When writers--entertainment, academic, historical, or social observers—attempt to narrate the details of the complex, dynamic, and often disgraceful relationships between Blacks and Whites in the South during the pre and post Jim Crow eras, it is sure to cause a ruckus. The blockbuster movie based on Kathryn Stockett’s book-“The Help” is no exception. I, unlike a couple of my close friends and African American women scholars whom I admire and respect—actually enjoyed the movie and give it four stars on artistic delivery and realism.
While I understand, I disagree with Dr. Melissa Harris Perry’s position, which she articulated on the Lawrence O’Donnell show and in her tweets that the movie is “ahistorical and deeply troubling” or that the movie “reduces systematic, violent racism, sexism & labor exploitation to a cat fight that can be won with cunning spunk” or when she tweeted sarcastically, “Thank God magical black women were available to teach white women [how to] raise their families and to write books!!”
I also respectfully disagree with the assertion posited by the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH) who declared in a position paper: “Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers.”
Like most works of art, even those inspired by history, the truth is in the eyes of the beholder. I contend, notwithstanding the validity of several concerns brought forth by the ABWH or Dr. Perry, “The Help” simply tells on side of many stories and depicts only a smidgen of manifold representations of black life in the south during the pre and post Jim Crow eras. It in no way tells the whole story or represents all of the lived experiences of black folk. Grant it, not too much original creativity went into the development of the characters; many people, no doubt, especially those of us who grew up in the south and especially in households headed by Black women domestic workers—found the characters uncomfortably yet intimately familiar.
I grew up in a small southern town (Chapel Hill) in a household headed by strong Black women domestic workers. The experiences and behaviors of Aibileen, Minny and even Yule Mae were far from “ahistorical” or “disturbing distortions” but resonate with the experiences and behaviors of many black women domestic workers whom I learned important valuable life lessons from in my family and community; women who worked for White families or in white-owned establishments as housekeepers, CNAs and cooks. Lessons like learning how to code switch, persevere against the odds and indignities or to master what the great Black poet Paul Laurence Dunbar expressed in his poem We Wear the Mask: “We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes. This debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile, and mouth with myriad subtleties.”
While the Black women domestic help in the movie may have glamorized to some degree the overplayed stereotypical “mammy” caricature—the docile, poor black woman maid who just loved herself some white folk—the Black women also personified Dunbar’s poem by showing that the maid or “the help” was a mask they wore and a role they played not who they were as a person or the sum of all the hopes and dreams they held for themselves and their children as Americans. Just because they didn’t overtly challenge the systems of oppression under which they were economically controlled, didn’t mean that they didn’t exercise agency over how much they allowed their circumstances to affect them psychologically and emotionally.
The actions and behaviors of the black women domestic workers e.g. Aibileen, Minny and Yule Mae exemplified skillful coping techniques and survival mechanisms. They used humor to ridicule the ignorance and amoral actions of their employers. They concealed their humiliation and endured demeaning treatment and derogatory accusations by looking at their jobs as a means to an end and nothing more. To suggest that their behaviors and responses were merely primitive and reflexive responses to their subordinate social status (or simply a matter of staying in their place) is a bit condescending and intellectually shallow.
Viola Davis (Aibelinee); Octavia Spencer (Minny); Aunjanue Ellis who played Yule Mae Davis and of course the phenomenal Cicely Tyson—all deserve Oscars—not nominations but actual Oscars. Emma Stone who played the lead character Skeeter-a southern young lady transitioning into woman hood and moving in the direction of her own moral compass despite the extraordinary pressure to conform to the status quo of the Jim Crow south also deserves at least an Oscar nomination. However, if the Oscar nominating committee follows its traditional standards the white woman who “saves the day” will no doubt get the Oscar and the Black women whom she helped to liberate will no doubt get the Oscar nominations. But what’s new right? Another unnerving but true account of history—just like the plot of The Help.
