I have to keep emphasizing this fundamental difference in what my opinion is regarding Kathryn Stockett’s primary black characters in The Help, because I tend to get offended correspondence from those who love them so.

Stockett’s maids are really MAMMIES. and thus, they’re STEREOTYPES. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t love them, because that’s why they were created:

Celia gives Minny a hug, which is supposed to make moviegoers chuckle and go “Awww”

This is an actual comment (on another site) after the person saw this poster:

Mammy and Minny, together at last. This image is from racismstillexisttumblr.com

An actual response to viewing that poster:

A ringing endorsement of Mammydom: “She was so far from any regular “Mammy” character. So, what was she, an above average Mammy?

Over done angry black woman pose of a full stare down

Over done angry black woman pose featuring hand on hip

Angry black woman results in frightened look from lovely, young, liberal and scared do gooder. And cue audience laughter, at a tried and true method to show how funny scaring white people can be.

Viola Davis as Aibileen in film version of The Help and young actress as Mae Mobley

Aibileen writing out her thoughts and living the life of an asexual hermit. No one thought to question why Aibileen abstained from a relationship of any kind for over twenty years, much like Constantine remained a chaste Mammy character and “Magic Negro” for Skeeter. And no mention is made of Aibileen’s marital status in the movie, unlike the sordid details in book, which played upon the black male as an unfaithful womanizer

Cicely Tyson as Constantine in film version of The Help, coddling a young Skeeter, Young actress is reportedly Stockett’s own daughter.

Constantine, played by Cecily Tyson. Skeeter is played by Emma Stone. In the book Skeeter claimed to be able to see the “blackness of Constantine’s gums.” Here the character of Constantine is used to provide humor, as many Mammy characters are enlisted to do.

“Of course I had trepidations. Why do I have to play the mammy? But what do you do as an actor if one of the most multi-faceted and rich roles you’ve ever been given is a maid in 1962 Mississippi? Do you not take the role because you feel in some ways it’s not a good message to send to Black people?” – Viola Davis, in a quote from Essence Magazine

“I’m playing a maid, a black actress playing a maid in 2011 in Hollywood, is a lot of pressure. You don’t play a maid. That is something you don’t do. When you play a maid where a white woman has written a story and a white man is directing it, so there is no way that it’s gonna be. . . I’m essentially playing a Mammy. So I felt a lot of pressure. Absolutely. And then and of course pressure from the readers who all wanted Oprah to play the role. And saw her as being seventy years old and about two hundred and fifty pounds or you know, yeah, I felt a lot of pressure. But it’s like Tate says, if you work from that point of pressure and fear, your work is gonna crack. At some point you just have to leave it alone. And know that we have our own standard of excellence . . .”

Link: Atlanta Mom’s on The Move http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shc0mdT-0Cc

From as far back as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one of the first novels showing the qualities a good Mammy and Uncle Tom character must have, these “credit to their race” caricatures have an overdose of loyalty, humility, love for their white charges, religious fevor, humor, everything that would make them “admirable” and “heart-warming” to their target audience. And that “target” audience isn’t African American. A stereotype is meant to appeal to the majority.

“Mammy” Jane from Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Just a few of the caricatures passed off as role models for African Americans to follow:

Lincoln Theodore Perry, whose screen name was Stepin Fetchit (as in step and fetch it). When he was berated (which was often) he’d cower, grovel, act confused, in short, he became the quintessential stereotype. While this act made Perry a millionare, he simply cemented the idea of black men being slow of mind, needing to be led via stern chastising or basically, treating them as if they were a child needing an adult’s  guidance.

Stepin Fetchit’s greatest role. The cowering, confused black man. His parts made him a very wealthy man.

Perry’s act (the character after all, was created by Perry) proved so popular that his caricature was immortalized in cartoon form. The screen grab below is from a Disney film titled “Mother Goose from Hollywood.” Note the bowed stance, oversized lips of pink, the scratching of the head, in short, an artists rendition of what Stepin Fetchit looked like, contrary to his real appearance:

From the Disney animated film Mothergoose from Hollywood, a caricature of Stepin Fetchit

But Stephin Fetchit’s act mirrored how African American males were supposed to behave in public. They were subservient to not just white males, but required to behave childlike so as not to “scare” white women. Thus the cowering, grinning African American could stave off an assault or perhaps worse, simply by perfecting this act so that bigots believed they were not responsible for their actions. It was condescending BS at its worse, but hey, if it saved your life, then it came in handy.

Hires ad, “Yassuh . . .” Black males were also required to grovel and give service with a smile

Booker Washington was a black male who lived two roles. For whites, he was the grinning, polite waiter. In real life he owned a bar and revealed why there was a need for this duplicity in a documentary that was shown on NBC in 1965. Ironically, Booker lived in Mississippi, the same state Stockett’s maids/Mammies inhabited. However, there were no goofy, cuddling Celia’s or no way he wasn’t going to get hurt after stating this:

Booker Wright from the documentary Mississippi: A Self Portrait

“The meaner the man be the more you smile although you cryin’ on the inside . . . ”

                                  -Booker Wright, from the documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait

You can see his courageous testimonial by clicking the link below. For his brave candor, Booker was fired from his job and violently  assaulted. All because he spoke the truth.

Link: http://insidedateline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/14/12728318-40-years-later-mississippi-waiters-magical-moment-renews-race-relations

The travesty and shameful history of race relations in America, is that this was the end result for any African American who ran afoul of those who believed in bigotry. No one was spared, not even black women:

The Lynching of Laura Nelson

Duluth Lynching used as a postcard

The Lynching of Rubin Stacy in Florida. This was “entertainment” for some bigots. Note the little girl and women who don’t appear shocked or appalled.

Hattie McDaniel. Truth be told, I’m a big fan of McDaniel. Here was a woman who simply wanted to live out her dream of being an actress in Hollywood. Her grumbling retorts to Scarlett in Gone with The Wind hit their mark, especially when giving Scarlett a reality check on Ashley Wilkes. It’s unfortunate that McDaniel had to utter lines where she clears the riff-raff off the streets as Scarlett makes her way to visit Rhett Butler in jail. But her part was a product of its time, and McDaniel was limited by segregation and misinformation on the intelligence of African Americans, as bogus studies perpetuated the mindset of blacks being inferior to whites.

Hattie McDaniel with Olivia De Havilland and Vivian Lee

Hattie McDaniel, Shirley Temple and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson

Hattie won an Oscar for her performance as Mammy in Gone With The Wind. Decades later, she was honored with her own stamp:

Hattie McDaniel stamp

Unfortunately, the “sassy” or “bossy” domestic stereotype became so popular, it jumped from books to film, to television, to ads, to even  cartoons:

Something for the “children”. An animated black woman, one of many comedic depictions of the black race, this one especially for children

The Mammy Two shoes caricature from Tom and Jerry cartoon

Big and Bossy, the “Sassy” maid stereotype could be played by any black actress who met the physical characteristics, which included carrying extra weight and being brown in complexion.

Gimme A Break! with leading lady Nell Carter, a talented Broadway performer who was cast in a Mammy role on television in the 80s. Gimme a Break was a popular sit-com, much like Beulah, with Hattie Mc Daniel and then Louise Beavers playing the surrogate mother/Mammy character in the 1950s.

Now, the reason why its important to review how African Americans were viewed back during segregation, is because while The Help was celebrated by book critics and readers worldwide, far too many didn’t realize the characters contained characteristics of accepted stereotypes from segregation, depictions that many African Americans had a problem with.

For example, Aibileen is the docile, loving, congenial Mammy. The actress who rose to fame portraying this character trope was Louise Beavers.

Louise Beavers in Imitation of Life, touted as “the greatest screen role ever played by a colored actress” that is, until Hattie McDaniel’s Mammy character, and Aibileen and Minny from The Help. 

Louise got her big break in the movie Imitation of Life. It’s positively uncanny how Fannie Hurst’s “friendship” with Zora Neale Hurston sort of mirrors Kathryn Stockett’s use of Octavia Spencer to champion her novel:

Click for a larger view

Octavia Spencer speaks up for The Help. This is how the original post looked in February of 2009 on the site The California Literary Review.com

For those unaware, Hurston promoted Fannie Hurst’s novel, even getting writer Langston Hughes on board. That is, until he was swayed by the critics of Hurst’s novel. You see, black critics didn’t view Hurst’s maid character Delilah as a positive portrayal. Here’s some of her book dialogue:

“Honey Chile, I’ll work for anything you is willin’ to pay, and not take more’n mah share of your time for my young un, ef I kin get her and me a good roof over our heads. Didn’t your maw always tell you a nigger woman was mos’ reliable when she had  chillun taggin’ at her apron strings? I needs a home for us honey. . .” (the maid Delilah selling her skills to prospective employer Bea in the 1933 novel Imitation of Life)

and this:

“Oh Lawd! Oh Lawd! Saw a brown spider webbing downward this mornin’ and know’d mah chile was a ‘comin home brown – Oh Lawd!” (The maid Delilah wailing when her daughter Peola rejects being black)

Delilah (played by Louise Beavers) begging to stay in Imitation of Life, the 1934 film version.

In the scene above, Delilah loves working for Bea so much that she offers to stay on WITHOUT PAY. And this is after she freely gives away her family’s pancake recipe, making Bea millions while Delilah behaves as if she only wants to stay as a domestic and wait on Bea, Jessie and her own passing for white daughter Peola. Compare this 1934 movie based on a book to Stockett’s 2009 The Help, where Aibileen is too stupid (or humble, take your pick) to ask that the idea she gave to Skeeter for free at least acknowledges her deceased son Treelore’s contribution. OT: Many readers don’t know that this time period is considered The New Black Renaissance for African American authors. African American publishers as well as major publishing companies were signing black writers. For more information please see this post:

Did the maids really need Skeeter’s Help to Get Published?

While Kathryn Stockett has been candid regarding her lack of . . . oh, what word am I searching for . . . association? interaction? observation? with African Americans after the death of her grandparent’s maid Demetrie (who the author says was the inspiration for many of the black characters), when Stockett needed a black person to pattern her maids after, much like Skeeter, she went to a friend of her friend Tate Taylor. Stockett admits watching Octavia Spencer to create Minny. She doesn’t admit watching Aiblene Cooper, her brother’s maid.

Ablene Cooper’s photo from the UK Daily Mail. This is the “real deal” Abilene

However, here’s what Cooper stated to a UK paper (Somehow US journals neglected to interview the woman, which is yet another travesty behind the scenes of this book:

Excerpt from the UK Telegraph article on Abilene Cooper:

The first time she came to stay the night. She said, “I’m Rob’s baby sister,’’ and I said, “I’m Abilene.” ‘The second time she was married and she came with her husband and daughter. I never told her about myself. She was quiet, standoffish, but she’d watch me. I’d be dishwashing or it would be playtime with the children and she’d be just staring at me.’

. . . Abilene says she first learned of the book when she arrived at work to find her employer in tears. ‘Carroll was crying and she says, “Miss Abilene, I’ve got something to tell you.”

She says, “Kathryn’s wrote a book and you are the main character. Rob told her not to use your name.” ’ Then a copy of the book arrived for Abilene from the author with a note saying that while a main character is an ‘African-American child carer named Aibileen’, she bore no resemblance to the real Abilene.

Stockett contended in her note that she modelled Aibileen on a long-dead black maid called Demetrie who worked for the author’s family in Jackson: ‘The Help is purely fiction and the character was loosely inspired by my own relationship with Demetrie’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2033369/Her-family-hired-maid-12-years-stole-life-Disney-movie.html#ixzz1jewPbFMs

Since Stockett has publicly admitted watching the actress who won an Oscar for her spot on portrayal of Minny, the “sassy” maid that audiences loved and laughed at, a character that had riveting lines like “Minny don’t burn no chicken” “Eat my shit!” and “Frying chicken tend to make you feel better about life” it should come as no surprise that Spencer was just fine with the depiction as the short, fat, and “Blacker than Aibileen by ten shades” domestic as viewed by Skeeter in the book.

“. . And we differ, respectively, because I didn’t have one issue what-so-ever. Because you know, if I’m gonna go to law school who’s gonna tell me what case not to take? If I’m gonna be a doctor who’s going to tell me what patient not to take? You cannot live to please everyone else.” – Octavia Spencer on the Tavis Smiley show.

Link: http://thegrio.com/2012/02/13/viola-davis-and-tavis-smiley-spar-over-the-help-controversy/

If you’re keeping count, that’s three black women in almost 30 plus years (Stockett was in her mid-thirties while creating the novel), especially after going on a PR tour invoking Demetrie McLorn’s name (her first name, rarely using Mrs. Demetrie McLorn or Demetrie McLorn). No, the maid who was instrumental in Stockett’s best selling trip down segregation lane was simply “Demetrie” in many published interviews. For those reading this last bit and wondering what all the fuss about using a full name is about, then understand this; during segregation African Americans were rarely afforded the respect of using terms like ”Mrs.” “Mr.” or “Miss”. Males were “Uncle” or “Boy” as well as the N word. Females were “Auntie” or “Girl” and also the N word. Or called by their first names, or even given a different name to answer to. It just depended on the whim of the employer or when contact was made with a white person. While the north was thought of as more progressive, that wasn’t always the case).

Remnants of the name game in segregation are “Uncle” Ben and “Aunt” Jemima. The familiarity was a false sense of affection.

Uncle Ben, now distinguished looking and a permanent sales image for Uncle Ben’s Rice

Aunt Jemima mangles the english language, just like Aibileen and Minny

For real life testimonials from daughters of The Help, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/actual-accounts/

And for more on the history of how African Americans were maligned and stereotyped during segregation, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/a-history-of-being-misrepresented-marginalized-and-made-a-fool-of/

So Octavia Spencer was on board early on, warts and all, as per her response to Tavis Smiley.

And as per her statement, Spencer’s right. You can’t live to please everyone else. But let’s take a little trip down memory lane, oh, about three years ago, from a December 2009 audio interview with Audible.com which is still on the internet and available for downloading, when Kathryn Stockett revealed this (please pay attention to the items I’ve put in bold):

Dapito: And is there a movie version coming out of The Help? Did I hear that right?

Stockett: The movie rights have been sold to a fellow Mississippian Tate Taylor (inaudible) Green and I’m just so lucky that the book is in the hands of people, not only Mississippians but friends of mine from Jackson. They’re two filmmakers based in Los Angeles.

Dapito: Oh I can’t wait. Do you think they will cast Octavia and some of the other narrators?

Stockett: I think Octavia will be the part of Minny because ah . . (pause and laughter) you know, that was just the agreement. It wasn’t that hard of, it you know, there was no pulling hair on that one. She’s such a natural.”

Link: An Interview with Kathryn Stockett, Author of ‘The Help’ Narrated by Diana Dapito

“That was just the agreement”  Now, what agreement would that be? Perhaps the answer can be found in published statements of the principals (again, please pay close attention to the items I’ve put in bold):

KS:  . . . But while I was writing the manuscript and Tate was reading it he kept saying, “Oh good, in this scene we’ll do this…” And I kept going, “Tate it’s not a movie – it’s a book!” I didn’t even have an agent and Tate said, “well listen when you shoot this scene…” We’re just very different writers. But it was really exciting to hand this project over to Tate because I knew he’d get it. We grew up in the same circumstances. It’s amazing how parallel our lives were. Both of our mom’s were divorced.

Read the full interview here: http://screencrave.com/2011-08-11/interview-writerdirector-tate-taylor-and-author-kathryn-stockett-on-the-help/

“One of my best friend’s growing up, Tate Taylor, wrote the screenplay, he and I had an agreement pretty early on that he was going to be the one to make the movie.”

Read the entire interview here:

http://www.bookrabbit.com/blog/interview-with-kathryn-stockett-and-win-a-copy-of-the-help/

If by some chance as a reader, you think Stockett admitting she was writing the novel and Taylor was right there, well, that it was just a slip up, here’s another published quote:

“. . . I got the rights a year before it was even in print and in my mind my partner and I were going to raise a couple million bucks the old school way, and make an independent film. That’s how it started. When the book got into print I had already written an adaptation and was controlling the rights.” – Tate Taylor

Link: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=7079

Now,  recall what Octavia Spencer stated to Tavis Smiley ”because I didn’t have one issue what-so-ever.”

And look at what else Tate Taylor reveals in this interview with The Grio.com:

“No I wasn’t nervous. Octavia Spencer is my best friend. We have heated debates about society and the world we live in all the time. She was with me the whole time I was adapting this.”

I’ve included a screen grab of the web page:

Click image for larger view:

Director of The Help says Spencer there when screenplay adapted

Link: http://thegrio.com/2011/08/15/the-help-director-people-are-too-critical-of-this-film/  (In this same article Tate Taylor says the infamous “worse that an lynching” statement).

Stockett admits Taylor was there when she was writing it. And Taylor says Spencer was there when he was adapting it (other interviews have Taylor admitting Spencer lived with him during this time period), as per their published statements. So it wouldn’t be a stretch to say all three were together when the book was being created. And Spencer admits she read the manuscript BEFORE Stockett secured a publisher (quote is coming up).

Now, there will be those who will proclaim “Say it ain’t so!”

But go back to the “Agreement.” A few more early interviews contradict and raise questions on the interviews both Stockett and Taylor gave prior to the film release of The Help. A major contradiction is when Tate Taylor includes himself in the “missing Demetrie” PR tale which was published by news agencies like Time magazine. Here’s Taylor’s statement (items in bold are my doing):

“Well, my good friend Kathryn Stockett, we have known each other since we were five – grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. She wrote this novel, wouldn’t tell me what it was about when she was writing it. But I remember 9/11 and we were talking on the phone and we were both so distraught. And she said, “I’m so homesick, I just wish I could talk to Demetri, I miss her so much.” (Demetri was the African American woman who raised her.) She told me she had been writing these short stories where she and Demetri would just talk. Little did I know that Demetri became Abilene and five years later she had finished this book, which she still wouldn’t let me read.”

Link: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=7079

Unable to keep his story straight, notice how Taylor says “She wrote this novel, wouldn’t tell me what it was about when she was writing it”  but contradicts himself in other interviews and Stockett’s own words that I posted earlier, where the author says “But while I was writing the manuscript and Tate was reading it”

Link: http://screencrave.com/2011-08-11/interview-writerdirector-tate-taylor-and-author-kathryn-stockett-on-the-help/

And Taylor may have forgotten that Stockett gave an interview where she stated there was no phone service when he attempts to include himself in Stockett’s original tale of how she missed Demetrie’s “voice”(again, please pay attention to the items  I’ve put in bold):

Why did you decide to write The Help?

“I started writing it the day after Sept. 11. I was living in New York City. We didn’t have any phone service and we didn’t have any mail. Like a lot of writers do, I started to write in a voice that I missed. I was really homesick — I couldn’t even call my family and tell them I was fine. So I started writing in the voice of Demetrie, the maid I had growing up. She later became the character of Aibileen [in The Help]. I sent the story to my mother and she was sort of like, “Hmm, that’s good.” As I wrote, I found that Aibileen had some things to say that really weren’t in her character. She was older, soft-spoken, and she started showing some attitude. That’s [how another character] Minny came to be. After a while longer, I decided to make it a book.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1937562,00.html#ixzz1eSL6g0Cm

Stockett added more to the tale when interviewed by the UK Telegraph back in 2009:

“September 11 she was working in her apartment when the planes hit the twin towers, and due to some sort of power surge, everything was wiped off her hard disc, and she had no landline and no mobile phone reception. For two days she and her husband were completely cut off. ‘I felt so homesick, I’ve never been that homesick in my life, and on September 12 I started writing a story, in the voice of Demetrie, to comfort myself.’ “

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5844739/The-maids-tale-Kathryn-Stockett-examines-slavery-and-racism-in-Americas-Deep-South.html

Okay, guess he wasn’t there. Or he was there when somebody came up with the whole  ”Missing Demetrie’s voice” which went over big with the journalists and was a PR person’s dream. It all seems so perfect . . .

And Stockett did an interview with Katie Couric where she stated the rights weren’t given to Taylor until AFTER she’d secured a publisher:

Katie Couric: You and Tate Taylor, the director of the film, grew up together in Jackson. Would you have trusted any other director to turn your book into a movie?

Kathryn Stockett: Tate and I went to kindergarten together! In junior high, we were sneaking out in our parents’ cars and drinking. So when I got a publisher for The Help, Tate called me and said, “Can I have the film rights?” At first I said no. Every adviser in my life was saying, “Don’t do it. He’s untested.” But I’m so glad I did.

Link: http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/bigger-picture/article.aspx?cp-documentid=29865448

However Taylor again contradicts her in yet another interview, revealing he’d secured the rights prior to the book’s publishing (items in bold and italics are my doing):

Tate Taylor: The gift of the whole thing was that I got the rights from Kathryn before she had a publisher, and she didn’t even know the book would get published and if it did get published, if it would do anything, so the real gift and the miracle of this movie is that I got to go off and adapt my friend’s screenplay unencumbered, by myself, and just write it from the heart and write it as a Mississippian and write it as a guy that had the pleasure of having an African-American woman in his life, Carol Lee, the woman who co-raised me with my mother. So I just got to tell the truth and write from the heart. Once the script was done and the book came out, that script kind of served as the calling card.

Link: Exclusive Interview: Filmmaker Tate Taylor on The Help – ComingSoon.net http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=84880#ixzz1j5esR8MC

Okay, stay with me now. Because I know some readers are confused. But it would makes sense that Taylor, Stockett AND Spencer worked on The Help together. So while Stockett originally said this:

“But there’s also a character named Minny. . .who was loosely inspired by the mannerisms and gestures of a friend of mine named Octavia Spencer. Octavia is an amazing actress in L. A. One of the most intelligent and versatile actresses out there today. And (laughs) I am so lucky that Octavia has agreed to go on the book tour with me. So, in the book event she’s actually going to be reading the parts of Aibileen and Minny and, and also take on a few of the white women’s voices which will be very funny to listen to and I will read the white roles and hopefully it will be a lot of fun.”

”. . .My greatest relief in this process is that Octavia Spencer, who is such an amazing actress and a comedian really, like wet yourself funny is coming on tour with me. So,while people will be listening to me read these rather dramatic white voices, they’ll get to listen to Octavia. It’ll be so fun to hear her just roll.”

The entire podcast can be heard and downloaded here:

http://covertocover.podbean.com/2009/04/26/kathryn-stockett-the-help/

And Spencer stated this in an interview published by the Huffington Post:

So how’d you get involved in the project?

Tate Taylor grew up with the author, so I was one of the privileged few who got to read [the book] before it was ever published. I was asked to read the manuscript before it was even published.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/octavia-spencer-the-help-movie_n_1130848.html

And then goes on to reveal the only thing that bothered her about the book:

What’d you think when you read the book?

Well, I had an aversion to the dialect at first, and I thought it was going to be another ‘Gone with the Wind,’ which I didn’t care for. That was actually the first page. And then as I continued to read, I realized Kathryn wasn’t making a statement about race in using the dialect, she was actually just writing people of a certain socioeconomic and education level, and she had written them with such a depth and breadth of emotion that I couldn’t put the book down. It was, it actually is one of my favorite books.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/octavia-spencer-the-help-movie_n_1130848.html

Long story short, the trio (plus one, perhaps Brunson Green) did what they had to do. Each one came to the table with a piece to contribute. Stockett had the pedigree and history that could be verified. Spencer gave Stockett a glimpse of the black culture, however there was no nuance in the depiction.  The self loathing of the primary female domestics coupled with the overt stereotypical dialogue and characterizations are just too pronounced. The “humor” is too broad, and plays upon stereotypes that African Americans fought to overcome during segregation. Spencer’s pretty shrewd, no, let me correct that. She’s very shrewd. No wonder she was jumping in anytime the heat was on either Kathryn Stockett or Viola Davis. Some other examples of Spencer running interference are this one, recorded by actor/blogger Shydel James:

“A woman in the audience took Stockett to task on the inclusion of sensitive historical moments in the book and her decision to weave them into the fabric of her fictitious story. (Stockett peppers the novel with real life news stories of the time: the murder of Medgar Evers, JFK’s assassination, for example.) But Spencer jumped in, reminding the woman (and everyone else in the audience) that The Help is not a non-fiction book and that it’s Stockett’s job as a fiction author to entertain, not give history lessons with her novel. “It’s your job as parents to teach your children about our history,” Spencer said. And before switching gears, Stockett quickly interjected, “I just made this shit up!” The entire crowd erupted in applause.”

