would have been true to the times. Instead it was thrown in there to seemingly set up Skeeter's troubled history with her mother, which I thought was a waste. Hilly gets turned into a mean girl so her racism seems more of a byproduct of her being an uber bitch. I also wish there were more movies that explored black stories without a white protagonist to navigate us through the story. That's not this movies fault but I don't think this was a story about black maids in the south, it felt like a movie about a Plucky Young White Girl Who Learns Something. Never read the book though so I can't comment on that.
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stina
Landed Gentry
"I just want to party!"
Posts: 825
Mar 5, 2006 19:41:47 GMT -4
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Post by stina on Aug 21, 2011 7:12:48 GMT -4
I just watched the movie, and it is a fluff piece, no doubt.
I mean, what Minnie did with the pie - I shudder to think of the consequences that would have had in the real world.
But it also presents the 1960s as a time ruled by white women, which is hardly true. Yes, they ruled the home where the black maids where employed, so in that sense they ruled that world, but they had no real freedom.
The lead character trying to find work and how it was just a matter of being persistent enough, and you would make it in the male-dominated workplace, is also painting history in a pinkish light.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Oct 5, 2024 14:31:04 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 7:27:16 GMT -4
Also, I thought at the very beginning of the movie that Skeeter's friends would be a little more complicated. Hilly said something kind to Skeeter and I thought that it would be brave to show her as a good friend and a racist, something that would have been true to the times. Instead it was thrown in there to seemingly set up Skeeter's troubled history with her mother, which I thought was a waste. Hilly gets turned into a mean girl so her racism seems more of a byproduct of her being an uber bitch. That's a failing of the book, too, I think. Early on in the book, it seems like Hilly is a good friend to Skeeter and a more balanced character, but later on she just loses any redeeming features she has. However, Aibileen's employer, Elizabeth and Skeeter's mother are pretty racist, too, but not flat-out evil. And Skeeter isn't exactly free of racist attitudes herself, such as when she assumes Aibileen will be an inferior writer.
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