{"id":1977,"date":"2011-08-12T16:16:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T20:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcdistrictdiva.com\/?p=1977"},"modified":"2011-08-12T16:16:37","modified_gmt":"2011-08-12T20:16:37","slug":"before-you-go-see-the-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/before-you-go-see-the-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Before You Go See The Help…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Due to a death in the family, I wasn’t able to go to the DC sneak preview of the highly controversial movie “The Help.” \u00a0Without that free pass, the odds aren’t good that I’ll ever go see that movie. \u00a0I’ve read the lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0and disturbing allegations that the maid filed against the author, Kathryn Stockett, as well as the criticisms<\/a> on the one hand and blind praise on the other of the book and movie. \u00a0Let’s just say I’m good on this one. \u00a0But I came across this open letter<\/a> from the Association of Black Women Historians which explains very well why everyone — particularly Black women — should boycott the film. \u00a0They go even further and offer suggestions on what books we should be reading instead. \u00a0Consider this:<\/p>\n

On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), this statement provides
\nhistorical context to address widespread stereotyping presented in both the film and novel
\nversion of The Help. The book has sold over three million copies, and heavy promotion of the
\nmovie will ensure its success at the box office. Despite efforts to market the book and the film as
\na progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the
\nexperiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations
\nof black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism.<\/p>\n

During the 1960s, the era covered in The Help, legal segregation and economic inequalities
\nlimited black women’s employment opportunities. Up to 90 per cent of working black women
\nin the South labored as domestic servants in white homes. The Help\u2019s representation of these
\nwomen is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy\u2014a mythical stereotype of black women who
\nwere compelled, either by slavery or segregation, to serve white families. Portrayed as asexual,
\nloyal, and contented caretakers of whites, the caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America
\nto ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where
\nemployers routinely exploited them. The popularity of this most recent iteration is troubling
\nbecause it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to
\nclean the White House rather than reside in it.<\/p>\n

Both versions of The Help also misrepresent African American speech and culture. Set in the
\nSouth, the appropriate regional accent gives way to a child-like, over-exaggerated \u201cblack\u201d dialect.
\nIn the film, for example, the primary character, Aibileen, reassures a young white child that,
\n\u201cYou is smat, you is kind, you is important.\u201d In the book, black women refer to the Lord as the
\n\u201cLaw,\u201d an irreverent depiction of black vernacular. For centuries, black women and men have
\ndrawn strength from their community institutions. The black family, in particular provided
\nsupport and the validation of personhood necessary to stand against adversity. We do not
\nrecognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters
\nare depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not
\nrepresent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, African American domestic workers often suffered sexual harassment as well as
\nphysical and verbal abuse in the homes of white employers. For example, a recently discovered
\nletter written by Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks indicates that she, like many black domestic
\nworkers, lived under the threat and sometimes reality of sexual assault. The film, on the other
\nhand, makes light of black women\u2019s fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of
\ncomic relief.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the film is woefully silent on the rich and vibrant history of black Civil Rights activists
\nin Mississippi. Granted, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first Mississippi based field
\nsecretary of the NAACP, gets some attention. However, Evers\u2019 assassination sends Jackson\u2019s
\nblack community frantically scurrying into the streets in utter chaos and disorganized
\nconfusion\u2014a far cry from the courage demonstrated by the black men and women who
\ncontinued his fight. Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of
\nattractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku
\nKlux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness.
\nWe respect the stellar performances of the African American actresses in this film. Indeed, this
\nstatement is in no way a criticism of their talent. It is, however, an attempt to provide context for
\nthis popular rendition of black life in the Jim Crow South. In the end, The Help is not a story
\nabout the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to
\nsupport their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white
\nprotagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The
\nAssociation of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to
\nstrip black women\u2019s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.<\/p>\n

Ida E. Jones is National Director of ABWH and Assistant Curator at Howard University. Daina Ramey <\/em>
\nBerry, Tiffany M. Gill, and Kali Nicole Gross are Lifetime Members of ABWH and Associate Professors at <\/em>
\nthe University of Texas at Austin. Janice Sumler-Edmond is a Lifetime Member of ABWH and is a Professor <\/em>
\nat Huston-Tillotson University<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Suggested Reading:<\/strong>
\nFiction:
\nLike one of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic\u2019s Life, Alice Childress
\nThe Book of the Night Women by Marlon James
\nBlanche on the Lam by Barbara Neeley
\nThe Street by Ann Petry
\nA Million Nightingales by Susan Straight<\/p>\n

Non-Fiction<\/strong>:
\nOut of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph
\nTo Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women\u2019s Lives and Labors by Tera Hunter
\nLabor of Love Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present by
\nJacqueline Jones
\nLiving In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis
\nComing of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
\nAny questions, comments, or interview requests can be sent to: <\/em>
\nABWHTheHelp@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Will YOU go see The Help this weekend??<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Due to a death in the family, I wasn’t able to go to the DC sneak preview of the highly controversial movie “The Help.” \u00a0Without that free pass, the odds aren’t good that I’ll ever go see that movie. \u00a0I’ve read the lawsuit\u00a0and disturbing allegations that the maid filed against<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[196,268,585,762,884,934],"class_list":["post-1977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-usual-dithering","tag-civil-rights","tag-distortion","tag-mammy","tag-racism","tag-stereotype","tag-the-help"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7nB6F-vT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}