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/i-just-made-this-shit-up-per-stockett/

And there’s the time Ted Casablanca’s question unnerved Viola Davis, so Spencer jumped in:

“I’m not exactly sure where Davis was going with that one, but I assured her I wasn’t the only one wondering such thoughts.

Especially to young people who aren’t schooled in Civil Rights history, I said, “it sort of makes it look like it took a white author to get the job done.”

“Skeeter [Emma Stone's character] just wanted to be a great writer,” Viola explained, in defense. “And she helped these women.

“But it is the black women who risked their lives in this movie,” Davis finished.

At this point, Octavia Spencer, who’d I’d already chatted with earlier in the evening about rail-thin Hollywood women, came up to Davis and myself.

At which point Spencer gave me one of those And your point is? looks, quickly followed by a huge smile.

“Like I said,” Viola added (smiling as well), “it’s a loaded question.”

But is it, really? Also, everybody, let’s get this question settled now, because I assure you it looks like Davis may very well be getting the Oscar for her Help performance.

So, the somewhat sticky issue ain’t going anywhere.

Link: http://www.eonline.com/news/290381/is-the-help-racist-viola-davis-fires-back-it-s-a-loaded-question

And there’s this (items in bold are my doing):

“As a result, she [Stockett] wrote with “abandon,” letting her feelings lead her. It was only much later, when she decided to try publishing what had become a full-blown novel, that she started to get “very nervous that I had crossed a line that should never be crossed in America.”

To help cover her tracks over that line, Stockett recruited an actress friend, Octavia Spencer, to participate in her first book tour. “I would read the white parts and she would read the black parts and we had a lot of fun,” Stockett says, adding that Spencer’s free spirit was the inspiration for Minnie, one of her two black heroines. “She got it. She grew up in Alabama and she understood that world probably better than we do.”

Interview with John Barber for Saturday’s Globe and Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/kathryn-stocketts-southern-discomfort/article2012818/singlepage/#articlecontent

Yep, “she got it” alright. Only, even the best laid plans can have unforeseen issues.

Red flags they should have caught:

Aibileen, who’s supposed to be the most compassionate character in the book and movie comes across as highly impartial. She dotes on the white characters yet there’s no scene or dialogue where she cares for any African American children or even the children of her best friend Minny. Why is this important? Because Minny’s children witness her abuse on almost a daily basis. And Kindra, Minny’s youngest is just three years older than Mae Mobley at the start of the novel (Mae Mobley is two, while Kindra is five). Yet Kindra defaults into the mouthy, attitude prone black kid, while the white children are either labled as “cute” “pretty” (by Aibileen) while Kindra is observed by Aibileen as if the maid is being judgmental:

Kindra – she seven now- she sass-walk her way to the stove with her bottom sticking out and her nose up in the air. Pans go banging all over the place. “Why I got to do dinner? It’s Sugar’s turn!” (Aibileen observing Kindra, Pgs 396-397)

For more on the differences made in the black and white children of The Help, please see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/comparing-mae-mobley-to-kindra/

Minny’s bullyish behavior towards her children, particularly her daughters. While Minny can joke and have empathy for Celia Foote, she smacks her daughter Sugar in the book for gossiping about Celia and gives the girl some Mammyish advice to grow by (thus this abused woman abuses her own daughter). In addition to negatively labeling her youngest daughter Kindra, the novel plays favorites with how the black children are portrayed versus the employers children. Not once in the novel does Minny tell her kids that she loves them. Kindra whines and is bratty in several scenes, so as not to earn the type of compassion a reader has for Mae Mobley’s predicament with her over anxious mother Elizabeth.

The demeaning of the black male while elevating white males who practiced segregation. Minny makes this all encompassing statement:

Plenty of black men leave their families like trash in a dump, but that’s not something the colored woman do. We’ve got the kids to think about. (Minny Pg 311)

I’m not sure why Octavia Spencer wouldn’t be offended by that line. By the end of the book and movie, all three maids are separated from the black male, as if what the black female had to fear along with segregation, is the African American male. This is another stereotype and holdover from that time period. So its no wonder that in the novel an omni-present narrator swoops in to “tell” the reader that the white males are either “honest” (Skeeter says this about her father) a ”good man” (after Stuart dumps her, this is what Skeeter thinks of him) or only following the will of constiuents in following segregation (Stoolie Whitworth, Stuart’s father). Even Constantine’s dad is given an out. Though he’s fathered several children without marrying Constantine’s mother, he’s not labeled as “no-ccount” “Crisco” or any derogatory term, unlike Connor, Clyde and Minny’s father. Minny states this about her dad “My no-good drunk daddy.” Yet Constantine swears her father loves her, because he cries over her predicament (the family is quite poor).

For more problems in the novel, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/ten-issues-that-tarnish-the-help/

Aside from the problems in the book, Kathryn Stockett couldn’t remember that she’d written about Medgar Evers being shot in her own novel. Which raises a valid question. Did she even write that part?

How could the author do three audio interviews, one of which was with Barnes and Noble, where she states Medgar Evers was “bludgeoned” in front of his children?

“…1963 was a horrifying and momentous year in Mississippi’s history as well as the entire United States. It was… the fall of 62 when James Meredith was accepted into Ole Miss and in 1963 Medgar Evers the uh…who was with the NAACP he was bludgeoned to death on his front yard in front of his children.”

stated at 8:34 minutes into a 10:31 interview

Link: http://media.barnesandnoble.com/?fr_story=59e76c8fa39941fb2ff1013f7928b8ed42d449c2&rf=rss

The error can be found in the hard copy of the novel and paperback. The ebook has since been quietly corrected. Here’s a screen grab of the error. Please click the link for a larger view:

Error on Evers in the Paperback version of The Help

Read the excerpts from the other two interviews where Stockett mentions Evers was “bludgeoned” and somehow made it’s way into the novel here

Please understand that all this is old news, most of which I chose not to post until after the awards season. There are those in Hollywood who probably know all this and more, and know who contributed what.

And one more thing. Congratulations to Octavia Spencer for her publishing contract with Simon and Schuster. But her novel won’t be her first venture into authorship imo. Spencer contributed a lot more to Stockett’s novel The Help than just being the physical embodiment of Minny.

The problem was, Spencer was a comedian and not a historian, and what’s included in the novel at times is highly offensive instead of being funny. Many times Aibileen and Minny’s conversations bordered on stupidity, as well as their actions. The “spoilt cootchie” scene, the very one Spencer stood on stage, shoulder to shoulder with Kathrn Stockett as they read a scene where Aibileen and Minny cackle over Aibileen’s ability to call down a venereal disease on the woman Aibileen’s husband ran off with, then Aibileen, whose supposed to be a devout Christian asks “You sayin’ people think I got the black magic?”

The spoilt cootchie reading, where Stockett voices Minny.

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/stockett-voices-minny/

It’s also important to note that claiming blacks carried venereal disease was a common slur against African Americans, and used as an excuse to block integration. Here’s a scan from an actual resident of Jackson, Ms during 1963, where she claims even black children are carriers:

A few women of Mississippi speak. Note Mrs. E A Copland believing that little black kids are afflicted with diseases and immorality

And WIMS actually documented whites repeating this offensive slur.

wims-wednesdays-in-mississippi, residents talk about blacks having venereal diseases and that northern agitators are communists

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/stockett-voices-minny/

Back during segregation, African Americans were thought to be practicing pagan beliefs from the motherland of Africa, no matter if we professed to be Christians. This is just one example of an error in perception of the black culture, and one that was spread by bigots. Far too often the black characters of The Help simply validate the bigotry of the times instead of challenging it.

Much has been said by other critics on Skeeter acting as the brains and leader, as if the black characters are unable to do anything on their own when the actual “Freedom Movement” was started by African Americans for African Americans, with help from sympathetic whites.

So when Aibileen makes an insulting statement about one of her now grown charges; ”I told him don’t drink coffee or he gone turn colored. He say he still ain’t drunk a cup of coffee and he twenty-one years old. It’s always nice seeing the kids grown up fine.” (Aibilene, Pg 91) That’s not funny. It’s a slur that was used by bigots back in the day, insinuating that becoming black could be contageous, like a disease, through things like coffee, cocoa, and other items considered dark.

And Aibileen also does a skin color test with a roach, stating “He black. Blacker than me” (Pg 189) in a scene that illustrates just how self-loathing she is. How this character can instill postitive affirmations in a child is questionable to say the least, especially since Aibileen cowers and cringes throughout the book. The film at least gave Aibileen (and also Charlotte Phelan and Skeeter) a scene where Hilly is told off.

“You are a Godless woman.” Viola Davis, uttering the words in the film that weren’t in the book.

Nowhere in the book, and probably the movie is the beauty of the black culture even broached. None of the advertising for the movie mentions how attractive Minny or Aibileen, or any of the maids. Not so for the white characters.

“A Handsome Good Ole Boy” You’ve got to be kidding

That “Southern Gentleman” and “Dreamboat” Johnny Foote

False Advertising about Hilly, while Minny’s only PR is about her cooking skills. While the actress playing the character is very attractive differing from how Hiloly was described in the book), dressing up bigotry using happy, shining actors isn’t.

There’s also the tasteless tie-in with HSN, where items were “sold” like pots and pans and designer dresses in order to promote the film. As Austrialian reviewer Liz Jones noted when this mis-guided promotional aspect hit her country (items in bold are my doing):

“I went to an advance screening last week of The Help, the Oscar-tipped Hollywood film that has already taken $62 million at the American box office and which opens here next month.

It amused me no end that it was a “fashion press” screening, which has been followed up with “get the look” emails from various High Street firms, due to its setting in the Deep South of Mississippi in the early ’60s. Never mind that the film is about segregation and lynchings.

It’s like being asked to a screening of Schindler’s List, and then “getting the look” of all the lovely uniforms. Such is modern-day marketing.”

Link: http://www.perthnow.com.au/crushing-women/story-fn6o0xxk-1226129928849

For more information on the “selling” of The Help, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/the-help-movie-cleans-up-after-itself-the-novel/making-the-help-pay/

However, flaws and all, the novel and movie was just the ticket for a group of friends to get into Hollywood and investors to earn a profit.  

And some might even stay the means justifies the end. Only time will tell, and more scrutiny will reveal whether it was really worth it.

“There is no trickier subject for a writer from the South than that of affection between a black person and a white one in the unequal world of segregation. For the dishonesty upon which society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism.” -  Howell Raines quote referenced by Kathryn Stockett

I think I like this one better:

“If we are to reckon honestly with the history and continued legacies of slavery in the United States, we must confront the terrible depths of desire for the black mammy and the way it still drags at struggles for real democracy and social justice.” Micki McElya in “Clinging to Mammy The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century America

For more on the “Affection Myth” see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/the-affection-myth/

Additional published statements can be found here:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/the-help-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/

To be continued . . .

I must thank a commenter named Pauline for giving me the idea for this post, because her instructor assigned The Help and wanted examples of “courage” and additional themes that the students would then write a thesis on.

I thought I’d list the top ten pitfalls for any educator who decides their class should study this text. My hope is that an instructor notes both pro and con of the book, and not just fall for the hype around the novel and film, without researching or even reading whether criticism has any merit.

1. Everyone likes a happy ending. Unfortunately in the case of The Help, so many reviewers and readers wanted the fairy tale of a domestic truly loving and being loyal to their employer, they never stopped to wonder if Stockett’s theory of  ”We love them and they love us” was so widespread, then why were there protests and marches for Freedom?

Joined in solidarity

And why are those extolling the virtues of their relationship with domestics mainly whites, but not the surviving families or even domestics themselves exclaiming how much they just loved their time spent together? Even Stockett is unable to stick to the premise of her own novel in two interviews:

“I think they were surprised that I was able, hopefully able to portray the love we felt for these woman and that you know, I assume that they felt for us . . .” (11:29 into the interview)

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/speakingvolumes/2009/05/26/interview-with-kathryn-stockett

D.N.: When you interviewed people for the book, was there anything that stood out?

K.S.: What stood out was the emotion that white people had about the connection to their black maids. When I spoke to black people it was surprising to see how removed they were emotionally from those they worked for.

That was not always the case, but it was one of the dynamics that struck me. Sometimes it was a total disregard. It was just a job.

Link: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/feb/11/q-help-author-work-book-no-2/

For more on the “Affection myth” please see this post which tells of the National Mammy Monument, an effort by The United Daughters of the Confederacy in the early 1920s:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/the-affection-myth/

And also this post with accounts of actual domestics, as well as their children’s observations:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/actual-accounts/

2.  The cover of the US novel falls into the category of “whitewashing” or the practice of intentional ambiguity so as not to offend the reader base publishers covet, which are white readers. While there can be debate on whether putting a cover similar to the UK or French version would have either landed the book in the “African American fiction” section of a bookstore,thus limiting its profits,  the Disney-esque, three little birdies cover serves to immediately de-sensitize the reader about the subject matter, especially the non-minority reader.

US book cover of The Help

UK Cover of the Help AKA The cover they dared not put on US bookshelves

For indepth information on the two covers and more examples of white washing in publishing, see these posts:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/a-tale-of-two-covers/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/lack-of-diversity-in-ya-love-for-the-mammy-but-none-for-her-child/

3. It can be argued that the black domestics of The Help are not resilient, admirable maids, but more akin to the idealized propaganda of the antebellum south regarding black females. In the book and unfortunately in the movie, Aibileen, Minny and Constantine more closely represent Mammies.

The Asexual, Solitary Mammy. A popular image for African American females during segregation.

During segregation, thinking of the black female as a super surrogate mom, one who gave love unconditionally, virtually 24/7 while being patient, compassionate, filled with a whole lotta matyrdom,  self loathing of their own culture, yet strong enough to forget their problems (and their family) in an effort to put their white employers first, this was deemed the perfect Mammy.

But while the Mammy caricature was imbued with these qualities on the inside, visually she was most often depicted heavy set, dark in skin tone and grinning through her pain (or the pain of the whites she identified with). A familiar remnant of this image can still be found in local supermarkets in the form of Aunt Jemima, a trusted name and icon that will never go away.

The “Happy” darkie myth of Aunt Jemima

Everybody’s favorite “Aunt”, Aunt Jemima, still “large and in charge” even today

In The Help, Constantine, Aibileen and Minny default into caricatures by description and dialogue. While the author lists Mrs. Demetrie McLorn as the inspiration for the original story please note that Mrs. McLorn is not dark in color, as in “black as asphalt” “black as night” or “ten times blacker” terms used to describe the maids in the novel:

Photo of Demetrie, Stockett’s grandparents maid. Funny, but she doesn’t look dark complexioned to me.

Abilene Cooper’s photo from the UK Daily Mail. This is the “real deal” Abilene

Real life maid Abilene Cooper, in the photo above, sued Stockett in 2011, claiming that the author watched her on two occasions (Cooper is the maid/caretaker of Stockett’s brother’s two children) and used her name, physical likeness as well as parts of her life to craft Aibileen Clark. To read Cooper’s account, see this interview with the UK Daily Mail:

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2033369/Her-family-hired-maid-12-years-stole-life-Disney-movie.html

Stockett herself has admitted that she used the names of individuals she knew, and two additional real life names appear in the book, that of Tate (director of The Help’s name) and Clyde (Demetrie McLorn’s real life, husband who Stockett says abused the maid). And the author admits the scene of Cat-Bite which features Carlon Phelan carrying a young black girl to the doctor after she’s bitten by a rabid cat is a true story inserted in the novel. It’s been reported that Celia Foote is a ringer for Stockett’s mother.

This information is from the Atlanta Journal Constitution (items in bold are my doing):

”In past interviews with the AJC, Stockett has said she wrote “The Help” as part of a writing club. She used names of people she knew simply because they were handy, she said.

“When I was writing this book, I never thought anyone else would read it, so I didn’t get real creative with the names,” Stockett told us in 2009. “I just used people I knew. Some of them aren’t talking to me right now, but I feel like they’ll come around.”

She has repeatedly called the book, which has been adapted into a film, a work of fiction.

“I wrote it purely for me and finally had the guts to show it to my mother and my writing group, ” Stockett told us in the 2009 interview. “I was terrified when I realized it was going to be published.”

Link: http://blogs.ajc.com/the-buzz/2011/02/18/kathryn-stockett-author-of-the-help-sued/

Kathryn Stockett states in the back of the novel that Demetrie was “stout and dark-skinned.” All, if not most of the primary maids in the book mangle the English language by using malapropisms, and have flawed or frankly, stupid dialogue. Some examples:

“Cat got on the porch this morning. Just about gave me a cadillac arrest.” – Minny, in an example of a malapropism. Instead of using “cardiac” arrest she says “cadillac” arrest.

Aibileen uses “pneumonia” for ammonia twice in the novel. She also misuses the word mal-nutritious after hearing Hilly describe her mother’s condition with the word:

“I think I heard Miss Hilly say something about that, ’bout her mama getting skinny.” I say as carefully as I can. “Say maybe she getting mal-nutritious.” (Aibileen, Pg 14)

The word Aibileen is looking for is mal-nurished. What makes no sense is that Aibileen is described as a voracious reader and can say “congealed salad” (Pg 6) “conjugation” “motorized rotunda”  “domesticized feline” and “parliamentary” during her word quizzes with her late son Treelore (Pg 5) yet gets tripped up on standard english, or basically forming complete sentences. She also has the uncanny ability to describe what the white characters state with clarity, yet doesn’t realize “Law” is no where near the word “Lord” or even “Lawd.”

The black characters not saddled with ebonic sounding dialect are ironically, those closer to white. Lulabelle (re-named Rachel in the movie and given a color make-over, as in no longer the “tragic mulatto” able to pass for white) Gretchen and Yula May Crookle (yes, that’s her real last name in the book, telegraphing what she’ll do in novel, in a poorly placed joke). Using the power of three, Stockett separates the Mammy characters by their girth, dialect and skin tone, while the black maids who are either articulate (Skeeter alludes to Gretchen speaking with care and wearing pink lipstick just like her friends Hilly and Elizabeth) have “good” hair (Aibileen states “Yula May easy to spot from the behind. She got straight hair, no naps”) or able to pass for white (Charlotte Phelan is fooled into thinking Lulabelle Bates is white, until Lulabelle reveals that she’s Constantine’s daughter).

To gain their Mammy badge of dishonor, here’s what each of them do:

Constantine so loves her job, she sends her only child to an orphanage while she stays to wait hand and foot on the Phelans, content to live the life of an asexual being who smothers Skeeter with advice and love, though its not clear just why. The book makes mention of Constantine even coming to work on New Years, which was her day off, just to make sure the Phelans consumed their “good luck peas” for the coming year. The filmsy reason given for Constantine sending her light enough to pass for white daughter away, is just that. Because Lulabelle could pass for white, though how she came out that way after having two dark complexioned parents is a mystery, and a plot line that was dropped for the film. African Americans who could pass for white were not an anomaly back then. Some disowned their black ancestry and chose to pass for white, while others went public with their black heritage, and some became vocal advocates for civil rights. Lulabelle was renamed Rachel in the film.

Cicely Tyson portrays Constantine in the movie.  Mammies are used to give comfort and advice,  standard traits of this character.

Aibileen proudly crows about raising seventeen white children, obsessing over her latest one, Mae Mobley. Yet this character’s halo is on crooked when she ignores the violence witnessed daily by her best friend Minny’s children, who are between a hard place with their sharp tongued, bullying mother and brute caricature of a father, Leroy. No where in the book or movie is Aibileen shown giving any child of color a bit of coddling or positive affirmations that Aibileen deems necessary for Mae Mobley.

Viola Davis as Aibileen in film version of The Help and young actress as Mae Mobley

Minny slaps her eldest daughter Sugar for laughing at Celia Foote, and gives her Mammyish advice to live by. Pregnant with her sixth child, Minny bades Celia to lock the door behind her as she becomes not just a Mammy but a “noble savage” willing to risk her life by going outside to confront a naked man jacking off in Celia’s back yard. Like most stereotypical Mammies, Minny is awarded the title of best cook in the county, a title shared with another Mammy in a best selling novel, that book being Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Minny also speaks ill of the black male, and disses the efforts of those in her congregation attempting to join in with the civil rights movement by staging a sit in at Woolworth’s. Per the novel, neither Minny or Aibileen want any part of the Freedom movement sweeping the nation or their own city.

Celia gives Minny a hug, which is meant to make movie audiences go “awww”

Actual quote from Viola Davis, who played Aibileen in the movie and was nominated for an Academy Award:

“Of course I had trepidations. Why do I have to play the mammy? But what do you do as an actor if one  of the most multi-faceted and rich roles you’ve ever been given is a maid in 1962 Mississippi? Do you not  take the role because you feel in some ways it’s not a good message to send to Black people?”  – Viola Davis, in a quote from Essence Magazine

“I’m playing a maid, a black actress playing a maid in 2011 in Hollywood, is a lot of pressure. You don’t play a maid. That is something you don’t do. When you play a maid where a white woman has written a story and a white man is directing it, so there is no way that it’s gonna be. . . I’m essentially playing a Mammy. So I felt a lot of pressure. Absolutely. And then and of course pressure from the readers who all wanted Oprah to play the role. And saw her as being seventy years old and about two hundred and fifty pounds or you know, yeah, I felt a lot of pressure. But it’s like Tate says, if you work from that point of pressure and fear, your work is gonna crack. At some point you just have to leave it alone. And know that we have our own standard of excellence . . .”

Link: Atlanta Mom’s on The Move http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shc0mdT-0Cc

For an indepth look at the Mammyness of the maids in The Help, please see these posts:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/all-souled-out-in-the-help/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/stereotype-as-role-model-the-help/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/mammy-must-die/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/u-just-might-be-a-mammy-if/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/the-problem-with-the-help/

4. Offensive slurs about African Americans are passed off as amusing anecdotes in the novel which validate the bigotry of the times instead of challenging them. For example:

And how I told him don’t drink coffee or he gone turn colored. He say he still ain’t drunk a cup of coffee and he twenty-one years old. It’s always nice to see the kids grown up fine. (Pg 91, Aibileen)

This was a known slur stated by bigots and not African Americans back in the day. The “joke” was that anything remotely dark could “turn” a person black. Items to avoid also included chocolate, cocoa, keeping out of the sun so as not to tan too dark.

Another example  is the ”spoilt cootchie” dialogue between Aibileen and Minny on pages 23-24. For more on this offensive and mis-guided scene plus the offensive myths it resurrects about African Americans, and how the black maids are used to voice these insults, see these posts:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/spoilt-cootchies-and-no-account-men/

5. Additional research uncovers the novel was less about the author’s affection for her grandmparent’s maid, but the vehicle for a group of friends to get into Hollywood.

Kathryn Stockett mentions an “agreement” between herself, Octavia Spencer and Tate Taylor in early interviews:

“One of my best friend’s growing up, Tate Taylor, wrote the screenplay, he and I had an agreement pretty early on that he was going to be the one to make the movie.”

Read the entire interview here:

http://www.bookrabbit.com/blog/interview-with-kathryn-stockett-and-win-a-copy-of-the-help/

Stockett: I think Octavia will be the part of Minny because ah . . (pause and laughter) you know, that was just the agreement. It wasn’t that hard of, it you know, there was no pulling hair on that one. She’s such a natural.”

Link: An Interview with Kathryn Stockett, Author of ‘The Help’ Narrated by Diana Dapito

“You know early on from page one that she’s not making a statement about race. She’s writing about people with a limited education, limited financial needs . . .I say one doesn’t have to be male or female, white or black, to tell this story. You just have to be a brilliant storyteller and I applaud Kathryn Stockett whether I knew her or not. I would have actually enjoyed the book.”– quote by Octavia Spencer

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFOPpdYPMIw

Betty Page surrounded by the Brute stereotype

The spoilt cootchie reading, where Stockett voices Minny, and Spencer gives her best “What you talkin’ ’bout? expression.

Octavia Spencer speaks up for The Help. This is how the original post looked in February of 2009

See the following posts for more information:

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/the-help-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/how-the-help-was-pimped/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/so-about-the-help-and-this-agreement-among-friends/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/trivial-pursuits-of-the-help/

6. There are also public statements that infer Stockett may have gotten “help” when drafting the novel:

KS:  . . . But while I was writing the manuscript and Tate was reading it he kept saying, “Oh good, in this scene we’ll do this…” And I kept going, “Tate it’s not a movie – it’s a book!” I didn’t even have an agent and Tate said, “well listen when you shoot this scene…” We’re just very different writers. But it was really exciting to hand this project over to Tate because I knew he’d get it. We grew up in the same circumstances. It’s amazing how parallel our lives were. Both of our mom’s were divorced.

Read the full interview here: http://screencrave.com/2011-08-11/interview-writerdirector-tate-taylor-and-author-kathryn-stockett-on-the-help/

UK cover they dared not put on US bookshelves. I took the liberty of listing the other contributors to the novel

And there are also public statements that call into question the “liberal” mindset of those involved with the novel and the movie:

“The scene where Viola Davis is sitting on a toilet in a garage in 108 degrees, and then a white woman comes out and tells her to hurry up was visually brutal. To me that’s worse than seeing a lynching. It just is.” - Tate Taylor, Director and Screenwriter of The Help in an interview with The Grio.com

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/director-says-thats-worse-than-seeing-a-lynching/

“All of the criticism we’ve been facing is based on the fact that I’m not an African-American director and that Kathryn is not an African-American writer . . .” – Quote by the director and screenwriter of The Help, Tate Taylor

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/20/the-help-domestic-servants-on-film

“I just made this shit up!” – Kathryn Stockett’s response during a Q&A in Philly, 2011 at The National Association of Black Journalists Convention

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/i-just-made-this-shit-up-per-stockett/

Taylor: What I really, really loved about the Medgar Evers storyline and backdrop was that he was in their neighborhood. While they were doing this clandestine project, this Civil Rights leader who’s their neighbor gets murdered, and their characters are wondering, “What’s going to happen to us?”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/12/the-help-an-oral-history-with-viola-davis-octavia-spencer.html

” . . . Medgar Evers uh who was with the NAACP he was bludgeoned on his front yard in front of his children . . . ” – Kathryn Stockett, in an interview with Barnes and Noble:

stated at 8:34 minutes into a 10:31 interview

Link: http://media.barnesandnoble.com/?fr_story=59e76c8fa39941fb2ff1013f7928b8ed42d449c2&rf=rss

This is just one of three known interviews the author gave, where she earnestly stated Evers had been “bludgeoned” instead of shot. This error also made its way into the novel.

See this post for more information one Stockett’s publisher quietly correcting the error, though copies are still be sold with the passage:

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/publisher-corrects-medgar-evers-error/

Click image for larger view

Error on Evers in the Paperback version of The Help

7. Propaganda of the segregated times not condemned, but celebrated in the novel.  Minny makes this statement about African American males:

Plenty of black men leave their families behind like trash in a dump. But that’s not something the colored woman do. We’ve got the kids to think about. (Minny, Pg 311)

This isn’t the only highly inflamatory and stereotypical saying in the novel that comes from the mouth of a black character, as if her word is bond.

Here’s how far too many black men and boys ended up “leaving” this world during segregation:

The Lynching of Rubin Stacy in Florida. This was “entertainment” for some bigots. Note the little girl and woman who don’t appear shocked or appalled.

8. Elevating the white males who practiced segregation while labeling the black males in the novel as either a “no-ccount” “fool” or painting them as baby making absentee fathers. This was a common slur during segregation, no matter how upright the black citizen. Martin Luther King Jr. was continuously insulted in southern newspapers. Here’s a scan from the Clarion-Ledger, now revealed as a pro-segregation paper during the civil rights era, where King is called the “Der Dark Fuehrer”

Click image for larger view:

Snide article on King. Note that the paper had the nerve to post Rev. Billy Graham in the same section of their “jokes” on blacks seeking equality

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/letters-to-the-editor/

We call his daddy Crisco, cause he’s the greasiest no-ccount you ever known. Aibileen, teaching her then adolescent son Treelore to call his father “Crisco” (Pg 5)

9. Self loathing of the primary black characters. This is something that must be addressed, as far too many readers miss how often its woven into the storyline. While the primary maids are loyal and highly compassionate towards the white characters in the novel, Kathryn Stockett forgot to show scenes where they aren’t ragging on members of their own community or their families. Minny grouses about her “no good drunk daddy” as she joins Aibileen in demeaning the black male in the novel. Kathryn Stockett has the maids vocalizing their displeasure with the men they are paired with (all except Constantine). Stockett has Aibileen explain how Connor up and leaves Constantine once Lulabelle is born, as Aibileen repeats this refrain “He was black as me” as if being a dark complexioned African American is something to be ashamed of.

Aibileen is only “good” when she’s cowering, cringing, grinning or giving unconditional love. Skeeter even hollers at her in the novel, and all Aibileen does is beg Skeeter to let her continue working with her. As stated earlier in this post, Minny’s behavior towards her daughters takes a violent turn even though this character is an abused woman. Many readers skip over how Minny labels and berates her youngest daughter Kindra, but her less than motherly actions are no better than Elizabeth Leefolt’s actions with Mae Mobley. Yet Aibileen does not rush to Kindra’s side, in the scene where Minny shouts at the child to prepare dinner (Kindra is seven during this scene). Aibileen turns judgmental, noting “Kindra -she seven now- sass-walk her way to the stove with her bottom sticking outand her nose up in the air. Pans go banging all over the place. “Why I got to make dinner? It’s Sugar’s turn!” (Pg 396 Aibileen’s observation of Minny’s youngest daughter Kindra)

As the scene continues, Aibileen admonishes Minny to hurry up or they’ll be late for church. When Leroy wakes up raging at young Benny, Aibileen scurries down the street thinking:

We make it out the door and down to the street fore we hear Leroy hollering at Benny for waking him up. I walk faster so she [Minny] don’t go back and give Leroy what he good for (Pg 397, Aibileen, showing just what a poor excuse for an “admirable” character she is).

THE LOOK OF EMPOWERMENT. Viola as Aibileen showing just what Kathryn Stockett thought it will take to make a black woman break down during segregation. Being separated from Miss Skeeter and Mae Mobley

And while the film changed Aibileen’s answer of whether she had a goal of working in another profession, the novel made it clear that Aibileen had no aspirations other than being a maid, that is, until Skeeter goes “rogue” and shakes them out of their self-imposed stupor. From the novel, Skeeter is speaking first:

“Did you know when you were a girl, growing up, that one day you’d be a maid?”

“Yes ma’am. Yes, I did.”

I smile, wait for her [Aibileen] to elucidate. There is nothing.

“And you that…because…?”

“My mama was a maid. My granmama was a house slave.”

“A house slave. Uh huh,” I say, but she only nods. Her hands stay folded in her lap.

She’s watchin the words I’m writing on the page.

“Did you… ever have dreams of being something else?”

“No” she says. “No ma’am, I didn’t.” It’s so quiet, I can hear both of us breathing. (Pg 144)

10. The absence of beauty, dignity, or noting the self worth of the black characters in the novel and film, and during the promotion of the film.

From the early reviewer of the film who earnestly wrote “the colored folks actually saved themselves. Minny and Aibileen, as well as the other colored folks in the community were the real “heroes” of the movie; they just needed someone to push them to their potential [Skeeter]”

Mammy and Minny, together at last. This image is from racismstillexisttumblr.com

To the commenter who thought saying “she was so far from any regular Mammy character” is somehow a positive thing

Not just any regular Mammy character

The novel does contradict what the movie tried to fix. In the novel, neither Minny or Aibileen wanted any part of the civil rights movement, though actual history shows a majority of domestics in Jackson and in the south were on the forefront of the marches and protests. From the novel (items in bold are my doing):

“I told Shirley Boon her ass won’t fit on no stool at Woolworth’s anyway.” (Minny, Pg 217)

And I know there are plenty of other “colored” things I could do besides telling my stories or going to Shirley Boon’s meetings-the mass meetings in town, the marches in Birmingham, the voting rallies upstate. But truth is, I don’t care that much about voting. I don’t care about eating at a counter with white people. What I care about is, if in ten years, a white lady will call my girls dirty and accuse them of stealing silver. Minny (Pg 218)

No where in Stockett’s ode to the south, is the beauty, dignity or promotion of self-worth of the maids broached. What The Help was truly about, is a lament for a way of life now gone. For as Tate Taylor revealed (items in bold are my doing):

“We just wanted to tell the truth. Tell the real story and get it right. Many times as southerners our stories have been handled, taken into hands that were outside the south that’s not always as we know it to be. So we just really want to tell the truth . . . (pause) the good and the bad.” – Screenwriter and director of The Help, Tate Taylor

Link: http://screencrave.com/2011-08-11/interview-writerdirector-tate-taylor-and-author-kathryn-stockett-on-the-help/

And the studio did their part,  promoting the film overseas by romanticizing the men and women who practiced segregation:

Click image for a larger view:

“A Handsome Good Ole Boy” You’ve got to be kidding

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That “Southern Gentleman” and “Dreamboat” Johnny Foote

Click for a larger view:

False Advertising about Hilly. While Minny’s only PR is about her cooking skills, Hilly, like most of the white characters looks are played up in order to romanticize segregation.

The Help wasn’t about the maids. It was about a young, gawky woman named Skeeter Phelan, a fan-fiction stand in for the author, Kathryn Stockett, who revealed this in an early interview by Motoko Rich of  The New York Times

Excerpt:

She added Skeeter, she said, because she worried that readers wouldn’t trust her if she only wrote about black characters. “I just didn’t think that would ever be allowed to sit on the shelf,” she said. “So I threw Skeeter in the mix and I felt a little better about it, because I was showing a white perspective as well.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/books/03help.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

And while Stockett admits in the back of the novel that her grandparents maid, Mrs. Demetrie McLorn would stand her in front of the mirror and say “You are beautiful. You are a beautiful girl,” when clearly I was not. (TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE Kathryn Stockett, in her own words Page 448 of the novel)

And then proceeded to show in the pages of her debut novel just how different she believes the black culture to be in her eyes, from our physical being to our speech, the author’s lack of nuance and ignorance of the beauty of the African American culture, when she claimed the book was borne out of the teachings from a woman who told her of her own worth daily, rings false.

The Help was simply a means to an end. Stockett wanted to be an author, Taylor wanted to direct, and Spencer wanted to act. They’ve all gotten their wish. And left a trail of published statements that shed light on a drive to succeed by any means necessary, even if it meant using the plight of the very women who looked after them.

Readers waiting on Stockett to come up with another novel will be hoping for another go-round of The Help. It will take all three of the contributors who were there at the beginning for lightning to strike once more. And while Tate Taylor might be game, Octavia Spencer may be the one who bows out of the threesome.

While Spencer was more than willing to play the Mammy to Stockett’s Skeeter, something tells me Spencer has finally found her own “voice” and her “change” won’t begin with a whisper.

For more on the absence of beauty in the novel, see this post:

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/absence-of-beauty/

And for more fact vs. fiction with the novel, see this post:

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/facts-surrounding-the-help/

For additional errors in the novel, some of which were transfered to the film, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/ten-issues-that-tarnish-the-help/

This post is still being developed . . .

The Help Unchained

The scene begins with Django having dinner at the plantation of Calvin Candy.  Minny, the best cook in the county is upset because . . .

The Help Unchained Scene 1A

The Help Unchained Scene 1B

The Help Unchained Scene2

The Help Unchained, Scene 4

The Help Unchained Scene 5

To be continued . . .

“I don’t like to do the nails of blacks. I left a salon in Rio because, there, I only did the nails of blacks.”

It may surprise some readers to hear that the woman who reportedly said this (and much more) is black. This is an example of intra-racism. Fortunately, this woman didn’t get away with stating this. She was challenged by beautiful, fierce Fátima Oliveira, a Doctor, writer, and  feminist in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. You can read the full riveting, true life account here:

Link: http://www.blackwomenofbrazil.com/2012/12/the-racist-manicurist-when-racism.html

Black Women of Brazil is my new favorite site:

Black Women of Brazil Website

Another example of intra-racism, though I’m pretty sure EX-ESPN Analyst Rob Parker doesn’t think so, is calling someone out for not being “black” enough:

Leonard Pitts Jr.: How black is black enough?

. . .  Parker, who is African-American, analyzed what he saw as the insufficient blackness of Robert Griffin III, rookie quarterback for the Washington, D.C., football team that is named for a racial slur.

Having returned their team to relevance for the first time since the Clinton era, RG3, as he is known, can do no wrong in the eyes of Slurs fans. But Parker, saying that the young man’s fiancee is (gasp!) white and that he himself is rumored to be – cover the children’s eyes – a Republican, found him lacking in the area of authentic blackness. “My question,” he said, “which is just a straight, honest question: is he a brother, or is he a cornball brother? He’s not really .?.?. OK, he’s black, he kind of does the thing, but he’s not really down with the cause. He’s not one of us. He’s kind of black, but he’s not really like the guy you really want to hang out with .?.?.”

That explosion you hear is the sound of my mind, blown. I’m left second guessing my own blackness.

I mean, I listen to Bruce Springsteen, for crying out loud! There’s even a Dixie Chicks album on my iPod. Should I download more James Brown and Al Green to save my, ahem, soul?

Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/01/13/4008533/leonard-pitts-jr-how-black-is.html#storylink=rss

For more examples just google Halle Berry, Paula Patton, Zoe Saldana, basically any person of color who doesn’t somehow fit another’s personal litmus test on “blackness” for comments and threads that veer from opinions on their talent, to their racial makeup and appearance.  Sometimes a celebrity endorsement adds fuel to the fire. One example is Beyonce’s L’Oreal ad. While Jennifer’s Lopez’s ad for the same company, with the tagline of 100% Puerto Rican caused a few ripples, Beyonce’s ad was hotly debated as the entertainer diluting her black ancestry:

For a mix of comments both pro and con on the ad, this thread on TOPIX may be of interest:

Link: http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/T591EBPVNFOA8Q25Q

What is the definition of Self-loathing, also known as Self-hatred?

Link: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Self-loathing

What is intra-racism?: 

” . . . Among the limited number of studies exploring the existence of intraethnic group racism, research suggests that U.S. blacks once endorsed the idea of lighter skinned superiority (Gatewood, 1988; Okazawa-Rey, Robinson, and Ward, 1986) and routinely blocked darker skinned blacks from valued resources (e.g., matriculation at select historically black colleges and universities, as well as membership in some predominantly black fraternities and sororities, churches, and social/business organizations) (Neal and Wilson, 1989; Okazawa-Rey et al., 1986). Published research investigating the independent effects of intraethnic group racism, as well as the interactive or additive effects of intraethnic group racism and interethnic group racism, on health has yet to be published.” *

Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25532/pdf/TOC.pdf

*The date on this PDF is 2004. There may have been a study on the adverse health effects completed after this.

Examples of self loathing from select fictional characters:

Clareece ‘Precious’ Jones: [Taking an assessment test] There’s always something wrong with these tests. These tests paint a picture of me with no brain. These tests paint a picture of me and my mother, my whole family as less than dumb. Just ugly black grease, need to be wiped away, find a job for.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929632/quotes?qt=qt1050492

Precious, featuring actress Gabourey Sidibe

Clareece ‘Precious’ Jones: Sometimes I wish I was dead. I’ll be okay, I guess, ’cause I’m lookin’ up. Lookin’ for something to fall,
[chuckles to herself]

Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929632/quotes?qt=qt1050493

Precious, featuring actress/comedian Monique. Note the makeup, several shades lighter that show the character’s self loathing of her complexion.

Quotes from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye:

“Each night Pecola prayed for blue eyes. In her eleven years, no one had ever noticed Pecola. But with blue eyes, she thought, everything would be different. She would be so pretty that her parents would stop fighting. Her father would stop drinking. Her brother would stop running away. If only she could be beautiful. If only people would look at her.”

“Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike.” pg. 45

While Precious and The Bluest Eye don’t sugarcoat the intra-racism present in these works, The Help attempted to portray the primary African Americans as “admirable” maids, when they were simply stereotypical Mammies. Some readers fell for Aibileen, Minny and Constantine being considered “good” because they lavished attention and humor on Stockett’s white characters, respectively Mae Mobley, Celia Foote and Skeeter.

But a closer look at the origin of these characters and their dialogue tells a far different story of self-loathing and intra-racism. But this isn’t something new in fiction, especially fiction written by white authors:

Ten Black Writers Respond to William Stryon

Quotes from The Help (some words are highlighted, since many readers missed Aibileen’s lack of self esteem and loathing of being black):

Tate Forrest, one a my used-tobe babies long time ago, stop me on the way to the Jitney last week, give me a big hug, so happy to see me. He a grown man now. . . he start laughing and memorizing how I’d do him when he was a boy. How the first time his foot fell asleep and he say it tickle, I told him that was just his foot snoring. And how I told him don’t drink coffee or he gone turn colored. He say he still ain’t drunk a cup a coffee and he twenty-one years old. It’s always nice seeing the kids grown up fine.” (Pg 91, Aibileen)

That night after supper, me and that cockroach stare each other down across the kitchen floor. He big, inch, inch and a half. He black. Blacker than me. . . (pg 189, Aibileen)

“We was all surprised Constantine would go and . . . get herself in the famly way. Some folks at church wasn’t so kind about it, especially when the baby come out white. Even though the father was black as me.” (Pg 358, Aibileen)

Viola Davis as Aibileen in film version of The Help and young actress as Mae Mobley

There’s a difference between self-doubt and self-loathing. Quote from actress Viola Davis, in a moment where she reveals overcoming self-doubt:

“Crying like a dog,” Davis listened as Tyson, who costars in “The Help,” told her it was OK to embrace her success. Says Davis, “Cicely told me, ‘I know the road.’ And what she meant by that was she is a dark-skinned black actress. She has the full lips, the dark skin, that look that doesn’t meet any conventional standards of beauty…. She understands the obstacles that were placed in front of me, and she knows that I was able to achieve what I achieved only through hard work. A lot of times people have to give you permission to enjoy your life.”

Link: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-en-viola-davis-20111110,0,2609985.story

Viola Davis, looking lovely on a Essence Mag cover

Here’s more on the quote, to keep it in context, per the question Davis was asked:

“If you didn’t object to the dialect, were there aspects of the book that did bother you?

Davis: The one thing I don’t embrace in any book about black women is I don’t embrace how the looks are described. I always erase that. I don’t care if it’s the greatest writer in the world. I know these black women. The first woman of beauty in my life was my Aunt Joyce, and she was over 300 pounds, and we thought she was Halle Berry to us.

Every time she came to visit, she would have these earrings, and these clothes and the beauty of her skin. We would all sit around her touching her hands and her face and her skin and she was beautiful. I didn’t see the bigness. I just have a different idea of how we look, the hues of our skin, how we exude sensuality and sexuality and how our hair looks. So I always just interpret that for myself. It’s like Chris Walken cuts out all the exclamation points, and the periods. I cut out all the descriptions.”

Link: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/31/entertainment/la-ca-the-help-excerpts-20110731

It’s been a year since Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer were basking in the glow of Oscar nominations. But here are a few responses the actresses gave during their whirlwind media tour:

Excerpts from The Hollywood Reporter and The Daily Beast:

TO WATCH ONESELF OR NOT TO WATCH, THAT IS THE QUESTION

The Hollywood Reporter: Have you done roles that you were disappointed by afterward?

Octavia Spencer: I never watch my work, so I can’t say that I’m disappointed.

THR: You haven’t seen The Help?

Spencer: I sort of had to. [Davis and I] saw it together.

THR: Did you like it?

Spencer: I did like The Help. I was really scared that I would just hate everything. When you watch yourself, it really does take you out of the purity of that world that you create. I’m thinking? “Really? Does my stomach look like a smiley face? Really? You went with that take? Ugh, there was one that was better.”

Read the full article here:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/charlize-theron-michelle-williams-the-help-oscars-roundtable-258936

The Daily Beast Roundtable with Viola Davis, Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, George Clooney, and Chalize Theron:

“There are two very dangerous [kinds of actors],” Davis says. “The ones that just haven’t put in the time yet, and they experience success at a very young age. And they take it too seriously. Or people who have been in the business for 40, 50 years and never experienced the success they thought they should have had. And so they want to punish you. I’ve had the old bitter ones.

“There just aren’t a lot of roles for—I mean, I’m a 46-year-old black actress who doesn’t look like Halle Berry—and Halle Berry is having a hard time. You know there’s not a lot of leading roles.”

Theron jumps in. “I’m going to have to stop you there for a second.”

“Why, you think I look like Halle Berry?”

“No. You have to stop saying that because you are hot as shit. You look amazing.”

“I appreciate that, but I have an absolute understanding and awareness of the image I project, and there’s just not a lot of roles for women who look like me. And so the pizza …” It speaks volumes that Davis is the only actor at the table who hasn’t had a chance to experience romantic chemistry onscreen.

Read the full article here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/22/newsweek-s-oscar-roundtable-reveals-actors-private-parts.html

So what happens when a person of african ancestry feels the need to either bleach the skin they’re in, or use plastic surgery to give them the face of their dreams? Some examples of individuals who’ve taken it to the extreme:

Rapper Lil Kim’s original face and skin color

Lil Kim’s Badboy record No Time featuring Diddy, formerly Puff Daddy

2012 photo fo Lil Kim.
Entertainer’s skin has been lightened and she’s had plastic surgery. Nose job, cheek implants, and perhaps a chin implant.

Sammy Sosas original skin tone and eye color

Sammy Sosa now and back then. His hair has been straightened even more, skin has been chemically altered and he’s wearing contacts to make his eyes appear lighter in color.

Please keep all this in mind when you read some of the responses to Spike Lee speaking out about Django Unchained. It’s important to note that Spike has been at odds with Tarantino for quite a while. This isn’t the first time he’s been less than complimentary about Tarantino’s obsession with the N word (in fairness, I’ve always believed that when you open that door without regard to how others may intrepret it, there’s bound to be issues later on). But here’s what Spike stated in a tweet, which apparently set off a fresh round of personal attacks on the director:

Spike Lee tweet that set off a firestorm

According to the site Shadow and Act, here’s what Civil Rights activist and former comedian Dick Gregory had to say:

“That lil thug ain’t even seen the movie, he’s acting like he’s white…so it must be something personal, because when I looked at all those black entertainers, that know Spike Lee, how are you going to attack this man and don’t be attacking them… You’re saying, ‘everybody’s a fool but me?’ [Talking about] ‘it offended my ancestors,’ but when you did ‘She’s Got To Have It’ and some of those other thug movies you did… when you took Malcolm X and put a Zoot suit on him, red hat…did that offend your ancestors, punk?”

Okay . . . moving on, from that same Shadow and Act piece, here’s what rapper Luther Campbell, of the raunchy 90s group 2 Live Crew, and writer of the songs “Me So Horny” “Pop that cootchie” among others had to say. Campbell once went by Luke Skyywalker until he was sued and lost the use of the name.

“Screw Spike Lee… Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ is a brilliant flick that more accurately depicts the African American experience than any of the 15 movies about black culture Lee’s directed in his lifetime…”

“Lee needs to get over himself. He’s upset because Tarantino makes better movies. The man who put Malcolm X on the big screen is Hollywood’s resident house negro; a bougie activist who wants to tell his fellow white auteurs how they can and can’t depict African Americans… Spike is upset because Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the movie is just like him: a conniving and scheming Uncle Tom.”

Link: http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/what-to-make-of-the-ad-hominem-attacks-against-spike-lee

Well, like Spike Lee, Gregory and Campbell have the right to voice their opinions. But while slavery and domestics during the civil rights movement aka The Help treated both these dire subjects with hilarity, I notice Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln will have none of that.

Part II of this topic will be covered in the post:

WE ARE NOT IN CHARGE: Thoughts on Django, Lincoln and piling on Spike Lee

From the ill-conceived reality show that thankfully, did not make prime time “All my Babies Mamas” to the big budget Blaxploitation film “Django Unchained” WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL. Especially not the kind of control of say, those in Hollywood and television as they put forth images of mass consumption.

Of note is how Lincoln was played with righteous dramatic reverence, securing once again that his legacy is noble and untarnished (and that Daniel Day Lewis picks up a third Best Actor Oscar) even though the likes of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth were omitted from the film.  I mean, you’d think in a motion picture about the Great Emancipator, that someone at Dreamworks would have remembered African Americans like Harriet Tubman, Douglass and Truth may have contributed a “little something” to Lincoln’s decision to free the slaves. After all, they were brave enough to denounce slavery’s devastation of their own culture.

“Lincoln,” the Movie: What’s Missing?

Written by Gary L. Flowers

” . . . For example, in the summer of 1863, Frederick Douglass was invited to the White House and introduced to President Lincoln by Secretary of State William Henry Seward and Sen. Samuel Pomeroy (Kan.). According to David Blight’s “Race and Reunion: Civil War in America Memory,” Douglass, said, “I told him I was assisting to raise Colored troops to enlist in the Union Army but was troubled that the United States government would not treat them fairly in three ways. First, Colored troops ought to receive the same wages as those paid to White soldiers. Second, Colored soldiers ought to receive the same protection when taken prisoner. Third, when Colored soldiers perform great and uncommon service on the battlefield they should be rewarded by distinction and promotion as White soldiers are rewarded.

Moreover, Douglass relieved public pressure on President Lincoln regarding the Civil War in his speech in Philadelphia three weeks after the president dedicated the federal cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa. Douglass did so by saying, “We are not to be saved by the captain, but by the crew. We are not to be saved by Abraham Lincoln but by the power of the throne, greater than the throne itself, the supreme testing of ‘government of the people…’ of which the President spoke at Gettysburg. The ‘Abolition War’ and ensuing peace will never be completed until the Black men of the South and the Black men of the North shall have been admitted, fully and completely into the body politic of America.”

Read the full article by Mr. Gary L. Flowers here:

http://www.newpittsburghcourieronline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8788:qlincolnq-the-movie-whats-missing&catid=40:opinion&Itemid=54

But I must remember that Spielberg’s company had no problem backing The Help, a dramedy about a feisty, Shirley Temple clone named Skeeter who musters a group of catatonic, “I reckon I’m gon do it” maid/Mammies to help them tell their own story.

Click image for larger view:

Skeeter says goodbye to her new friends

For every bright new talent like Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild, there are several steps back, from an industry championing and awarding Octavia Spencer’s Minny, an updated Mammy for a new generation in The Help, who uttered lines like “Frying chicken make you tend to feel better about life” without regard to how often African Americans were mocked during segregation using that very bird and also by the The Help’s director and Spencer’s “good friend” Tate Taylor:

It’s Chicken Time! The stereotype of blacks loving chicken is resurrected in The Help. Note the stereotype of the bug eyed, dark as night black male

Tate Taylor’s Chicken Party, starring Octavia Spencer, Allison Janney and of all things, “fried chicken”

And while Octavia Spencer tap danced mightily to land a role that reportedly, was “inspired” by her grumbling antics from the get-go, even with friends like Stockett and Taylor, she still had to secure some sort of “agreement” to play the sassy, shit baking Minny on film (items in bold are my doing):

Dapito: And is there a movie version coming out of The Help? Did I hear that right?

Stockett: The movie rights have been sold to a fellow Mississippian Tate Taylor (inaudible) Green and I’m just so lucky that the book is in the hands of people, not only Mississippians but friends of mine from Jackson. They’re two filmmakers based in Los Angeles.

Dapito: Oh I can’t wait. Do you think they will cast Octavia and some of the other narrators?

Stockett: I think Octavia will be the part of Minny because ah . . (pause and laughter) you know, that was just the agreement. It wasn’t that hard of, it you know, there was no pulling hair on that one. She’s such a natural.”

Link: An Interview with Kathryn Stockett, Author of ‘The Help’ Narrated by Diana Dapito

I mean, how was Spencer to know that her “good friend” Kathryn Stockett had no idea Medgar Evers means of death was by an ambush shooting, even though Stockett had written about it in her novel. Somehow Stockett, portraying herself as a proud Mississippian who’d go off on those dissing her state, couldn’t recall that Evers, a civil rights activist and fellow Mississippian hadn’t been “bludgeoned” to death, as she stated in three audio interviews, one of which is below:

“…1963 was a horrifying and momentous year in Mississippi’s history as well as the entire United States. It was… the fall of 62 when James Meredith was accepted into Ole Miss and in 1963 Medgar Evers the uh…who was with the NAACP, he was bludgeoned to death on his front yard in front of his children.” (stated at 8:34 minutes into a 10:31 interview)

Link: http://media.barnesandnoble.com/?fr_story=59e76c8fa39941fb2ff1013f7928b8ed42d449c2&rf=rss

For more on Stockett’s blunder, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/medgar-evers-error-in-the-help/

And how was Spencer to know that her other “good friend” and roommate Tate Taylor thought the scene he directed where Viola Davis, pretending to take a piss as her white employer berates her, was, as he put it:

“The scene where Viola Davis is sitting on a toilet in a garage in 108 degrees, and then a white woman comes out and tells her to hurry up was visually brutal. To me that’s worse than seeing a lynching. It just is.”

Link to Grio article can be found on this post: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/director-says-thats-worse-than-seeing-a-lynching/

Hell, Spencer couldn’t coach them on everything

For more on the “agreement” among Spencer, Stockett and Taylor, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/the-help-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/

Unlike The Help, which Dreamworks and Disney tried marketing as a “feel good sisterhood” with comedic elements, Django Unchained never claimed to be anything but an over the top homage of sorts to the Blaxpoitation films of the 70s. Tarantino has made no secret about his love for films of that era. Here’s what Spike stated back in 1995 per the book Interviews with Spike Lee

“The problem with Jackie Brown,” he tells me, “I will say it again and again and again. I have a  definite problem with Quentin Tarantino’s excessive use of the N-word. And let the record state that I never said that he can not use that word — I’ve used that word in many of my films — but I think something is wrong with him. You look at Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and even that thing with Christian Slater, True Romance. It’s just the N-word, the N-word, the N-word. He says he grew up on Blaxploitation films and that they were his favorite films but he has to realize that those films do not speak to the breadth of the entire African-American experience. I mean the guy’s just stupid. He [Tarantino] said that he and Ricki Lake were the two most revered white celebrities among the black community. Where did he get that from? That’s wrong. I am not the only African American in this world who has a problem with this excessive use of the N-word. ”

Link: Spike Lee: Interviews

Screen shot of where this quote was taken from, per Google book scan

Spike Lee interview quote

So in Django Unchained,  Jamie Foxx gets to wear a short jacket, tight pants and gun holster, sort of like Michael Landon’s from Bonanza, as he plays bang bang shoot ‘em up during slavery. I can recall Sidney Poiter donning similar attire in the 1966 film Duel at Diablo:

Duel at Diablo

Unfortunately, Django Unchained suffers from the some of the same questionable issues in marketing that afflicted The Help, with a tie in of mass produced “dolls” geared for adults and children. Some might call them “collectibles.” I just call them WTF?

Django Unchained dolls, reportedly selling for $299 a piece on Amazon

“I actually enjoyed the movie, but we cannot support this type of commercialization,” Ali said. “I don’t seen any dolls representing Hitler that came from Tarantino’s (Holocaust movie ‘Inglourious Basterds’)…I don’t see them making dolls of Holocaust survivors who are bald and starving in concentration camps.” – Najee Ali from Project Islamic, referenced in an article by Mimi Dabo for The Examiner.com

“After Weinstein issued its statement, the complete set of toys was reportedly bidding for over $1000 on Ebay.” – article by Mimi Dabo for The Examiner.com

Link: http://www.examiner.com/article/controversial-django-unchained-dolls-discontinued

Read more on The Help’s collaboration with HSN  in yet another marketing fiasco here:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/the-help-movie-cleans-up-after-itself-the-novel/making-the-help-pay/

For those who laud Tarantino and enjoyed Django Unchained, all it took was Spike Lee’s tweet to have both an activist and a former rapper attack Lee for voicing his opinion:

Spike Lee tweet that set off a firestorm

“Screw Spike Lee. Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is a brilliant flick that more accurately depicts the African-American experience than any of the 15 movies about black culture Lee’s directed in his lifetime…

“Some of the most brutal scenes in Django Unchained are metaphors for the unfair racial inequality African-Americans still experience today.”

“Spike is upset because Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the movie is just like him: a conniving and scheming Uncle Tom.”

Link: http://www.torontosun.com/2013/01/16/luther-campbell-attacks-spike-lee-for-django-criticism

Campbell reportedly also goes by the name of “Uncle Luke”

And now, a few words from rights activist Dick Gregory. Hopefully he can infuse some knowledge and dignity into this debate . . . or maybe not:

“I’ve seen ‘Django Unchained’ 12 times. Never in the history of Hollywood, have they ever made anything that freed the inside of me. The inside of me. I’m 80-years-old, I saw cowboy movies, wasn’t no Black folks in cowboy movies. I’m looking at a Western, plus a love story. To those of you all that see it, you’ll never see a love story about a Black man and a Black woman where it wasn’t some foul sex and foul language, huh. And Spike Lee can’t appreciate that. The little thug ain’t even seen the movie; he’s acting like he White.

So it must be something personal. And all them Black entertainers that know Spike Lee, how you gone attack this man and don’t be attacking them … and then say everyone’s a fool but me. [Talking about] ‘it offended my ancestors,’ but when you did ‘She’s Got To Have It’ and some of those other thug movies you did…you took Malcolm X and put a Zoot suit on him…did that offend your ancestors, punk?”

Link: http://www.philasun.com/news/3813/38/Dick-Gregory-on-Django-Unchained-Spike-Lee-is-a-punk-and-a-thug.html

I guess Dick didn’t recall Sidney in Duel at Diablo, or even Jim Brown in “100 Rifles” where he got the girl, who was none other than the current sex symbol of that era, Raquel Welch.

100 Rifles, a 60s western featuring Jim Brown, Raquel Welch and Burt Reynolds

100 Rifles promo pic, for a western that featured Jim Brown, Raquel Welch and Burt Reynolds

And as far as a love story without foul sex, Sidney also starred in “For Love of Ivy” which was ironically about a man who fell for a domestic played by Abby Lincoln (they did have a scene where they were in bed together).  Also, the feature film directed by Sidney, who headlined with Harry Belafonte, Buck and the Preacher, released in 1972.

Here’s the tagline: A wagon master and a con-man preacher help freed slaves dogged by cheap-labor agents out West.

Buck and the Preacher, a black cowboy film, which had comedy, drama, and a love story

Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Harry Belafonte in Buck and the Preacher, a western featuring black characters

I mean, certainly, if you want to get technical about it, Buck and the Preacher dealt with freed slaves. I don’t remember the date the picture was set in, if anyone knows, please post it in the comments section.

On television, there was the 1995 mini-series “Children of the Dust” a western where Regina Taylor and Sidney Poitier had a poignant, tragic love story:

Children of The Dust, a western featuring a love story between Sidney Poitier and Regina Taylor

Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113195/

I also recall the film Thomasine and Bushrod, featuring Max Julien and Vonetta McGee, directed by Gordon Parks Jr. (son of legendary director and writer Gordon Parks) Parks jr. also directed Superfly, Aaron loves Angela, and Three the Hard Way. Here’s the description of Thomasine and Bushrod:

“A rare blaxploitation classic starring Vonette McGee & Max Julien, Thomasine & Bushrod was intended as a counterpart to Bonnie and Clyde. This pair of thieves, who operate in the American south between 1911 and 1915, pattern themselves after Robin Hood and hold the White Establishment as (a ‘modern-day’) Sheriff of Nottingham. Here’s the clincher– Thomasine and Bushrod steal from rich, white capitalists, then give to Mexicans, Native Americans and poor whites.” Written by Ratiera L. Harrison  for Internet Movie Data Base http://www.imdb.com

Thomasine and Bushrod, lovers and robbers during the early 1900s

Many people didn’t like Wild Wild West, but it did gross over 220,000 million worldwide, not counting DVD sales (though it reportedly cost over 170 million to make) Will Smith played a government agent and civil war hero. Salma Heyak and Kevin Kline co-starred.

Soundtrack for Wild Wild West

Capt. James West: I thought I’d go as a government agent who’s going to shoot and kill General Bloodbath McGrath.
Artemus Gordon: An armed Negro cowboy costume in a room full of white, Southern, former slave-owners. You’ll win first prize.

Quote from www.imdb.com

Mario Van Peeble’s cowboy film Posse came out in 1993, and featured rappers Big Daddy Kane and Tone Loc, actor Tiny Lister, Billy Zane, and Salli Richardson played Mario’s love interest. Blair Underwood was a villain in this one.

Posse movie poster

In 1960,  there was Sergeant Rutledge, starring Woody Strode.

Former UCLA star athlete Woody Strode, the star of Sergeant Rutledge. Look at those cheekbones! This man was tall and fine!

Storyline:

Respected black cavalry Sergeant Brax Rutledge stands court-martial for raping and killing a white woman and murdering her father, his superior officer.

My dad had us watch this film, because he was excited to see a black man playing a calvary officer and he was a big fan of Woody Strode. Legendary director John Ford directed this classic film.

Woody had another classic film that came out in 1960, which was Spartacus, where he starred with Kirk Douglas and Sir Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Jean Simmons, Tony Curtis, John Laughton, and John Gavin.

Personally, I loved Sounder, with Paul Winfield, Cicely Tyson and Kevin Hooks (yes, I know its not a western):

Sounder, featuring Paul Winfield, Cicely Tyson and Kevin Hooks

Storyline: The son of a family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.

This whole thing with far too many people piling on Spike is painful to watch unfold, to say the least, especially after noting how many other films came before Django Unchained, some of which could be considered ground breaking. Django has surpassed 100 million, and so far is the most profitable Taratino movie to date.

But as far as black history, there was even an Italian Western starring sexy broadway and Las Vegas headliner, actress/singer/dancer Lola Falana:

Lola Falana, Italian Spaghetti Western star. This is the Turkish movie poster

Lola Colt poster starring Lola Falana

The Lola Falana Show

Here’s what Jamie Foxx had to say about Spike’s tweet and previous statements:

“The question for me is: where’s Spike Lee coming from?” Foxx said. “He didn’t like Whoopi Goldberg, he doesn’t like Tyler Perry, he doesn’t like anybody, I think he’s sort of run his course. I mean, I respect Spike, he’s a fantastic director. But he gets a little shady when he’s taking shots at his colleagues without looking at the work. To me, that’s irresponsible.”

Link: http://thegrio.com/2013/01/18/jamie-foxx-lashes-out-at-spike-lee-calls-him-shady-and-irresponsible/

Out of all the many responses to this whole debacle, I think this one sums it up the best imho (and I’ve read comments from a number of sites):

Comment from the Grio.com

Coming Up:

What EXACTLY did Spike Lee say and . . . Does he have a point? 

To be continued . . .

“I don’t want input, I don’t want you to tell me if I’m doing anything wrong, heavens forbid. But I write a scene, and I think I’ve heard it as much as I can, but then when I read it to you – I don’t give it to you to read, I read it – when I read it to you, I hear it through your ears, and it lets me know I’m on the right track.” – Quentin Tarantino quote after winning a Golden Globe for Django Unchained

In this post I hope to explore the teaming of black talent with white in Hollywood. While on the surface it could be viewed as beneficial for both, after further research, the dynamics of power show the partnership is anything but equal. What results can possibly lead to a futhering of stereotypes that plague both cultures, instead of combating them. And while the projects are supposed to be harmless entertainment, for some African Americans, it winds up being anything but.

The Help Unchained a mash of two well intended, but seriously flawed creations

Two recent examples which have been profitable but also controversial are The Help and Django Unchained.

In the case of The Help, Octavia Spencer became the “black friend card” for both the book’s author, Kathryn Stockett  and screenwriter TateTaylor to pull whenever needed. The Help is also an excellent example of why authors shouldn’t rely on their minority friends to be the sole authority on a minority culture. The book had a number of embarrassing errors that could have been avoided with research, or even enlisting the aid of a historian. Apparently that wasn’t done, and so the novel went to print with mistakes like Skeeter claiming on page 277 that Medgar Evers had been “bludgeoned” in his front yard, which Kathryn Stockett earnestly repeated in three known audio interviews, completely forgetting that she’d supposidely written in her own novel of Ever’s assasination by gunfire.

Kathryn Stockett interview on Barnes and Noble’s website:

“…1963 was a horrifying and momentous year in Mississippi’s history as well as the entire United States. It was… the fall of 62 when James Meredith was accepted into Ole Miss and in 1963 Medgar Evers the uh…who was with the NAACP, he was bludgeoned to death on his front yard in front of his children.” (stated at 8:34 minutes into a 10:31 interview)

http://media.barnesandnoble.com/?fr_story=59e76c8fa39941fb2ff1013f7928b8ed42d449c2&rf=rss

Read all about it here

Skeeter’s also the character who happened to be the editor of the fictional Ole Miss student newspaper the Rebel Rouser, unaware that James Meredith attempted to enroll at her Alma Mater in 1961, which is when the character would have been a junior. In the book Skeeter watches Meredith getting blocked from entering Ole Miss on television, while thinking:

The picture pans back and forth and there is my old administration building. Governor Ross Barnett stands with his arms crossed, looking at the tall Negro (James Meredith) in the eye. Next to the governor is our Senator Whitworth, whose son Hilly’s been trying to set me up with on a blind date.

I watch the television, riveted. Yet I am neither thrilled nor disappointed by the news they might let a colored man into Ole Miss, just surprised. (Skeeter, Pg 83)

Note that Feb 12, 1962 is written as the date on this actual scan of the Rebel Underground student newspaper, which was the real student run newsletter at Ole Miss during the period The Help is set (and available freely on the internet). So why Skeeter would be “surprised” or not out there protesting along with Hilly, who attended Ole Miss for two years is the real shocker:

Rebel Underground Feb 1962

Close up of what’s written about Meredith in this actual scan from the archives of Ole Miss:

Feb 1962 Rebel Underground student paper insults James Meredith

Scanned Document from The University of Mississippi Libraries: Digital Collections on line The Integration of the University of Mississippi

Link: http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/integration&CISOPTR=100&REC=20

Other errors included making Aibileen, the main domestic “heroine” of the book into a cowering, simpering  hybrid of both Uncle Tom and a Mammy. Aibileen was supposed to be inspiring but turned out to be the same old blindly loyal, no backstory and no companion, grinning through her pain black caricature.

Aibileen writing out her thoughts and living the life of an asexual hermit. No one thought to ask why a relatively healthy woman would forgo companionship from age thirty-three onward. Thus Aibileen became a Mammy who simply lived to provide the white children she looks after with love and affection, while seeking none for herself.

Eventual Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, who was written as an updated, brassy and bold Mammy for a new generation, was given lines like “Frying chicken make you tend to feel better about life” as well as the dialogue to diss the black male, something Stockett didn’t dare to tread when dealing with the white males of her novel:

Plenty of black men leave their families behind like trash in a dump, but it’s not something the colored woman do. We’ve got kids to think about – Minny Jackson (Pg 311)

Spencer was so taken with Kathryn Stockett’s vision of the south rising again via good help, she went on tour with her “good friend” Kathryn Stockett, standing shoulder to shoulder with the author as Stockett voiced Aibileen in a pseudo “black” voice, while they read the offensive “spoilt cootchie” scene from the novel (Pgs 23-24, where Stockett crams so many insults into this imaginary conversation between her two black maids, I was surprised no one caught them). To review, Minny crows about Aibileen having the power to call down a veneral disease on Cocoa, the woman Aibileen’s husband ran off with years ago. Not only does their conversation imply that Cocoa had a “cootchie spoilt as a rotten oyster” but that she came down with it a week after Clyde -the philandering husband-left Aibileen, but that people think Aibileen’s got a special line to god. To which Aibileen, that devout Christian, asks “You saying people think I got the black magic?”

The spoilt cootchie reading, where Stockett voices Minny, and Octavia Spencer does her best “What you talkin’ ’bout Willis?” expression. Spencer not only agreed to a road trip with Stockett, but the actress/comedian popped on the internet defending the book. Too bad Stockett revealed in yet another audio interview that she had an “agreement” with the actress.

Yikes. Not only did Stockett dredge up two well known offensive myths that were commonly spread about blacks during segregation (that blacks carried disease, including venereal diseases, and even our children were afflicted with it.

Click image for larger view:

wims-wednesdays-in-mississippi, residents talk about blacks having venereal diseases and that northern agitators are communists

Link:

Women of Mississippi spread demeaning myths, scan from Clarion-Ledger 1963

The scene also falls back on another insulting belief spread during segregation, that no matter if an African American professed to be Christian, we’d revert to the religions of our motherland Africa, with the whole “black magic” line. Maybe Stockett’s editors and even the author herself thought it was a funny, throw away gag. The book contains far too many offenses that bring up troubling questions on just how Stockett could believe much of what she’d written was heart-warming, but instead more in line with The United Daughter’s of the Confederacy’s misguided attempt to put a Mammy monument in Washington during th 1920s. Read more about it in this post

Audio interviews would prove to be very lucrative in providing information on the behind the scenes creation of The Help. In an interview with Audible.com, which is still available for downloading, Stockett revealed in December of 2009 that there was an “agreement” with Spencer (items in bold are my doing):

Dapito: And is there a movie version coming out of The Help? Did I hear that right?

Stockett: The movie rights have been sold to a fellow Mississippian Tate Taylor (inaudible) Green and I’m just so lucky that the book is in the hands of people, not only Mississippians but friends of mine from Jackson. They’re two filmmakers based in Los Angeles.

Dapito: Oh I can’t wait. Do you think they will cast Octavia and some of the other narrators?

Stockett: I think Octavia will be the part of Minny because ah . . (pause and laughter) you know, that was just the agreement. It wasn’t that hard of, it you know, there was no pulling hair on that one. She’s such a natural.”

Link: An Interview with Kathryn Stockett, Author of ‘The Help’ Narrated by Diana Dapito

Unfortunately, both Stockett and Tate Taylor’s loose lips only “helped” to shed light on just why Spencer would willingly go along, and even run interference at times. According to one UK journalist, here’s what Octavia Spencer was brought on to do:

“It was only much later, when she decided to try publishing what had become a full-blown novel, that she started to get “very nervous that I had crossed a line that should never be crossed in America.”

To help cover her tracks over that line, Stockett recruited an actress friend, Octavia Spencer, to participate in her first book tour. “I would read the white parts and she would read the black parts and we had a lot of fun,” Stockett says, adding that Spencer’s free spirit was the inspiration for Minnie, one of her two black heroines. “She got it. She grew up in Alabama and she understood that world probably better than we do.”

Interview with John Barber for Saturday’s Globe and Mail

Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/kathryn-stocketts-southern-discomfort/article2012818/singlepage/#articlecontent

The story of the mis-steps both behind the creation of The Help novel and the movie are in these posts:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/the-help-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/

And now, in 2013, There’s Django Unchained. Talented writer/producer Reginald Hudlin plays the Octavia Spencer role this year, for as stated in this interview:

“Hudlin is the most prominent African-American behind the scenes of the hit film, which courted the black community ahead of its release and mostly won its support. Spike Lee was one notable exception. (He refused to see it, saying “American slavery was not a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust.”) And a limited-edition line of action figures of the film’s characters – including slaves and slave-owners – drew protests and eventually the dolls’ withdrawal from sale.

“We knew from the beginning that we were working with nitroglycerin,” says Hudlin. “Was there a tremendous amount of discussion and conversation and analysis to make sure we were calibrating this thing exactly right? Absolutely. It was explosive material, but I always had confidence that as a team, we would deliver the right movie.”

For Hudlin, Django represents the kind of film he’d like to see more of: original movies with multi-ethnic casts that don’t reuse well-trod genre tropes.”

Django goes against the conventional thinking that neither films starring black actors nor Westerns can find large audiences abroad. It’s been a huge success internationally, taking in more than $187 million.

“If those historical models were always correct, we wouldn’t be talking right now,” says Hudlin. “Those films travel because the world is represented in those films. The audiences are voting with their dollar saying: We want more diversity.”

The success of Django has already spawned much chatter about a possible sequel, which Hudlin grants he’s had “extensive conversations” with Tarantino about. But for now, he’s planning to just enjoy the Oscars, which he’ll attend with his wife and mother. With Ben Affleck‘s Argo the generally accepted front-runner, Hudlin says he’s not “polishing my acceptance speech,” but proudly going as only the fourth black best picture nominee.

“Hopefully,” he says, “there will be a day soon where we don’t count anymore.”

Link: http://www.cineplex.com/News/For-Django-producer-an-unexpected-Oscar-ride.aspx

A pity that Hudlin’s words are contradicted by Tarantino’s assessment that really, it’s about all eyes on him:

On rising to the level of his earlier work: “I want there to be anticipation. I was actually quite proud when I read that Django is one of the most anticipated movies coming out this year. It’s a black Western. Where’s the anticipation coming from? I guess a lot of it is me. That’s pretty f—ing awesome.”

Link: http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/11/14/quentin-tarantino-playboy-interview/

So, welcome to this edition of “When good friends go bad” where I attempt to investigate why the pairing of talented individuals from different races end up with some of the most blatant stereotypical characters either in print or film. Sometimes it’s intentional. And other times, all you can do is wonder.

The latest collaboration is between Reginald Hudlin who’s listed as one of the producers for Django while Tarantino picked up a Golden Globe as the screenwriter.

And while this type of collaboration isn’t new, the subject matter could be deemed controversial, especially when interviews come out showing the non-minority collaborator unknowingly insensitive in their public statements or demeanor. Exhibit A:

Maybe it’s the venue.

Or maybe it’s the individuals in the venue. Hell, I don’t know. I do know, it’s like a car accident. You can’t help but watch Quentin Tarantino morph into his weirdly cringe worthy version of what he believes a black person sounds like.

I’d seen Tarantino do his “act” previously on TV One, during a special on Django Unchained. Here’s a video of the Oscar winning director appearance on BET’s 106 and Park. I call this Quentin Tarantino does his imitation of a black man, and no one calls him out on his patronizing and frankly, stupid ass behavior, especially when he flips back to a regular old white guy on other shows:

Lest you think this is an anomaly, it’s not. And Tarantino’s not alone. There are some individuals, whether emboldened by their singular “black” friend or “friends” who feel as though they can take their minstrel act on the road, and everybody just loves it. But let me be the first to say, apparently no one has the heart to tell them to tone it down, or is either too afraid or mesmerized by who they are to ask them just to knock it off.

Those are my best guesses. But really, there’s no excuse for the way Tarantino acts when he’s around two or more African Americans. It’s not flattering, it’s patronizing. And for the life of me, I can’t understand why everyone’s smiling (Samuel L. Jackson, Jaime Fox, the BET hosts, etc. though I do note Jaime Foxx will generally lower his head) I mean, WTF?

So here’s the thing. I get that Hollywood is a different sort of beast. I truly understand that for a minority actor, roles are few and when they do come along, sometimes one has to swallow their pride and take what they can get. But if you’ll go off on a complete stranger who acted that way, then why can’t these black thespians pull Tarrantino to the side and let him know how foolish he’s behaving?

Unless of course, they have no problem with his act.

But see, it’s gotten worse since Spike Lee raged about Tarantino, reportedly stating this to Variety’s Army Archerd in 1997:

“The word “nigger” is used 38 times in Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown,” sez Spike Lee – and he doesn’t like it. And neither do I. In Daily Variety‘s review of the pic on Dec. 16, Todd McCarthy points out, “nearly every phrase (spoken by Samuel L. Jackson’s character) contains the n-word.” Lee admits, “I’m not against the word,” (though I am) “and I use it, but not excessively. And some people speak that way. But, Quentin is infatuated with that word. What does he want to be made – an honorary black man?” Lee says he has spoken to Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein and the film’s producer, Lawrence Bender, about the excessive use of the word. Lee would like to find out from Tarantino why he used it so frequently in this film “and he uses it in all his pictures: ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Reservoir Dogs…’ I want Quentin to know that all African-Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick.” Lee admits, “I don’t expect them to change (the prints now out), but I want him (Tarantino) to know about it for future reference.” Lee is now in post-production on his “He Got Game” for a May release by Touchstone; Sony, where Lee has his deal, “didn’t want it,” he says, so he took it to Disney. “Game” stars Denzel Washington. He also starred in Lee’s “Mo Better Blues,” in which I (and others) called Lee to task for making the portrayals of characters Moe and Josh Flatbush Jewish caricatures: in his review, Newsweek’s David Ansen described them as “villainous Shylocks,” reminding, “Coming from a self-proclaimed enemy of ethnic stereotyping (Lee), this is inexcusable.” Tuesday, returning to the use of the n-word in “Jackie Brown,” Lee reminded Tarantino and his “Jackie Brown” filmmakers, “If I had used the word ‘kike’ 38 times in ‘Mo Better Blues,’ it would have been my last picture.”

Link: http://www.variety.com/article/VR111779698/

I gotta say, Spike hit the nail on the head with this last line “If I had used the word “kike” 38 times in ‘Mo Better Blues,’ it would have been my last picture.”

That quote highlights just how inequitable a relationship like this can be. Octavia Spencer chose to grin and bear it when her former roommate and “good friend” Tate Taylor said things like this:

“The scene where Viola Davis is sitting on a toilet in a garage in 108 degrees, and then a white woman comes out and tells her to hurry up was visually brutal. To me that’s worse than seeing a lynching. It just is.”

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/director-says-thats-worse-than-seeing-a-lynching/

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/20/the-help-domestic-servants-on-film

Taylor: What I really, really loved about the Medgar Evers storyline and backdrop was that he was in their neighborhood. While they were doing this clandestine project, this Civil Rights leader who’s their neighbor gets murdered, and their characters are wondering, “What’s going to happen to us?”

Link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/12/the-help-an-oral-history-with-viola-davis-octavia-spencer.html

“My key objective was to give this movie street cred especially within the African-American community, to represent them and not sugarcoat it” quote by Tate Taylor, as reported to LA Times reporter Nicole Sperling

Reprinted by http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/05/3058228/the-help-actresses-talk-roles.html

And Spencer was right there, protecting Kathryn Stockett when a lone brave sole tried taking Stockett to task for including historical events in her novel during an early screening of the film.

When The National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Philadelphia convened on August 6, 2011, during a post-screening of the film The Help, a Q&A moderated by MSNBC’s Tamron Hall was held. Here’s what one observer recounted on his blog:

“A woman in the audience took Stockett to task on the inclusion of sensitive historical moments in the book and her decision to weave them into the fabric of her fictitious story. (Stockett peppers the novel with real life news stories of the time: the murder of Medgar Evers, JFK’s assassination, for example.) But Spencer jumped in, reminding the woman (and everyone else in the audience) that The Help is not a non-fiction book and that it’s Stockett’s job as a fiction author to entertain, not give history lessons with her novel. “It’s your job as parents to teach your children about our history,” Spencer said. And before switching gears, Stockett quickly interjected, “I just made this shit up!” The entire crowd erupted in applause.”

See more of Stockett repeating that phrase here

Here’s what Tarantino had to say on the selection process for Djanjo Unchained, a role that the screenwriter first envisioned Will Smith in, but went to comedian/Oscar winner Jaime Foxx (Please pay atttention to what Tarantino at first planned to do with those auditioning for the role. Items in bold are my doing.):

“I met six different actors and had extensive meetings with all of them, and I went in-depth on all of their work,” Tarantino tells Playboy (in the issue that will be on stands Nov. 20). “Idris Elba, Chris Tucker, Terrence Howard, M.K. Williams [from HBO's Boardwalk Empire], Tyrese. They all appreciated the material, and I was going to put them through the paces, make them go off against one another and kind of put up an obstacle course. And then I met Jamie and realized I didn’t need to do that.” So what was it about Foxx that led Tarantino to cast him? “He was the cowboy… Forget the fact that he has his own horse — and that is actually his horse in the movie. He’s from Texas; he understands. …He understood what it’s like to be thought of as an ‘other. ’ ”

Link: http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/11/14/quentin-tarantino-playboy-interview/

“When you look at Roots, nothing about it rings true in the storytelling, and none of the performances ring true for me either,” says Tarantino. “I didn’t see it when it first came on, but when I did I couldn’t get over how oversimplified they made everything about that time. It didn’t move me because it claimed to be something it wasn’t.”

Link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/09/quentin-tarantino-on-django-unchained-and-the-problem-with-roots.html

And on his own film, which some critics deemed overly graphic in its violence and one site counted how many times the word “nigger” was used (138 times):

“I bet anyone who sees the film won’t be able to forget it—and that’s the point.”

Link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/09/quentin-tarantino-on-django-unchained-and-the-problem-with-roots.html

And yet, even after reading Tarantino’s quotes, I fully agree that the screenwriter has every right to create any character he chooses:

“As a writer, I demand the right to write any character in the world that I want to write. I demand the right to be them, I demand the right to think them and I demand the right to tell the truth as I see they are, all right? And to say that I can’t do that because I’m white, but the Hughes Brothers can do that because they’re black, that is racist. That is the heart of racism, all right. And I do not accept that … That is how a segment of the black community that lives in Compton, lives in Inglewood, where Jackie Brown takes place, that lives in Carlson, that is how they talk. I’m telling the truth. It would not be questioned if I was black, and I resent the question because I’m white. I have the right to tell the truth. I do not have the right to lie.”

Because even Tarantino needs help when slipping into the “right to be them.” For Django Unchained, his friend Reginald Hudlin helped keep him on track:

“There were times when I’d be filming a scene and really getting into it and Reg would just say, ‘Hey is this the story you wanted to tell?’ He’d bring the focus back if I got too carried away.”

Link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/09/quentin-tarantino-on-django-unchained-and-the-problem-with-roots.html

Dear God. Please. Make. It. Stop.

I’d read about these sorts of partnerships before. In the early 1930s writer Fannie Hurst employed Zora Neale Hurston as her secretary and they were well known friends.  Close enough that Hurst gave Hurston this backhanded compliment (note the sly use of the word “Spade”):

“A brilliantly facile spade has turned over rich new earth.” – preface to Hurston’s first novel Jonah’s Gurd Vine.

As Robert Hemenway, author of  Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography, Vine Press 1977  points out Hurst seems incessantly aware of race in her interactions with Hurston.  –  Introduction xliv Imitation of Life by Fannie Hurst and Daniel Itzkovitz

See more in this post

Hurston was a strong supporter of Hurst’s blockbuster best seller Imitation of Life. It’s reported that Hurston, for a time even convinced Langston Hughes to promote the novel. But after Hughes got wind of what African American critics pointed out were the issues with the black maid Delilah’s depiction (original name of the character, which was changed to Annie in the 1959 version). Delilah was an early example of the loyal, saintly black maid trope. In the 1959 remake Delilah was renamed Annie). Anyway, Langston Hughes completely revised his early support, so much so that he wrote a play that was a parody, called “Limitations of Life” with the black and white roles reversed.

Delilah (played by Louise Beavers) begging to stay in Imitation of Life, the 1934 film version, which is based on the novel by Fannie Hurst.

James Baldwin was good friends with award winning author William Styron (Sophie’s Choice). Baldwin encouraged Styron to slip into the frame of mind of his black protagonist, but also warned Styron he’d catch hell for his book The Confessions of Nat Turner.

Cover of the novel “The Confessions Of Nat Turner”

It was no wonder he warned Styron. Because in this highly imagined version of the slave rebellion leader, Nat lusted after white women and hated other blacks, as he was one self conflicted guy.

Examples of some of the Pulitzer prize winning prose Styron wrote for his black character:

“The black people do not sing but stand respectfully in the hot gallery, mouths agape or with sloppy uncomprehending smiles, shuffling their feet. Suddenly they seem to me as meaningless and as stupid as a barn full of mules and I hate them one and all.” (Pg 103)

Styron further assured the book would be mired in controversy with the character voicing inner dialogue like this:

“a few of the crouched men and boys without shirts, picking their noses and scratching, sweat streaming down their black backs in shiny torrents, the lot of them stinking to high heaven. I sit down on a bench near the window in an empty space between Hark and an obese, gross-jowled, chocolate colored slave named Hubbard, owned by the Widow Whitehead, who sports a white man’s cast-off frayed multicolored vest over his flabby naked shoulders, and whose thick lips even now, as he meditates conscientiously upon the sermon from below. . .I can see around me a score of faces popeyed with black nigger credulity, jaws agape, delicious shudders of fright coursing through their bodies as they murmur soft Amens, nervously cracking their knuckles and making silent vows of eternal obedience. . . Ooooh yes! he groans, a fat house nigger, docile as a pet coon.” (Pg 97)

“a negro, in much the same way as a dog, has constantly to interpret the tone of what is being said. If, as certainly possible, the question  was merely drunken-rhetorical, then I could remain humbly and decently mute and scrape away at my rabbit. This (my mind all the while spinning and whirling away like a water mill) was the eventuality I preferred-dumb nigger silence, perhaps a little scratching of the old woolly skull, and an illiterate pink lipped grin, reflecting total incomprehension of so many beautiful Latinisms.”  (Pg 61)

After enough of an outcry from academics, writers and others in the Black community, a big budget movie was shelved.

Ten Black Writers Respond to William Stryon

So when Kathryn Stockett needed to sell her book The Help to the masses,  Spencer popped up on internet sites to counter reviews that weren’t entirely glowing for her friend’s debut novel.

Click image for larger view:

Octavia Spencer speaks up for The Help. This is how the original post looked in February of 2009

Unlike Tarantino, Stockett stuck with the “I can’t hear my own southern accent/dialect that’s why I wrote the book with the white characters hardly having one and the black characters as if they’re on a plantation.” (my sarcasm. This isn’t what the author actually stated).  Here’s what Stockett said in an interview with Katie Couric:

“But I think the African American language is lovely as well”

So what’s a creative black actor or writer to do when your liberal ”friend” really has no clue, and yet you stay by their side, hoping to reap the benefits of their association? In many instances, it seems it’s best to just act like it’s no big thing.

Until it is.

The black actor’s dilemma AKA when good friends behave badly. Or basically, when they do a minstrel imitation of you and your culture to your face. And on TV. And in interviews, ’cause they’ve got it like that. Apparently.

This post is still in development . . .

Honestly, I’d never heard or even seen a comedian by the name of Lisa Lampanelli, until this:

The Tweet Lampanelli may come to regret

Lampanelli is in her fifties, has a show on comedy central, and is called the Queen of Insult comedy by some. Ah well, she may want to ask Andrew “Dice” Clay how long that label kept him on top. Because inevitably, those considered individuals who’ll say anything, wind up saying the wrong thing and then fumbling when trying to explain themselves:

Lampanelli tries to LOL her position

“The N-word ending in ‘er’ is far different context from the word ending in ‘a.’ Ask any person who knows the urban dictionary, it means ‘friend,’” she told the Huffington Post. “And by the way, if I had put the word ending in ‘er,’ that would have been a very derogatory thing about Lena meaning she is less than me, and I view her as very above me. ‘A’ on the end means ‘my friend.’”

She added: “I have been using these words since I started in comedy and guess what, people? I won’t stop anytime soon, just because your ass is up on Twitter. I have always used in my act every racial slur there is for Asians, blacks, gays and Hispanics. To me, it’s acceptable if the joke is funny and if it is said in a context of no hate. It’s about taking the hate out of the word.”

Link: http://www.eonline.com/news/389860/lisa-lampanelli-defends-calling-lena-dunham-the-n-word-mdash-it-means-quot-friend-quot-she-says?utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=imdb_topstories

 Let me repeat part of Lampanelli’s effed up reasoning,  and say her entire statement is pure bull:

“The N-word ending in ‘er’ is far different context from the word ending in ‘a.’ Ask any person who knows the urban dictionary, it means ‘friend . . . “

. . . I have always used in my act every racial slur there is for Asians, blacks, gays and Hispanics. To me, it’s acceptable if the joke is funny and if it is said in a context of no hate. It’s about taking the hate out of the word.”

Taking the “hate” out of the word? Exactly how does someone proudly admitting that “I have always used in my act every racial slur there is for Asians, blacks, gays and Hispanics” somehow claim it’s ”said in a context of no hate.” I note she doesn’t list her own racial group in her run down of who she likes to slur.

That’s why the terms, when done singularly are called a SLUR. They are, and never will be considered terms of endearment by those with a BRAIN. And notice she switched to saying “The N- word” in explaining herself.

If Lampanelli somehow believes she has the power to take the “hate” out of the word(s), then perhaps for her next trick she’ll make herself disappear.

And somewhere, Spike Lee is saying “I told you so” because Spike at least had the sense to see the bigger picture. Encouraging use of the word “nigga” especially by someone white, simply invites whackos who wanted to use it in order to feel “down” or either those who use the word anyway to fall back on the excuse that somehow its appropriate because there are rappers and others who use it. Never mind that there could be African Americans who don’t use the word and take offense. I mean, much like “bitch” is still considered a female dog in the dictionary, there are some women who don’t and never will believe either word is complimentary or an acceptable means of addressing them. Individuals like Lampanelli proceed at their own risk, especially when away from the circle of friends who think she’s some kind of comedic genius. In addition, Lampanelli may not even realize that use of term has already jumped the shark. Much like Fo shizzle is way past its prime, slang marches on. She’s dated herself and proven just how out of touch she really is.

There’s additional controvery over GIRLS writer and creator Lena Dunham being pulled into all of this by not speaking out earlier. But Dunham can’t control Lampanelli’s tweets. Dunham did come out with a response, saying that her silence up until that point did not mean she condoned the use of the word.

Which makes me wonder what would happen if Lampanelli had the nerve to try her theory of  “nigga” vs. “nigger” being considered non derogatory on a real, live person, especially someone not enamored with her act. I’m pretty sure what the Urban Dictionary stated would be irrelevant, as now-a-days many whites and blacks will soundly put this type of ignorance down.

At a time like this, thoughts of what Samuel L. Jackson would have to say run through my head, but only fleeting. The problem is, when the door is opened, a few folks like Lampanelli walk right into the wall.

For those unaware, Jackson defended Quentin Tarantino’s excessive use of the N word in several highly profitable and award winning films like Jackie Brown and Django Unchained. Jackson even tried to get a journalist interviewing him about Django Unchained to say the word, but the reporter wisely refused.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/02/showbiz/celebrity-news-gossip/samel-jackson-n-word-ew

Okay, let me just cut to the chase. Lampanelli is an idiot. A big one. But there’s no law against being a dumbass. However, she illustrates once again, that someone who considers themselves highly “liberal” and also “funny” may want to check themselves. Apparently Lampanelli’s act is all about pushing buttons, and some love her for it. But in this case, I’m pretty sure she knows she stepped in it. And it also shows that age doesn’t bring wisdom. Lampanelli is in her fifties, having finally made it. Her “edge” depends on some of those same twitter followers who consider themselves fans to shrug and say, “Oh, she’s cool. She didn’t mean anything bad by it. That’s how she is.”

But see, Lampanelli’s explanation shows that she’s unable to separate her stage persona from her regular ol’ self. And that, is never a good thing. Being “on” all the time is not only tiresome, but it’s akin to believing your own hype. Her excuse is just as baffling and insulting as her attempt to use both words (Nigga and Beyotch, which is bitch) to make herself relevant. Meh. Sometimes its not worth the effort or aggrevation. Lampanelli, much like Quentin Tarantino, cherry pick the slices of culture to use in order to further their careers, sometimes aligning themselves with a minority “friend” or “friends” who cringe on the inside while pasting a grin on their faces in public.

Since I don’t watch her show (I’m told she’s on Comedy Central, but I usually watch snippets of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report online. Even their shows aren’t regular viewing for me, but some members of my family watch John Stewart and Steven Colbert religiously) I just chalk Lampanelli up as another clueless one. At some point those “following” her will realize she’d neither cutting edge or hilarious. Just someone trying to stay talked about in this age of ever changing gossip and newstories that can be viewed 24/7. But privately, I’m pretty sure her close black “friends” are dismayed that the woman they thought they knew has no real regard for them, no matter how many black men she had sex with (apparently Lampanelli reveals this in her stage act, as if somehow a sex act can make someone more racially tolerant. Guess she forgot about all the actual history of slave masters procreating with their black captives).

But still, Lampanelli joins an ever expanding list, now bulging with examples of “When good liberals go bad”

Cover page for the Screenplay of The Help that Dreamworks touted last year (they’ve since taken it down)

I’d started to make a whole new post on comparing one of original scripts of The Help (from 2009) to the final screenplay that was used for the movie, and also matching them with the novel, so I may move this next item to that new post.

It’s another example of how The Help managed to skirt controversy by linking Minny with chicken, while others who do so are soundly chastised:

“An Upper West Side Whole Foods has removed a sign that used a drawing of President Barack Obama to advertise a sale on chicken after complaints that the ad was offensive.

The sign outside the supermarket on Columbus Avenue and 97th Street featuring an apparent caricature of Obama advertising an upcoming sale on whole organic chicken outraged neighbor Woody Henderson.

“There are certain things that have been used to put down black people — watermelon, fried chicken,” he said.

Jason Nunez of the Bronx said, “Even if he’s not the president, you’re going to have an African American promoting the sale of chicken? They can do better than that.”

Link: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/21/17042978-whole-foods-removes-chicken-ad-featuring-obama?lite

Now, take a look at how the eventual screenwriter for The Help first made his mark in films, with the movie short titled Chicken Party:

Tate Taylor’s Chicken Party, starring Octavia Spencer, Allison Janney and of all things, “fried chicken”

And please take note of what was written for Octavia Spencer by Tate Taylor, her  ”Good friend.” Both Spencer and Taylor admitted rooming together for a number of years, that’s how close of a friendship they had. Yet Taylor had no problem writing stereotypical lines like these, expanding on issues with the character that plagued the novel, but ironically, helped the actress win an Oscar:

Click image for larger view

The Fried Chicken Chronicles AKA Minny’s lines from a copy of The Help script

And Spencer, who’d later claim she wanted the younger generation to know all about this time period, thus she encouraged kids to see the film, saw nothing remotely wrong with saying these lines.

“I want to be proactive in bringing about change and enlightening people. I think the first way is to get as many people to see this film as possible, especially youth. They have no idea about this time period, no idea.” quote by Octavia Spencer

Link: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/31/entertainment/la-ca-the-help-excerpts-20110731

Spencer’s also the one who jumped to Stockett’s defense at a public showing of the film, proclaiming that “It’s your job as parents to teach your children about our history,”  just before Stockett piped up with “I just made this shit up!” See more about that outburst here

Somehow, in Spencer’s zeal to play Mammie, I mean Minny, she forgot (or didn’t care, since she was desperate to play the part) about just how often blacks were linked with fried chicken for mockery:

1950s bigoted advertising, for of all things, blacks and fried chicken. This is just one of the many ways African Americans were used as symbols of mockery

The Birth of a Nation, where a black legislator is eating a piece of fried chicken.

Birth of a Nation movie poster

This GE ad uses the stereotype of blacks and fried chicken, picturing a child. That’s right, not even children were off limits when promoting stereotypical behaviour of African Americans

Now, take a look how Taylor decided to amp up Minny’s coonery over fried chicken with what was written in the book. Minny is the first speaker, and she’s teaching Celia Foote about cooking:

“I reckon if there’s anything you ought a know about cooking, it’s this.”

“That’s just lard, ain’t it?”

“No, it ain’t just lard,” I say. It’s the most important invention in the kitchen since jarred mayonnaise.”

“What’s so special about” – she wrinkles her nose at it – “pig fat?”

“Ain’t pig, it’s vegetable.” Who in this world doesn’t know what Crisco is? “You don’t have a clue of all the things you can do with this here can.”

She shrugs. “Fry?”

“Ain’t just for frying. You ever get a sticky something stuck in your hair, like gum?” I jackhammer my finger on the Crisco can. “That’s right, Crisco. Spread this on a baby’s bottom, you won’t even know what diaper rash is.” I plop three scoops in the black skillet. “Shoot, I seen ladies rub it under their eyes and on they husband’s scaly feet.”

“Look how pretty it is,” she says. “Like white cake frosting.”

“Clean the goo from a price tag, take the squeak out a door hinge.. Lights get cut off, stick a wick in it and burn it like a candle.”

I turn on the flame and wed watch it melt down in the pan. “And after all that, it’ll still fry your chicken.”

“Alright,” she says, concentrating hard. “What’s next?” (Minny and Celia, Pg 44)

The line about “Frying chicken makes you feel better about life. At least me, anyway. Mmm. I loves me some fried chicken” was originally written in the novel as “Frying chicken always makes me feel better about life. I almost forget I’m working for a drunk”

Frying chicken quote from the novel

Listen, if anyone, and I mean anyone wants to claim these characters are should be admired, please refer them to this site. Aibileen was an Uncle Tom and a Mammy, who practically loathed her skin color per several scenes of her inner dialogue in the book:

That night after supper, me and that cockroach stare each other down across the kitchen floor. He big, inch, inch an a half. He black. Blacker than me. Aibileen’s  battle of wills with a cockroach (Pg 189)

How his foot fell asleep and he say it tickle. I told him that was just his foot snoring. And how I told him don’t drink coffee or he gone turn colored. He say he still ain’t drunk a cup of coffee and he twenty-one years  old. It’s always nice to see the kids grown up fine. (Pg 91) Aibileen

Here’s Aibileen practically salivating as she talks about Yule May, a character who’s makes up one third of the closer to white trio featuring Lulabelle and Gretchen:

Yule May easy to recognize from the back cause she got such good hair, smooth, no nap to it. I hear she educated, went through most a college . . .

Aibileen mentions “black like me” when she tells Skeeter about Constantine’s lover and Lulabelle (character renamed Rachel for the film) and while the film decided to change whether Aibileen ever wanted to be more than a domestic, here’s what was in the novel:

“Did you know when you were a girl, growing up, that one day you’d be a maid?”

“Yes ma’am. Yes, I did.”

I smile, wait for her to elucidate. There is nothing.

“And you that…because…?”

“My mama was a maid. My granmama was a house slave.”

“A house slave. Uh huh,” I say, but she only nods. Her hands stay folded in her lap.

She’s watchin the words I’m writing on the page.

“Did you… ever have dreams of being something else?”

“No” she says. “No ma’am, I didn’t.” It’s so quiet, I can hear both of us breathing.  Skeeter interviewing Aibileen in the novel, Pg 144

Aibileen and Mae Mobley

And Viola Davis admitted she was playing a Mammy in several published interviews (items in bold are my doing):

“Of course I had trepidations. Why do I have to play the mammy? But what do you do as an actor if one  of the most multi-faceted and rich roles you’ve ever been given is a maid in 1962 Mississippi? Do you not  take the role because you feel in some ways it’s not a good message to send to Black people?”  – Viola Davis, in a quote from Essence Magazine

“I’m playing a maid, a black actress playing a maid in 2011 in Hollywood, is a lot of pressure. You don’t play a maid. That is something you don’t do. When you play a maid where a white woman has written a story and a white man is directing it, so there is no way that it’s gonna be. . . I’m essentially playing a Mammy. So I felt a lot of pressure. Absolutely. And then and of course pressure from the readers who all wanted Oprah to play the role. And saw her as being seventy years old and about two hundred and fifty pounds or you know, yeah, I felt a lot of pressure. But it’s like Tate says, if you work from that point of pressure and fear, your work is gonna crack. At some point you just have to leave it alone. And know that we have our own standard of excellence . . .”

Link: Atlanta Mom’s on The Move http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shc0mdT-0Cc

But not Spencer. She was shrewd enough not to say anything negative, or that would diminish her chance at not only landing the part, but there’s published articles where Spencer claims one thing about the novel when it can be shown that scenes and dialogue read as insensitive and insulting to the black culture.

In other words, there’s a trail that shows Spencer was more than willing to sell her soul to get the part. For a bit more information, see this post.

The character of Minny was created as yet another stereotype which was just fine with Octavia Spencer, since she wanted the role more than anything. Well, she got it and an Academy Award. But unlike Hattie McDaniel, Spencer was “good friends” with the very people who wrote it. Hattie didn’t have the power to speak up. But Spencer did. She could have told both Stockett and Taylor where their writing veered into insulting caricature.

So the question is, WHY DIDN’T SHE?

For information on where the book went off track, see these additional posts:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/ten-issues-that-tarnish-the-help/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/the-help-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/mammy-must-die/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/u-just-might-be-a-mammy-if/

To be continued .  .  .

Well, at some point I’m gonna need a binder full of so-called  “liberals” effin’ up.

For those who don’t know, this young lady was an Academy Award nominee for Best Actress. Her name is Quvenzhané Wallis:

Quvenzhané Wallis, my hero

The screen grab below has to do with Quvenzhané, and its from the website Jezebel.com

Actual comments

Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, someone also watching and tweeting for The Onion decided this would be a cool thing to say:

The tweet that The Onion will always regret

Please pay attention to the number of “Favorites” on the tweet. There’s no telling what the final count was before the tweet was deleted more than an hour later, and that was only because the internet was in an uproar over this most inappropriate statement.

I think at a time like this, it’s important to take a look at the definition of the the word “Cunt”

Merridian Dictionary definition of the word “cunt”

How in the world could someone think saying this was “satire” or “cutting edge” or basically something to tweet about and also click as a “favorite”?

Note the first part of the tweet. And understand, this could have originated with a single individual, whether male or female, or a group think. But to somehow think that “everyone else seems afraid to say it” is bullshit.

Someone at The Onion was chomping at the bit to say it, and he or she or they did. Only, I wonder how eager or “brave” they’d be if their little sister or young female cousin got labeled with an offensive, sexual, downright filthy slang word for a part for the female anatomy that America usually arrests mofo’s for checking out on on the internet (child porn, because let’s face it, Wallis is a child).

And yeah, I know The Onion issued an apology a day later. That seems to be the go-to move these days. But what exactly is the moral of this story, when it shouldn’t have happened in the first place? Sure, the Onion now claims it will put in a number of safeguards so that this doesn’t happen again.

Somehow I don’t have the utmost confidence in them, but the truth is, I didn’t bother with the site and I don’t follow them on twitter. So I’ll have to think up something else to make my anger known at this. I believe there’s a petition, and while I don’t want to see anyone fired, I think a personal apology from the individual or individuals who originated the offending tweet would be in order.

But first, if the person who dreamed this stunt up didn’t care for the way Wallis was behaving, okay. . . but I have to ask, THEN WHY COME AT HER LIKE THAT?

Which is what a number of bloggers on the internet are asking, like writer nkjeminsin:

“And what terrible things did Ms. Wallis do to invite this kind of vitriol?  Oh, just stuff like this:

Just be herself:  talented, happy, pretty, and proud of her achievement.  She didn’t misbehave, she didn’t snark at anyone the way winner Jennifer Lawrence did (and Lawrence was awesome for doing so, but it’s interesting how white girls can get away with being confident more easily than black girls. Isn’t it?).  Ms. Wallis committed the crime of being confident while black and female.  Hey, it happens to all of us, often starting around puberty; I guess Hollywood just decided to start the shaming and systematic tearing-down early.”

Link: http://nkjemisin.com/2013/02/fantasy-fans-wheres-your-outrage/

And writer/blogger Ann Somerville:

“Children are powerless. They are frequently abused, murdered, raped, exploited, harmed, and treated as possessions. Even Miss Wallis, proud possessor of an Oscar nomination, could theoretically go home and be beaten by her parents with relative impunity. As a black child, she is many more times at risk of abuse and violent death, not to mention the debilitating racism, than white children who are also far from safe in too many homes.

Making a sexualised joke about her is not funny. Calling her a cunt is not funny. The Onion deleted the tweet and have apologised, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask why they ever thought it was okay to make that joke in the first place.

And it doesn’t mean I won’t roll my eyes about the white adult guys who decide all for themselves, that outrage over the tenor of the Oscars (which I didn’t watch) or the Onion’s tweet (which I did see in real time) is ‘ridiculous’. The outrage isn’t about whether Miss Wallis or her family read the tweet. It’s about the mentality that makes a black little girl apparently safe fodder for a repulsive comment. It’s about why someone at the Onion didn’t stop and go, ‘wait, she’s a little girl‘. It’s about the fact that the Oscars ceremony was full of off-colour jokes at women’s expense, and not even the pre-pubescent state of one target could save her from that kind of ‘humour’.”

Link: http://logophilos.net/blog/index.php/2013/02/i-was-just-joking/

Spot. On.

This post is from Ann Somerville’s blog, and I hope she doesn’t mind me taking a huge chunk of what she’s written, but it’s effin’ brilliant and there’s no way I could have said it better. The same can be said for Jemisin’s opinion on this . . . I can only add, there’s a bunch of people acting as if they have no idea what the issue is. Some are even saying that The Onion apologized, so no harm, no foul.

I even read one comment on another site where someone tried to claim that Wallis must have done something to deserve it.

But see, there’s something about all this that makes me think of all the excuses used when a woman or girl is attacked and sexually assaulted. And what’s sad, is that if children aren’t off limits from this type of “satire” then just what are standards for?

We’ve got brave men and women, of different races, ethnicities and sexual orientations still fighting in Afghanistan. One of the reasons given for the US still being there, is to help “liberate” the women who are oppressed from the terrorists using the Quran to hold them down. That’s all well and good, but if in our homeland, in order to be edgy, jokes at the expense of sexualizing not just a nine year old girl, but at the expense of the female anatomy (I’m talking about Seth MacFarlane at the Oscars) is what’s passing as “entertainment”  then Houston, we’ve got a problem.

What someone at the Onion tweeted wasn’t satire. And it certainly wasn’t funny.

Like the Lisa Lampanelli tweet controversy, this whole situation is just sad . . .

Dear Readers,

On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude and offensive—not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting.

No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire.

The tweet was taken down within an hour of publication. We have instituted new and tighter Twitter procedures to ensure that this kind of mistake does not occur again.

In addition, we are taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible.

Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry.

Sincerely,

Steve Hannah CEO The Onion

Link: http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-onion-apologizes,31434/

UPDATE ***** UPDATE**** UPDATE****

Ay, Mr Hannah, you know where you can start? Get some DIVERSITY in your company. And I’m not talking about a TOKEN who’ll just nod and go along because he or she is scared they’ll lose their job. On second thought, forget it. Because to hire someone of color now that the website is taking heat would just be TOO LITTLE AND TOO DAMN LATE:

Harry Smith is with The Onion Editorial crew as they discuss content prior to the Oscar Broadcast. This was shown on Rock Center March 1, 2013

I want to make it clear that I’m NOT SAYING these individuals are the ones who thought up the offensive tweet, and that’s why I’ve concealed their faces. I doubt if we’ll ever know who the culprit was, or if there was more than one person involved. But on first glance, I couldn’t help but wonder where the diversity is in this “liberal” organization? EPIC FAIL Onion. I spotted two women and the rest are men, who appear to be of the same racial group. Are y’all kidding me?

To be continued . . .

After The Onion and Lisa Lampanelli’s   tweets, which simply provided more examples of  “When good Liberal go Bad,” now’s the time to switch gears (thus lowering my blood pressure) and get back to the point of this blog. I’d gone over just about everything in the novel of The Help, and though I haven’t seen the film (and don’t plan to) I did have two screenplays that were uploaded to the internet.One was courtesy of Dreamworks, when they were promoting the film for the Oscars. Strangely enough, it’s been taken down, so I’m glad I saved it.

The first script I read appears to be a very early second draft and I’ve posted a screen grab of the cover page below. I can’t vouch for the authenticity, but I’d think if it wasn’t the real thing, Tate Taylor would have come out and said so long ago. After all, it’s dated from 2009.

Click image for larger view:

Second draft of The Help Screenplay, dated November 9, 2009

This version pretty much follows the novel. Except in a few instances, like how the film was originally set to end. Here are the final scenes that didn’t make it into the movie. Please pay attention to the items I’ve highlighted in yellow:

Click image for a larger view

Deleted scene from The Help (early screenplay dated November 9, 2009)

Right after the above two scenes end, here’s the final scene that was oh so wisely deleted in the final script edit:

Deleted “Mammy” Aibileen scene from an early draft of The Help

“ALL MY BABIES” . . .  BWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh, sorry. It’s just so darn Mammyfied I couldn’t “help” myself. ‘Cause ya know Aibileen wasn’t talking about any black kid, with the possible exception of Treelore (but that’s a whole ‘nother story). No, ALL MY BABIES was Aibileen’s labor of love, an ode to all the children she’d raised.

And if this truly is an early script, then it shows that at the time, Tate Taylor still had no clue that he and Kathryn Stockett’s characters were stereotypes. BIG ONES.

This next scene wasn’t deleted but edited, and the screen grab below it (final Dreamworks script) shows the minor  re-write:

Scene from an early screenplay of The Help describing Aibileen

“Her dark black skin contrasts angelically with a brilliant white work dress, white panty hose and shoes”

“Aibileen lifts Mae Mobley out of her crib and pulls her into her expansive bosom”

Oh Dear. Aibileen’s description almost fits this one to a T:

Mammy 2.0 Image from Ferris State Museum of Jim Crow Memorabilia

Now, here’s that screen grab from Dreamworks final script. Notice what was left out:

Scenes from Dreamsworks script of The Help

If you said “Aibileen lifts Mae Mobley out of her crib and pulls her into her expansive bosom.” You’re a winner!!!

To be continued . . .

I’m watching the arraignment of Ariel Castro, and I’m struck by how contrite and cowardly he appears. His eyes are downcast, he’s using a collar to hide part of his face, his shoulders are slumped. However, I’m not taking this as a sign that he’s remorseful. But looking at how he now comes across, I’m sure to the young women Castro kidnapped (two who were teens and one other who was twenty when abducted), he was a much larger, fearsome assailant (plus he was ten years younger, thus stronger). It’s possible there are many sides to this man, and the one being seen in court is the same Ariel Castro the kidnapped victims saw. Someone who didn’t appear as if he would be capable of physical and mental torture. But that’s just part of what he’s changed with.

My prayers go out to the ladies who’ve now been freed, and the youngest, a six year old child.

There’s also something else that emerged from this sad case. Someone who assisted the very courageous Amanda Berry.

That of Charles Ramsey and his persona.

Charles Ramsey. Just an average citizen who didn’t walk away, but chose to help. Photo from abcnews.com

I’ve known many men like Ramsey. I’m not solely talking about his decision to help when far too many would have just kept on walking. But men who pepper their blunt sentences with profanity, who are animated when they speak, and just come across as seriously raw and real, because that’s who they are.

So it’s not a shock to me that Ramsey has a criminal past:

Cleveland ‘hero’ and Internet celeb  Charles Ramsey says criminal past made him a better man

The 43-year-old  dishwasher has been lauded for his heroic efforts after helping three women and  a young girl escape captivity from his neighbor’s house. But Ramsey was arrested  at least three times for domestic violence from 1997 to 2003.

“Those incidents helped me become the man I am today and are the reason why I  try to help the community as much as I can … including those women,” the  43-year-old told TMZ.

The gutsy dishwasher — who’s  become an Internet sensation thanks to his animated interviews — was  convicted of domestic violence three times from 1997 to 2003, according to an  arrest report obtained by The Smoking Gun. The assaults were related to  his then-wife Rochelle, who told the website that he also failed to pay child  support for their now-15-year-old daughter.

Link to full article: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/cleveland-hero-charles-ramsey-criminal-report-article-1.1339043

While Ramsey’s fifteen minutes of fame may be up due to these new revelations, far too many others who become media darlings are able to escape prying eyes and end up smelling like roses, while folks like Charles get investigated left and right, possibly because of their socio-economic status or because of their race, and even their religion.

In truth a few of my male relatives who behave like Ramsey does, share a similar history and also look.  When I saw Ramsey’s interviews he put me in mind of them. Receding hairline hidden by a cap, the missing teeth, the widened eyes when emphasizing a point, opinions that make you nod in agreement at their directness, and also make you laugh at the way they uniquely put things.  But they also have a dark side.

And you know what else?

The irony is, these are some of the same men who won’t hesitate to spring into action and throw themselves into the fray, without regard to their own safety. This duality has always fascinated me. They were and are far from perfect, but also operate by a code that kicks in unregulated at times, and generally explain it simply as it’s what a man should do.

I’m been a recipient of them stepping in to set another male straight who either came out of their mouth wrong (when I was younger, whenever a guy didn’t like it if I showed no interest and didn’t want to take no for an answer) or decided I needed to be protected when I was foolish enough to either walk home late, or was somewhere I had no place being. Most times it would seem as though I should have been afraid of them. But even with a criminal past, for whatever reason, these men decided I was a lamb among wolves, and they made a decision to keep the wolves at bay.

And for that I’ll always be forever grateful.  Let me also repeat, they were far from perfect, and will be the first ones to tell you so. Many were felons. Many had violence in their past. But if I were ever in a situation, I knew they’d have my back. What you saw was what you got. Unfiltered, profane, “let me break it down for you” discussions.

So what I’m also saying is this, since this site is called A Critical Review of The Help. When I read the novel The Help, I realized Kathryn Stockett, Octavia Spencer and Tate Taylor (because if you’ve read the articles on this site, you’ll see that Kathryn Stockett alluded to their help during the novel’s creation phase) had no clue regarding the many layers a black man can have. Or for that matter, a black woman. And that’s probably why her characters were simply caricatures to me.

The saintly, docile maid. The wise cracking, sassy, large in girth maid. Both these caricatures were on display in the help, respectively named Aibileen and Minny.

Mammy 2.0 Image from Ferris State Museum of Jim Crow Memorabilia

And the men they’re paired with, the violent, stupid as hell Leroy, who was paired with Minny. The philandering, absentee ex-spouse Clyde, who was paired with Aibileen. I might was well throw in Connor, who again was painted in a negative light, who was paired with Constantine. Connor, who Stockett decided should leave Constantine simply because their daughter came out with hair “the color of hay” per Aibileen, and was light enough to pass for white in the novel.

These are men who were unredeemable in the novel, broadly written as villains during segregation as well as the primary irritants for Stockett’s trio of caricatured maids. Unlike the white males in the book who practiced segregation, but were rehabbed so that Southern but primarily white readers  wouldn’t be offended.

In June I’m going to repost On Father’s Day, there’s no black father figure in The Help

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/on-fathers-day-no-black-father-figure-in-the-help/

Because anyone who claims The Help somehow captures the black maids culture and life as “authentic” will always get a debate from me. A point of disagreement concerns how the author decided the males in her own culture should be either “handsome”and “a good man” (attributes Skeeter gives to Stuart Whitworth. The good man label is stated when Stuart takes back his engagement ring) or “honest” (Skeeter says this about her dad when she questions him about Constantine’s dismissal) while deciding to downgrade black males linked with the primary maids by painting them in a highly negative light, even though these men suffered equally alongside black females during segregation. I knew then that Stockett and her publisher, and all those designating the novel as “beloved” and somehow wanting it to become a classic, had no clue.

IMO all Kathryn Stockett’s novel and subsequent dramedy of a film did was reinforce stereotypes that African Americans have challenged since these offensive images were created and ingrained as “beloved” by those who can’t seem to part with them.

Mammy and Minny, together at last. This image is from racismstillexisttumblr.com

So when Charles Ramsey made this statement:

“I knew somethin’ was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Somethin’ is WRONG here. Dead giveaway! Deaaaddddd giveaway. Deaaaaadddddddddddddd giveaway. She’s got problems. That’s the only reason she’s running to a black man!”

Link: http://deadspin.com/all-the-best-quotes-from-the-american-hero-who-rescued-493599102

I knew what he meant.

Far too often, black males are painted as either good or bad, with no middle or gray area. There’s a history of how the color white means purity, goodness and screams HERO. The color black, as per historical meanings, was designated as evil, bad, the opposite of white or goodness. These meanings are still present in modern dictionaries.

And God forbid if a black male has made a mistake. Even now there are calls for Michael Vick and Chris Brown’s heads, even though both of whom have paid their debt to society as American law deems, yet both are vilified to the point of no redemption.

Trayvon Martin, though a seventeen year old youth carrying bottled iced tea and Skittles has been wrongly painted by some as a thug, and had another young man’s Facebook pic attributed to him (the image of a male throwing up gang symbols, which an internet site had to take down and apologize for later on, since the picture in question wasn’t Martin)

Twitchy media issues apology to Martin family for this erroneous photo. They’d initially claimed it was Trayvon.
Red and black wording is mine

Even President Obama has been stereotyped, Photoshopped with fried chicken and watermelon, just a small sample of the myriad of uncalled for caricatures which reference his race (I won’t post some of the more offensive ones).

Altered Obama poster. More about this image can be found here:
http://jimcrowmuseum.blogspot.com/2012/07/does-image-of-obama-with-rope-around.html

The above image evokes the real tragedies during segregation, which included lynchings of African Americans:

A lynching in Marion, Indiana 1930. The ultimate price black men paid during segregation

The Lynching of Laura Nelson

Back in the day, I recall terms like “Good Negro” would be applied to any black male who acted as if they knew their place. Their place being one of servitude, to grovel and grin whenever appropriate, and to act slow of mind, in essence, to become that living, breathing caricature that had been created for them. Many times black men extended their lifespan by behaving like this:

Hires ad, “Yassuh . . .” Black males were also required to grovel and give service with a smile

Stepin Fetchit’s greatest role. The cowering, confused black man. His parts made him a very wealthy man.

These were images that real black males were expected to emulate:

Booker Wright from the documentary Mississippi: A Self Portrait

“The meaner the man be the more you smile although you cryin’ on the inside . . . ”

                                  -Booker Wright, from the documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait

More on Booker Wright’s harrowing account of surviving in 1965 Mississippi can be found in this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/finding-bookers-place-amon-the-green-book/

Against this image, men like Martin Luther King Jr., Booker Wright and possibly, with histories and lifestyles like Charles Ramsey rebelled:

I AM A MAN. The march meant to have America recognize that fact. Note the lone brave white male willing to march among black men.

I’m pretty sure some of those who marched for freedom during segregation had brushes with the law prior to their involvement in the civil rights movement, and that the contributions of black females who fought for equality weren’t given the appreciation or accolades as they should have during this oppressive time period.

But that also shows there’s still much to be learned about just how varied African Americans were during the fight for civil rights. We’ve only scratched the surface.

And I get why the media decided to dig up information on Charles Ramsey. Inquiring minds want to know.

But why, at the time, were some of those same inquiring minds silent on the errors in The Help?

Why wasn’t the Medgar Evers error in the book, which the author repeated three times in three audio interviews not newsworthy?

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/medgar-evers-error-in-the-help/

And why were Abilene Cooper’s assertions of Stockett using parts of her life to peddle her novel, not taken seriously by the US Media? At least a UK magazine had the decency to interview Cooper, who was also Kathryn Stockett’s brother’s maid.

The real deal Aibileen, a distraught Ableen Cooper after her lawsuit tossed out, not on the merits of the case, but because the statute of limitations had run out.

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/abilene-coopers-tale-continues/

This is the type of duality that exists, either ignoring or crushing some voices, while propping up others who most closely fit the romanticized American idea.

Stockett on CBS. Picture of the real life maid Demetrie is in the background

No pressing interviews (Katie’s Couric’s piece of fluff interview with Stockett was a joke. It didn’t even seem as though this was the same journalist who’d grilled Sarah Palin a few years prior to Stockett’s interview), no follow up on published interviews Stockett did which reveal inconsistencies.

And no answer to why all three maids are separated from a significant other at both the novel’s end and the movie. None were widowed, and the movie actually makes no mention of Aibileen having a spouse, even though her son and his death are mentioned.

No questions were asked, and even when some reviewers knew something was amiss, it was pooh-poohed with excuses like “it’s the message that counts.”

But hard hitting questions would have revealed a less than idyllic reason why the novel came to be.

Which would have then led to more questions on the conflicting statements of an early pact or ”agreement” between Stockett, Taylor and Spencer. And more scrutiny regarding whether the novel was as positive a portrayal of African Americans as first thought, and why Spencer went along so willingly, since she was key to selling the premise on the initial book tour.

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/the-help-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/ten-issues-that-tarnish-the-help/

I guess since there was money to be made, no one wanted to spoil the glow of a “feel good” read and ultra polished backstory.

I’m not done with this post, and I’ve got newer posts to put up.

To be continued . . .

Once again there’s a debate raging on the web. This time it concerns a Cheerios commercial which shows an interracial couple and their biracial child:

Cheerios commercial, featuring interracial couple and biracial child

Here’s the commercial and its YouTube link:

Link:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYofm5d5Xdw

Comments have been disabled, and according to the posts on Cheerios Facebook page, there are a few people upset with the cereal brand for portraying a black husband and white wife (even though the husband isn’t seen in a single frame with his wife, and is only shown at the end of the commercial):

Cheerios commercial with an interracial couple

If the man playing the father looks familiar, it’s because he’s Charles Malik Whitfield, an actor who played Otis Williams of the legendary singing group The Temptations, in the popular mini-series of the same name.

According to an article in the Huffington Post, “Commenters on the cereal’s Facebook page also said they found the commercial “disgusting” and that it made them “want to vomit.” Other hateful commenters expressed shock that a black father would stay with his family.”

Link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/cheerios-commercial-racist-backlash_n_3363507.html

It’s not a shock to me that some people expressed racist ideology. Thankfully, others who don’t feel that way have come out to defend the commercial and see nothing wrong with a black man being paired with a white female. But in 2013, why would this still be an issue?

There are a number of reasons why this type of mindset is still around. For one, we will never truly eradicate racism. But what’s also important, is that far too many non-minorities (and also some minorities) wrongly believe if we just forget about the past, namely segregation, then all wounds will heal and there will be no more racism.

Altered Obama poster. More about this image can be found here:
http://jimcrowmuseum.blogspot.com/2012/07/does-image-of-obama-with-rope-around.html

Chair with Obama sign hanging from a tree, a play off Clint Eastwood’s empty chair at the 2012 Republican Convention, and lynching photos during segregation.

No one dares tell those who’ve experienced the Holocaust not to still grieve or hold memorials, or that they should just move on. And, on a personal note, had I not been aware of statements from the past and the ideology that spawned numerous misconceptions about my culture, I probably would have been just as unaware of how insulting several passages in the best selling novel The Help were, and how the book helps not only to contribute, but also continues painting black males in a negative light.

The scene was set when Minny Jackson makes this totally uncalled for statement about “plenty of black men”:

Plenty of black men leave their families behind like trash in a dump, but that’s not something the colored woman do. We’re got the kids to think about. (Minny, Page 311)

Uh, no, this is how far too many black men ended up leaving their families during the period the book deals with:

The Lynching of Rubin Stacy in Florida. This was “entertainment” for some bigots. Note the little girl, little boy and woman who don’t appear shocked or appalled.

I AM A MAN. The march meant to have America recognize that fact. Note the lone brave white male willing to march among black men.

And when black males marched in order to protest their treatment and silently demanded that they be afforded the title of “men” and not “boy” here’s how some in America responded:

The dogs of war released on American citizens during segregation

The Dogs of War unleashed upon a young black male

For more on the treatment of black males in literature and in America, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/fear-and-loathing-for-the-black-male-in-america/

Unfortunately, no major reviewer caught the ugliness woven throughout The Help novel, as black males became the primary whipping boys in order to give segregation and how black maids were treated a “humorous” touch.

In addition, the  book’s message of “we love them and they love us” which is yet another antebellum inspired myth that was taken as fact in the novel and film, was wrongly resurrected. Note what Stockett learned during her “research” of this theory:

D.N.: When you interviewed people for the book, was there anything that stood out?

K.S.: What stood out was the emotion that white people had about the connection to their black maids. When I spoke to black people it was surprising to see how removed they were emotionally from those they worked for.

That was not always the case, but it was one of the dynamics that struck me. Sometimes it was a total disregard. It was just a job.

Link: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/feb/11/q-help-author-work-book-no-2/

For more on the history of the antebellum myth of black workers loving those who oppressed them, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/they-love-us-sez-who/

So when the Cheerios commercial is both lauded and condemned, look no further than some of the literary works that far too many celebrate as “authentic” depictions of a culture already seriously maligned and mocked in not just American, but also world history.

Al Jolson, a beloved American entertainer in blackface singing about his “Mammy”

“Beloved” novel Little Black Sambo

“Beloved” English children’s novel The Three Golliwogs

Dancing, wise cracking crows from Disney’s classic animated feature Dumbo. There’s one even named Jim Crow

Sunflower, the stereotypical centaurette from Disney’s Fantasia. Kindra from The Help is another stereotypical depiction of a black child

Uncle Remus from Disney’s “Song of the South”

The faceless black workers called the “Roustabouts” in the Disney animated classic DUMBO, who call themselves “hairy apes” in their signature song from the film.

While most of the males who practice segregation in The Help are described with terms like “handsome” and “a good man” (Stuart Whitworth, who is briefly engaged  to Skeeter, but takes back his ring once he finds out she’s behind the book “Help”). And “honest” (Skeeter says this about her father, after he tells her what little he knows about Constantine’s dismissal). And even Stuart’s father, a man who the novel has standing shoulder to shoulder with real life avowed segregationist Governor Ross Barnett, in order to block James Meredith’s entry into Ole Miss.

Here’s now the non-minority men of The Help were marketed overseas:

“A Handsome Good Ole Boy” You’ve got to be kidding

That “Southern Gentleman” and “Dreamboat” Johnny Foote

Stuart claims that his father, Senator Stoolie Whitworth  is simply doing the will of his constituents, and his real feelings on integration cannot be revealed.

Even Constantine’s father is given a pass, as she tells Skeeter how much he loved her and even cried over her circumstances, though she and her biracial siblings lived in poverty.

In The Help, the black males paired with the saintly and sassy maids are labeled with terms like “fool” (Aibileen and Minny state this about Leroy: So when she call, Leroy gone give her Miss Walter number cause he a fool-Aibileen, Pg 26). “No good” (Minny states this about her father: my no-good drunk daddy, Pg 38))  or described as absentee fathers (Clyde leaves Aibileen to raise Treelore alone, and Connor leaves Constantine, forcing her to raise their daughter, the angry mulatto stereotype Lulabelle, who was renamed Rachel and had a complexion change in the film)

And then there’s Leroy, a useless character who epitomizes the black brute stereotype that was common in older books. Leroy terrorizes not only his wife, but his children. Here’s how Leroy explains why he hits Minny: 

“If I didn’t hit you Minny, who knows what you become.” (Pg 413)

If you’re a regular reader of this site, then you’ll know that I mentioned when I’d first read The Help, that while it put African American females on a fake pedestal, the novel made the mistake of painting the black male in several negative terms that were prevalent during segregation.

It’s this mindset that’s been handed down from generation to generation, until far too many Americans seem to believe the worst about many black males.

As I read The Help, the book appeared to suggest  the real problem with segregation wasn’t the people who practiced it, but that the maids had unwisely chosen the wrong men to either marry or bed. For example, the primary maid Aibileen is content to live as an asexual hermit who dotes on the white children she looks after, yet admonishes her son to call his estranged father “Crisco” in this scene from the book:

We start calling his daddy Crisco cause you can’t fancy up a man done run off on his family. (Aibileen, Pg 5)

In addition, there’s a very nasty scenario I call the Cocoa, Cootchie, Clyde debacle, where Aibileen believes she’s given the woman Clyde’s run off with a venereal disease via prayer.

From the novel (please pay attention to the items I’ve put in bold):

And look a there who else I done put on the list. Bertina Bessemer a all people! Everybody know Bertrina and me don’t take to each other ever since she call me a nigga fool for marrying Clyde  umpteen years ago.

“Minny, I say last Sunday, “why Bertrina ask me to pray for her?”

We walking home from the one o’clock service. Minny say, “Rumor is you got some kind a power prayer, gets better results than just the regular variety. “

“Say what?”

“Eudora Green, when she broke her hip, went on your list, up walking in a week. Isaiah feel off the cotton truck, on your prayer list that night, back to work the next day.”

Hearing this made me think about how I didn’t even get the chance to pray for Treelore. Maybe that’s why God took him so fast. He didn’t want a have to argue with me.

“Snuff Washington,” Minny say, “Lolly Jackson- heck, Lolly go on your list and two days later she pop up from her wheelchair like she touched Jesus,. Everybody in Hinds County know about that one.”

“But that ain’t me,” I say. “That’s just prayer.”

“But Bertrina,” Minny get to laughing, say, You know Cocoa, the one Clyde ran off with?”

“Phhh. You know I never forget her.”

“Week after Clyde left you, I heard that Cocoa wake up with her cootchie spoilt like a rotten oyster. Didn’t get better for three months. Bertrina, she good friends with Cocoa. She know your prayer works.”

My mouth drop open. Why she never tell me this before? “You saying people think I got the black magic?”

“I knew it worry you if I told you. They just think you got a better connection than most. We all on a party line to God, but you, you setting right in his ear.”

Excerpt from The Help, Pg 23-24

There are so many offenses in this brief passage, I don’t know how it made it into the final copy of the book. Yet it was published. And many readers failed to note several things:

1) Minny claims Cocoa was afflicted a week after Clyde left Aibileen. So all three, Aibileen, Clyde and Cocoa were possibly infected with a venereal disease.

2) Aibileen mixes religion with “black magic” wondering, “You saying people think I got the black magic?” During segregation, and even today, no matter what religion those of African heritage profess to be, some uninformed hardcore racists will still allude to blacks as practicing voodoo or black magic. How an editor didn’t spot this affront is anyone’s guess.

3) Minny and Aibileen are supposed to be devout Christians. Yet in the novel, which was altered for the movie, they simply gossip about others in their congregation like a couple of mean girls. In addition, a devout Christian would know that black magic, or magic of any kind would have no place in biblical teachings. Thus Aibileen and Minny are simply stereotypes. Aibileen is the docile, blindly loyal maid and Minny is the sassy, quick with quip, back talking maid, two caricatures of black women which had a huge heyday in films and television during segregation, images which remain and are challenged to this day.

Claiming blacks were afflicted with “diseases” particularly venereal diseases came from bigoted ideology. Here’s a scan from a Jackson MS newspaper, circa 1963. Note what the woman who’s opposed to integration states:

Clarion-Ledger quotes from real housewives of Jackson, 1963

And this next scan is from a non-fiction book which highlights the work done by the WIMS, a diverse group of volunteers who worked to dispel gossip that all blacks carried venereal disease during the civil rights movement, among other erroneous myths:

wims-wednesdays-in-mississippi, residents talk about blacks having venereal diseases and that northern agitators are communists

WIMS stands for Wednesdays in Mississippi. This organization sought the participation of upper class women of both races during the early 60s. The book is called Mississippi Women: Their Histories , Their Lives by Elizabeth Anne Payne, Martha H. Swan, Marjorie Julian Spruill and Brenda M Eagles. The publisher is University of Georgia Press

Link: http://books.google.com/books?id=4ZkA3kEB7m0C&q=WIMS#v=onepage&q=Mass-media%20outlets%20in%20Mississippi&f=false

Kathryn Stockett, and even Oscar winner Octavia Spencer felt so comfortable with this scene that they performed it on the road while promoting the novel.  Stockett begins reading as Minny at about 7:51 minutes into the program. As she reads the “prayer/spoilt cootchie” scene, Clyde, Aibileen’s husband is re-named “Plunk” which is the nickname of the husband of Stockett’s real life childhood maid, Mrs. Demetrie McLorn:

Spoilt cootchie starts at 7:51 minutes into the clip.

Read more in this post: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/stockett-voices-minny/

The spoilt cootchie reading, where Stockett voices Minny and Octavia Spencer does her best “What you talkin’ ’bout Willis?”
expression.

In case there’s any question just why Spencer didn’t object to the tone and insulting dialogue, or why the vagina of a black woman and her venereal disease aka cootchie spoilt as a rotten oyster is mentioned but not a word on any cootchie of Skeeter’s gal pals, it’s important to note that Kathryn Stockett revealed in an audio interview (Audible.com December 2009) that she had an agreement with Octavia Spencer early on:

Dapito: And is there a movie version coming out of The Help? Did I hear that right?

Stockett: The movie rights have been sold to a fellow Mississippian Tate Taylor (inaudible) Green and I’m just so lucky that the book is in the hands of people, not only Mississippians but friends of mine from Jackson. They’re two filmmakers based in Los Angeles.

Dapito: Oh I can’t wait. Do you think they will cast Octavia and some of the other narrators?

Stockett: I think Octavia will be the part of Minny because ah . . (pause and laughter) you know, that was just the agreement. It wasn’t that hard of, it you know, there was no pulling hair on that one. She’s such a natural.”

Link: An Interview with Kathryn Stockett, Author of ‘The Help’ Narrated by Diana Dapito

There’s another earlier interview where Stockett admits actually begging on Spencer’s behalf, so that the actress could voice the part of Minny in the audio version of the book:

“It’s amazing,” she says, with special compliments to Octavia Spencer, the actress who voices the sections by Minny, a stubborn maid whose mouth gets her in trouble.

“Octavia is feisty,” Stockett says of her friend. “I begged them to give that role to Octavia and … it’s amazing.”

Spencer, an actress from Montgomery, Ala., and now in Los Angeles, says she has read the book three times and listened to it twice.

“I love this book. If I weren’t friends with Kathryn, I would still love this book.”

Read the entire interview here:

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/may/22/voices_past_remembered_new_book83144/

On Stockett’s behalf, Spencer jumps in to defend the author when the film premiered at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Philly, 2011. To read what happened at that event, see this post

Part of the PR hype on the book was that as a native of Jackson, MS, Kathryn Stockett had the family pedigree and had done her research. Unfortunately, Stockett made a whopper of an error that ended up on three known audio interviews, where she claimed Medgar Evers had been “bludgeoned” to death. In one of the interviews she even claims he was bludgeoned in front of his children. So, how could the same author who wrote about Evers being shot in her own novel completely forget this civil rights icon’s assassination by gunfire?

More on the Medgar Evers error that made its way into the novel can be found here.

Even though Octavia Spencer publicly admitted she’d read the manuscript before it was published, the actress had no qualms about sections in the book which directly insult her own culture. There’s an omnipresent narrator operating in the story, telling the reader who’s good and who’s bad, and even some characters like Hilly are given a “twist” as per the author’s own published revelation.  Yet when it came to the black males paired with the maids, no such redemption or twist is afforded them:

Interview with Celia Blue Johnson & Maria Gagliano for Slice Magazine

“Sometimes you can see the cracks in the surface with Hilly. That’s why I threw in that cold sore. You can really tell that all the stress is getting to her.”

“It’s fun trying to make characters not too flat, meaning not all good or all bad. But it’s a challenge, too. With Hilly Holbrook, who is considered my villain, the best I could do for her in terms of giving her a good side is show that she really cares for her children and that she’s a great leader.”

Link: http://www.slicemagazine.org/an-interview-with-kathryn-stockett.html

It’s almost important to note that Spencer popped up on blogs around the internet defending the novel. What’s not known is whether her participation in doing so was part of her “agreement” in order to secure the part of Minny in the film. The screen grab below is from the site The California Literary Review http://calitreview.com/2526/the-help-by-kathryn-stockett/

Octavia Spencer speaks up for The Help. This is how the original post looked in February of 2009

While Spencer earnestly claims “Minny was my mother” I seriously doubt her mom would advocate fried chicken as therapy, or as Minny states in the film:

“Frying chicken tend to make you feel better about life.”  Or that Spencer’s mom would even exclaim “eat my shit!” which is as bad as putting “Hasta La Vista” into the film.  It’s especially troubling that Spencer would have no problem with linking her character with chicken, when throughout history and even now, African Americans have been linked with fried chicken for laughter and derision:

It’s Chicken Time! The stereotype of blacks loving chicken is resurrected in The Help. Note the stereotype of the bug eyed, dark as night black male

Somehow Octavia Spencer and Tate Taylor dodged controversy while others have been called out for hyping a stereotype:

Mary J Blige Chicken loving Burger King commercial

“The Blige backlash was swift, though, with mocking approaching meme levels over the ridiculous spot, in which the people’s diva stands on a table and rhapsodizes, “Crispy chicken, fresh lettuce, three cheeses, ranch dressing wrapped up in a tasty…flour…tortilla.”

The stereotype perpetuation of a black woman espousing the virtues of fried chicken is never a pleasant thing to behold, although Octavia Spencer didn’t cause much of an uproar for saying in The Help (for which she won an Oscar), “Frying chicken just tend to make you feel better about life” in a scene that was not intended to make you want to kill yourself.”

Link: http://gawker.com/5898714/heres-the-pulled-mary-j-blige-burger-king-commercial?rel=author

Octavia Spencer and the eventual director and screenwriter of The Help, Tate Taylor, have linked blacks with fried chicken in both The Help and an earlier project:

Tate Taylor’s Chicken Party, starring Octavia Spencer, Allison Janney and of all things, “fried chicken”

Rarely, if ever could an African American direct profanity at someone white in 1962 Jackson, MS as Minny does in the movie version of The Help,  and live to tell about it. What strains credibility even further is Minny cooking up feces in her own kitchen, which is nasty beyond belief, feeding it to her employer, and revealing what she’d done. That’s not just bad fiction. That’s eye-rolling fantasy.

Sadly, portraying black males as violent brutes is as American as apple pie. Another southern author by the name of Thomas Dixon helped spawn this propaganda in his novel The Clansman, which then became the classic film The Birth of a Nation.

From the novel The Clansman:

“As he bowed his thick neck in pompous courtesy, she caught with a shiver the odor of pomade on his black half kinked hair. He stopped on the lower step, looked back with smiling insolence, and gazed intently at her beauty. The girl shrank from the gleam of the jungle in his eyes and hurried within.” – Pg 207 of the online text of The Clansman, 1905 novel by Thomas Dixon and basis for the racial propaganda film The Birth of A Nation.

Troubled Heritage showing the black brute character on its cover

Betty Page surrounded by the Brute stereotype

The black male as a brute

In The Help, the black brute character is played by Minny’s husband Leroy, who ironically made it into the film, though his abuse is offscreen. Leroy is not only a vile brute to Minny, but also his children. And he’s written as being stupid as hell, saying this to Minny in the novel while she’s pregnant:

“You don’t get tired. Not till the tenth month.” (Leroy, accosting Minny in the kitchen, Pg 406)

That line was written to show just how slow of mind he is. Unfortunately, none of the maids are written as being too swift either. Stockett has them using malapropisms liberally, as Minny mixes up “cadillac” with cardiac, saying the cat almost gave her a “cadillac” arrest (cue laughter). And Aibileen can say congealed salad, but confuses pneumonia for ammonia several times in the book. Constantine’s folksy sayings are laced with WTF fuzzy math, like this one where she asks Skeeter:

“How tall is you?”

“Five-eleven,” I cried. “I’m already taller than the boys’ basketball coach.”

“Well, I’m five-thirteen, so quit feeling sorry for yourself.”  (Pg 65)

And there’s this dialogue, where Constantine once again is enlisted to boost Skeeter’s self-esteem by appearing stupid as hell (Skeeter is the first speaker):

“I was in the attic, looking down at the farm,” I tell her. “I could see the tops of the trees.”

“You gone be a brain surgeon! Top of the house mean the head” (Constantine’s answer to Skeeter, Pg 63 of the book The Help)

In 1965, NBC aired a documentary on life in Mississippi for African Americans. A lone black male spoke out, and was brutally assaulted for telling the truth:

Booker Wright from the documentary Mississippi: A Self Portrait

“The meaner the man be the more you smile although you cryin’ on the inside . . . ”

                                  -Booker Wright, from the documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait

You can read about Booker Wright’s courage in speaking out here

But why was it so important to have African Americans, specifically males, denoted as ignorant, lazy, but required to grovel and smile when insulted?

The simply answer is that power and control were the order of the day during segregation.

Hires ad, “Yassuh . . .” Black males were also required to grovel and give service with a smile

Blacks were paid low wages, worked long hours, in essence, segregation was profitable. Cheap labor, and live-in “help” of both black men and women freed up their employers. When African Americans demanded equality, the excuse often used to block integration was that we’d get equality when we “earned” it. Yet the bar continued to be raised, and even today, old habits die hard. Note the receipt given to a black customer who simply returned an item to a store. The code lists the reason given as “Dumb N*****

racist receipt given to black customer after item returned

Read more in this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/i-am-trayvon-stop-stereotyping-black-males/

And to read more about the verbal gaffes made by Kathryn Stockett, Tate Taylor and Octavia Spencer as per their published interviews, which cast doubts on the feel good PR spin on The Help, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/the-help-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/

Since this post is getting long, I’ll have to split it up. In continuing to explore why the Cheerios commercial has caused so much hate and resentment, I’m wondering why the networks still can’t seem to be inclusive or see outside the box when casting leading roles. It may be hard for some to see black males or other minorities in roles outside of the ones they’re usually cast in, which don’t include the hero or lead of a series.

The New Television Season: Where are the lead roles for minority actors?

This post is still in development . . .

Powerful. Moving. Truly eye-opening, actual testimonials from those who were there during the civil rights movement. I’d encourage all who land on this blog to check out this series:

Link: http://www.tennessean.com/civil-rights/

I’m also going to put the link in my sidebar, because I think these types of articles are vital in helping students understand what the Freedom Marches and the Civil Rights Movement were all about. It’s important to hear from some of the participants who are still living, and eager to share their experiences during this turbulent period in our nation’s history.

Today is Father’s Day. And while both the novel and the movie of Kathryn Stockett’s blockbuster, controversial creation attempted to rehabilitate the southern white males who practiced segregation (like the overseas marketing which labeled Stuart Whitworth as a “Handsome, Good Ole’ Boy” and Johnny Foote as a “Southern Gentleman.” See the screenshots below).  The black males in the book or movie were not afforded such superlatives on screen, in the book or in the marketing of either. In short, the black male was thrown under the bus, much like white females were.

So while some wonder why the black male is seen so negatively in many circles of American society, (take for example the Cheerios commercial, which brought out the trolls because it showed a black male, his white wife and their biracial daughter).

Cheerios commercial with an interracial couple. Charles Malik Whitfield of the Temptations mini-series fame, plays the father.

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/how-the-cheerios-commercial-highlights-a-big-problem-in-america-and-in-the-help/

Look no further than celebrated works like The Help, which far too many journalists and reviewers lauded without noticing how the novel resurrected old stereotypes of African Americans, specifically, the African American male.

While Kathryn Stockett, Tate Taylor and Octavia Spencer (Stockett admitted in early interviews that these three were party to an “agreement.” The author also admitted Taylor was there while she was writing the novel, contradicting her prior interviews. And Taylor then admits Spencer was there in an interview with The Grio.com. Spencer admits in published interview, that she read the manuscript prior to it being published and had no major objections. See this post for more) had no problem with the negative depictions of the primary black males, not so for the leading white males in the book and movie, who were marketed like this:

Click the image for a larger view:

Good Ole Boy. You’re got to be kidding.

That “Southern Gentleman” and “Dreamboat” Johnny Foote

Unfortunately, for a book and a movie that wanted to show the races weren’t that different, both vehicles did much to show we really are different, and not in a good way  or with non-offensive humor in my opinion.

This post is going to be short. And it’s a shout out to all males, no matter what race or ethnicity. The fathers of the world, the ones who act like men and provide for their families and take the time to love their children and cherish their wives, significant others and mothers. Guys, you deserve a day like today.

But there was a time not so long ago that African American males weren’t afforded that sort of respect. They were ridiculed, imitated and forced to bow and grovel, in essence to act like they weren’t men all because of bigotry and hatred.

This post is for my dad, six feet tall with smooth, mahogany brown skin and a killer smile. Worked as an automaker, was a husband, a father, a veteran, an avid college football and Pro-football fan.

He wasn’t a “no-account” and he wasn’t an absentee father.

Unlike how the fathers in The Help are portrayed, the black males like Leroy, Connor, Clyde and Minny’s unnamed father, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing black men who are fathers and damn good at it.

 

 

Dough Boys from World War I

 

 

So unlike the slurs in the book, where Kathryn Stockett in “Blackface” has her characters state:

Plenty of black men leave their families behind like trash in a dump, but it’s just not something the colored woman do. We’ve got kids to think about. (Minny, Pg 311)

We start calling his daddy Crisco cause you can’t fancy up a man done run off on his family. Plus he the greasiest no-count you ever known. (Aibileen, Pg 5)

But with my sister’s heart problem and my no good drunk daddy, it was up to me and Mama. (Minny, Pg 38)

“She’s been with your mama a few years. That’s when she met the father, Connor. He worked on your farm, lived back there in the Hotstack. . . . We was all surprised Constantine would go and . . . get herself in the family way. Some folks at church wasn’t so kind about it, especially when the baby come out white. Even though the father was black as me” (Aibileen, telling Skeeter about Connor, the male who impregnated and left Constantine Pg 358)

Take a moment to realize what black males had to go through during segregation. Then ask yourself, if Stockett had written this about the males of your culture, how many of you would endorse, celebrate and love this novel or the film version?

 

 

The kick seen around the world. Newspaper editor Alex Wilson is attacked by bigots

A lynching in Marion, Indiana 1930. The ultimate price black men paid during segregation

The REAL Scottsboro Boys

Scottsboro Boys, The Musical. Much like The Help, this short lived Broadway play white washed real life events. Note the tagline “Entertain the Truth”

 

 

 

 

Young MALES and females being led to jail after protesting segregation in 1963

I AM A MAN. The march which demanded black males be seen as MEN. Please take note of the lone white male who was brave enough to march in solidarity.

There were also the demeaning interpretations of how black males looked and behaved. And they were expected to emulate this, to the delight of white audiences.

One of American’s most “beloved” entertainers during segregation, Al Jolson in blackface. This is Jolson’s popular role, wearing blackface and singing about his “Mammy”

The creators of the radio show portraying Amos ‘N Andy

Prince Chawmin, one of the many cartoon characters which demeaned and mocked African American males

When Amos N’ Andy made it to television, these are the actors who portrayed them. Kingfish, the master of Malapropisms, is pictured in the center.

Stepin Fetchit’s greatest role. The cowering, confused black man.

Hires ad, “Yassuh . . .” This is how black males were expected to behave. With a grin and stooping shoulders.

Marching for Civil Rights. See all the BLACK MEN?

For more on just where and how The Help went wrong, please see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/ten-issues-that-tarnish-the-help/

Link to original  Father’s day post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/on-fathers-day-no-black-father-figure-in-the-help/

I’m a little younger than Paula Deen.

And Serena Williams is a bit older than my first child, had she lived. But in each of these women’s statements which rocked the web this week, I recognized “tradition.”

In Paula Deen’s case, it was the use of southern traditions that I’ve discussed at length on this blog. In Serena Williams case, I haven’t fully explored that subject on this site, but since the door has been opened, I thought now would be a good time to post something on how women view other women, in the context of a sexual assault or domestic violence.

Both of their statements have roots in what I term “traditions.” In Deen’s case, just today a video surfaced with more stomach churning statements by the cooking giant. In Williams’ case, some are just now realizing that blaming the victim is wrong. Both women stated things that are not acceptable in today’s changing society.

But I also wish to add, that both women are free to express their opinions, and that’s what they did.

I felt the sting of both their statements. Though I laughed at some of the recipes thought up under the Twitter hashtag #Paulasbestdishes on twitter, I did have a moment of “hey y’all, this shouldn’t be made light of.”

Here’s an example:

Paula Deen hashtag with inventive dishes

Link: http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/paulas_best_dishes_are_racist_jokes_twitter/

Paula’s statements also included wistfully dreaming of a plantation style wedding for her brother Bubba, complete with all black “help”

Her wish-fulfillment fantasy reminded me of a couple who’d lived out their South African colonial themed wedding, reportedly segregating the staff and the guests by color.

A throwback colonial, South African wedding. Celebrating nuptials and Apartheid

Here’s what the photographer who approached the couple with the idea had to say at first (but has since taken it down):

It’s not often that we meet clients and get as excited about a  wedding as we did almost 4 months in advance. When we met Dave and  Chantal in January to discuss their ‘Out of Africa’ themed wedding, we couldn’t hide our excitement and Travis was practically bouncing off the  walls with ideas and inspiration. We love themed weddings, especially  beautiful themes like ‘Colonial Africa’ which promise great pictures and  a nostalgic and thoughtfully decorated wedding. – quote by the photographer

Link: http://www.stfucouples.com/post/7573567245/how-authentic

 
“Nostalgic” and “thoughtfully decorated” Oh boy.

I’m not sure I can find photos of a “southern styled, plantation inspired wedding” on the web, complete with one color fits all domestic staff. I’ll update this post with the pics later on if I run across any.

In a video from September of 2012, Deen makes a statement that harkens back to the days of the Antebellum south, a “theory” that has been handed down to this day, and one that author Kathryn Stockett used in her novel The Help:

 ”black folk were such integral part of our lives, they were like our family,” and, for that reason, “we didn’t see ourselves as being prejudiced.” – quote by Paul Deen, from an article on The HuffingtonPost.com

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/21/paula-deen-racism_n_3480720.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Since Dean took the occasion to time travel and explain just why and how those who kept slaves felt, I thought I’d share some actual history on, you know, how just how badly some blacks wanted to divorce themselves from their employer’s “family.”

This account is included in a text called James Williams, An American Slave:

AIKEN, S. C., Dec. 20, 1836.          I have just returned from an inquest I held over the  dead body of a negro man, a runaway, that was shot near the South Edisto, in this District, (Barnewell,) on Saturday morning last.  He came to his death by his own recklessness.  He refused to be taken alive; and said that other attempts to take him had been made, and he was determined that he would not be taken. When taken, he was nearly naked  -  had a large dirk or knife, and a heavy club.  He was, at first, (when those who were in pursuit of him found it absolutely necessary,) shot at with small-shot, with the intention of merely crippling him.  He was shot at several times, and at last he was so disabled as to be compelled to surrender.  He kept in the run of a creek in a very  dense swamp all the time that the neighbors were in  pursuit of him.  As soon as the negro was taken, the  best medical aid was procured, but he died on the same evening.  One of the witnesses at the inquisition stated that the negro boy said that he was from Mississippi, and belonged to so many persons he did not know who his master was: but again he said his master’s name  was Brown.  He said his own name was Sam; and when asked by another witness who his master was, he muttered something like Augusta or Augustine.  The boy was apparently above 35 or 40 years of age  -  about  six feet high  -  slightly yellow in the face  -  very long beard of whiskers  -  and very stout built, and a stern countenance; and appeared to have been run away a long time.

            WILLIAM H. PRITCHARD

Coroner, (Ex officio,)  Barnwell Dist., S.C.

        © This work is the property of the University of North Carolina  at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.

Link: http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/williams/williams.html

The Aunt Jemima mystique. Being waited on by a black man or woman

I explored the antebellum propaganda of black employees being “just like family” in a couple of earlier posts, and included links to articles that note historical counterarguments against it:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/they-love-us-sez-who/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/the-affection-myth/

Upset by how Paula Deen’s being treated, a few of her fans have launched Facebook pages and even bombarded the Food Network with emails that support the culinary queen:

“Show me an adult person who has not said the N word in his life, black or white. You without sin cast the first stone,’’ one commenter wrote.”

“I commend her by even apologizing, I know a lot of our political leaders in the nation can’t even say they’re sorry.’’ -Comment by a patron waiting outside Deen’s restaurant, The Lady and Sons

Link: http://www.today.com/food/paula-deens-fans-defend-her-wake-controversy-6C10424010

But Deen wasn’t done putting her foot in her mouth, and the footage from 2012 came out after her supporters gathered. More from her September 2012 video interview (items in bold are my doing):

“By far the strangest, most awkward moment of the whole talk, however, is when she talks about a black employee of hers named Hollis Johnson. She says that he’s become very dear to her in the 18 years she’s known him, which is plenty sweet. But then she says points to the jet-colored backdrop behind her and says he’s “black as this board.” She proceeds to call out to him in the audience and ask him to come on stage, telling him, “We can’t see you standing in front of that dark board!” The audience roars with laughter. Severson, shocked, says, “Welcome to New York.” And Paula, characteristically, responds, “Welcome to the South.”

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/21/paula-deen-racism_n_3480720.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Paula Deen singling out the “valued” employee she claims is as black as the background board

What’s not lost on me is the audience laughter, and that it appears Deen’s never challenged on her statements. Unfortunately, by this not happening, Deen may have believed nothing in her statements could be taken as offensive. And Deen herself may not be aware of the propaganda she learned about African Americans was incorrect, and thus she continued to spread it. Something tells me she knows now, as she issued an apology via YouTube.

Paula Deen fell victim to believing her own hype. Because Deen is the folksy, bubbly, ever smiling southern gal who spreads warmth and waistlines with her home style cooking. And that image is at odds with how an ex-employee says Deen ran her business empire. So let me also state, that the issue is the work environment Deen fostered, one where old skol attitudes on race prevailed, to the point of making her employees uncomfortable.

Deen wasn’t canned by the Food Network simply for saying “Nigger” (hell, the Academy voters awarded an Oscar for Best Screenplay to Django Unchained, and it’s reported that the word was repeated 138 times in that film). It’s because her views, and also her brother Bubba’s conversations, jokes, and general treatment of employees doesn’t mesh with her TV image.

Deen was scheduled to appear on The Today Show, but instead cancelled, according to Matt Lauer:

“We had arranged to do an interview with Paula Deen, it had been going on, the discussions about that interview, throughout the day yesterday with her people,” Lauer said in the show’s opening. “I spoke to her late afternoon on the phone yesterday and we talked about the fact that it would be an open and candid discussion, no holds barred.” Later, Lauer added, “She told me at one point… ‘I don’t know how to be anything but honest.’”

Link: http://www.today.com/food/paula-deen-no-show-today-6C10408932

Now Deen has announced that she will tell all on The Today show, this coming Wednesday (June 26th). I’ve updated this post to list Deen’s interview answers, and it’s coming up a few paragraphs down.

But by that time, the damage may already be too much to quickly repair. It’s not simply about forgiving. But whether people can FORGET.

Less Than Accidental Racist: Why Paula Deen’s Comments Insult Her Fans Too

by James Poniewozik of Time.com

“Deen made a pile of money off a certain idea of old-school southern culture. In return, she had an obligation to that culture–an obligation not to embody its worst, most shameful history and attitudes. Instead, in one swoop, fairly or not, she single-handedly affirmed people’s worst suspicions of people who talk and eat like her–along with glibly insulting minorities, she slurred many of the very fans who made her successful. She made it that much harder to say that Confederate Bean Soup is just a recipe.”

Link:  http://entertainment.time.com/2013/06/20/less-than-accidental-racist-why-paula-deens-comments-insult-her-fans-too/#ixzz2WotpFzF3

James Poniewozik makes some very good points (I’ve put the items in bold):

“And in a way, maybe one side benefit of this spectacle is that its forces a conversation about the connections between culture and history. When Brad Paisley released “Accidental Racist” with LL Cool J earlier this year, a lot of people–me included–made fun of the song’s corniness, or critiqued its white-guy self-pity. But Paisley at least was trying to talk, however poorly, about a real thing: the tension between people wanting to retain symbols of their region’s past and people who have a hard time seeing those symbols as innocent nostalgia.

In the case of “Accidental Racist,” the flashpoint is a Confederate flag T-shirt. The narrator sees it as simple southern-rock fandom, now separated from the people who used to fly it in a war to preserve their right to own black slaves. That’s all history–it’s about other people’s “mistakes” from the past–but now it just means you’re a Skynyrd fan. The black man he meets at a Starbucks, voiced by LL Cool J, can’t write it off that easily. You can’t just separate sweet nostalgia from ugly history.”

Link:  http://entertainment.time.com/2013/06/20/less-than-accidental-racist-why-paula-deens-comments-insult-her-fans-too/#ixzz2WotpFzF3

Here’s an example of just some of the allegations that an ex-employee named Lisa Jackson gave against Paula Deen. This is from Page 17 of the deposition:

Just one of the allegations against Paula Dean

Here’s how Deen answered this allegation:

Paula Deen’s sworn testimony in response to Lisa Jackson’s Allegation

A bit more on Paula Deen’s responses when asked about the type of jokes both she and her brother (Bubba) would tell in the presence of former employee Lisa Jackson:

Deen: That’s — that’s kind of hard. Most — most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks. Most jokes target — I don’t know. I didn’t make up the jokes, I don’t know. I can’t — I don’t know.

Lawyer: Okay.
Deen: They usually target, though a group. Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don’t know. I can’t, myself, determine what offends another person.

Lawyer: Why did that make it a -– if you would have had servers like that, why would that have made it a really southern plantation wedding?

…

Deen: Well, it –- to me, of course I’m old but I ain’t that old, I didn’t live back in those days but I’ve seen the pictures, and the pictures that I’ve seen, that restaurant represented a certain era in America.

Lawyer: Okay.
Deen: And I was in the south when I went to this restaurant. It was located in the south.

Lawyer: Okay. What era in America are you referring to?
Deen: Well, I don’t know. After the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War.

Lawyer: Right. Back in an era where there were middle-aged black men waiting on white people.
Deen: Well, it was not only black men, it was black women.

Lawyer: Sure. And before the Civil War –- before the Civil War, those black men and women who were waiting on white people were slaves, right?
Deen: Yes, I would say that they were slaves.

Lawyer: Okay.
Deen: But I did not mean anything derogatory by saying that I loved their look and their professionalism.

The Full Deposition:

Link: Paula Deen Deposition Testimony

Deen’s “Aw shucks, that’s just how we rolled back then” is answered very well by this poster on TIME.com:

Time.com commenter’s opinion on Paula Deen’s deposition answers

Paula Deen as “The Help” hams it up for the cameras

“I can’t, myself, determine what offends another person.”  – Paula Deen deposition quote, after admitting engaging in jokes that “usually target, though a group. Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know . . . “

Update: Paula Deen appeared on The Today Show. Like most media outlets, Matt Lauer focused on Paula’s deposition statements. I’m not certain if Matt viewed Paula’s video interview in New York from 2012, but the real issue is being missed here, which I’ll go further into with an upcoming post.

Paula Deen emotes on The Today Show. Photo from nbcnews.com

Deen strays off Matt’s pointed questions, explaining that while it’s true she called a black man a nigger, she had good reason for it because he’d put a gun put to her head. Deen recounts her former job in a bank. Apparently she’d gone out on a limb for the robber when he needed a loan, noting he was frightened that she’d recognized him during the robbery.

Matt goes on to refer to Paula’s answer in the deposition, since Deen aimed uncertainty at what offends another person:

Lauer: “Do you have doubt in your mind, that African Americans are offended by the N word?”

Deen: “I don’t know Matt. I have asked myself that many times. It’s very distressing for me to go in my kitchens and hear what these young people are calling each other. . . . Because I think for this problem to be worked on, that these young people are gonna have to take control and not throw that word at each other.”

Deen shifts the blame to the younger generation of African Americans, going on to give a tearful (without the waterworks on camera, apparently they fell afterward) confessional, describing the woman who filed the lawsuit as “There’s someone evil out there, that saw what I had worked for, and they wanted it.”  (which ties into her sons allegations that the lawsuit was simply an extortion bid). Deen adds this phrase before another tearful testimonial ends the interview “I is what I is, and I’m not changing.”  

Link: http://www.today.com/food/paula-deen-i-would-not-have-fired-me-6C10454147

Now it’s time to take a look at Serena William’s statements. Like Paula Deen, Serena Williams finds herself embroiled in controversy, as her statements to Rollingstone Magazine back in March 2013 have just become public:

“We watch the news for a while, and the infamous Steubenville rape case flashes  on the TV – two high school football players raped a drunk 16-year-old, while  other students watched and texted details of the crime. Serena just shakes her  head. “Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I  don’t know. I’m not blaming the girl, but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re  drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don’t take drinks from other  people. She’s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember? It could  have been much worse. She’s lucky. Obviously, I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t a  virgin, but she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped  her something, then that’s different.”

Link: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/serena-williams-the-great-one-20130618

The “warning” portion of Williams statement is all too familiar to me. But there too, I recall my parents advice about not being incapacitated:

“  . . . I’m not blaming the girl, but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re  drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don’t take drinks from other  people. She’s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember?”

Link: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/serena-williams-the-great-one-20130618

This is part of the tradition of scaring young people with dire consequences for their actions, or inability to hold their liquor in this case. But what should also be pointed out, is that whether sober or drunk, no one should take advantage of another. And so, as Serena’s statement lit up the internet, she too faced outrage, scorn and ridicule.

And there were a number of other quotes in her interview that had me going Serena, WTF? for example, this one:

“I’ve thought it would be cool to have a baby young,” says Serena. “You know, be  my road dog – like my dogs, they travel the world – but there’s always something  you have to give up for success. Everything comes at a cost. Just what are you  willing to pay for it?”

Link: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/serena-williams-the-great-one-20130618

A baby, as a “road dog?” No. Just. NO.

The article also stated “It’s two days before the start of the Sony Open in Miami, one of the circuit’s  premier nonmajors and the first significant test for Serena since she was upset  in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open after spraining an ankle that had  ballooned to three times its normal size.”

Officially, the Sony Open started on March 18th. That would make the date of Serena’s insensitive, and totally uncalled for reasoning on March 16th.

The verdict was handed down on Sunday, March 17th.  There was an uproar then too, because a few CNN anchors, namely Candy Crowley, Poppy Harlow and contributor Paul Callan made statements that many felt sympathized with the perpetrators and not the young girl who was sexually assaulted and humiliated. The link to that article can be found here:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/17/cnn-grieves-that-guilty-verdict-ruined-promising-lives-of-steubenville-rapists/

Like the CNN anchor, reporter and commentator, Serena was soundly chastised, and rightly so for the first part of her statement:

“Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I  don’t know. . . “

If Serena was simply saying what was in her head (without filtering her thoughts), which is what I suspect, then she’s now learned a very valuable lesson. For an adult, and especially one in the public eye, it’s important to understand the implication of what comments mean. In Serena’s case, it’s all the more critical since she takes pride in fighting for women’s equality, as per her apology:

“What happened in Steubenville was a real shock for me. I was deeply saddened. For someone to be raped, and at only sixteen, is such a horrible tragedy! For both families involved – that of the rape victim and of the accused.  I am currently reaching out to the girl’s family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article. What was written – what I supposedly said – is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame.

I have fought all of my career for women’s equality, women’s equal rights, respect in their fields – anything I could do to support women I have done. My prayers and support always goes out to the rape victim. In this case, most especially, to an innocent sixteen year old child.”

Link: http://serenawilliams.com/blog/statement-2/

Now, I’m not her publicist. But this is a highly teachable moment. Much like Paula Deen, whose southern “traditions” were apparently too much to shake off, Serena’s wandering, rambling comments on the Steubenville rape case reveal a kind of “tradition” where females are held to a certain standard.

But I also must repeat again, that both Deen and Williams are entitled to their opinions.

Even Williams apology earned scorn, for as it was pointed out, she used “What was written – what I supposedly said – is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame.”

Qualifying her statement with “What I supposedly said” read to some as though she wasn’t taking ownership of her words, and thus her apology was no apology at all.

So Serena recently reiterated her earlier apology, according to this article by Toby Davis of Reuters:

“It’s really important before you make certain comments to have a full list, have all the information, all the facts,” she added.

“I reached out to the family immediately once the article came out, and I had a really productive, sincere conversation with the mother and the daughter. We came to a wonderful understanding, and we’re constantly in contact…

“I take full responsibility. I definitely wanted to apologize to the family. They’ve been through so much. In talking to them and learning the whole story, you just learn how strong the young girl is, how strong she’s been able to make me through this process, which I think is incredible.”

Link: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/52288779/ns/sports-tennis/

To be continued . . .because I’m not done yet.

Rachel Jenteal, self nicknamed Diamond Eugene, is the young lady who was on the phone with Trayvon Martin shortly before he was shot and killed.

Rachel Jenteal testifies

She’s 19 years old, and in my opinion, she’s still a teenager. But you wouldn’t know it by reading some of the comments about her, because she’s not behaving in court the way many would like. At times she was combative, rude, and many times her voice was too low to hear properly during Wednesday’s testimony. She also used terms that many of her peers have coined, like “that’s real retarded.”

If she were my child (and since I have a close relative who’s retarded) that phrase would not be tolerated. However, it was also used in a song by The Black Eyed Peas, called “Let’s Get Retarded” before they wisely altered it to “Let’s Get it Started.”

While I find the use of “retarded”  as an insult to be offensive, and don’t allow it in my home, I’m well aware that others have no such qualms.

Rachel also stated under oath that Trayvon called George Zimmerman a “creepy ass cracker” because he said he was being followed, and “Oh shit, the nigga is still behind me.” In addition, screen grabs of her Twitter account have been published online, and some of her tweets reveal her drinking tastes and that this has taken a toll on her.

Rachel Jenteal tears up in court

But otherwise, at least in my mind, her twitter feed is nothing shocking. I’ve seen worse. You can read more about this teen putting her personal life in the public here:

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2349081/Rachel-Jenteal-Teenage-star-witness-George-Zimmerman-tweeted-case-getting-high-showed-court-nails.html

On Thursday, Rachel challenged co-defense Attorney Don West’s assertion that it was Trayvon Martin who’d brought race into this tragic scenario of events. West tried to get Rachel Jenteal (I’m still investigating the correct spelling of her last name. I’ve seen it written as Jenteal and also Jeantel. My apologies if I’m spelling it incorrectly) to admit to this, by asking her whether “creepy ass cracker” was a racist term.

Rachel on the stand, Thursday, June 27th

Try as he might, Rachel stuck to her opinion.

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/creepy-ass-cracker-is-not-racist-says-trayvon-martins-friend-19506887?tab=9482931&section=1206833

In my opinion? Yes it is. However I’m old enough to be Rachel’s grandmother. And you know what else? I didn’t have any trouble understanding her.  I also acknowledge that West was doing his job, which was to catch any inconsistencies in Rachel’s testimony. I didn’t care for his demeanor however, which at times alternated from subtly condescending to outright smugness.

What?! How so? some might ask.

Wait for it, because there’s an Instagram photo coming up that would seem to confirm my observation. West was also applying a tactic I call painting someone as the “other.” Because if he can succeed in making the jury think that by extension, Rachel Jenteal represents Trayvon Martin, then he can whittle away at any sympathy the jury might have for the victim. It’s a way of depicting Martin as the aggressor/racial profiler/George had no choice but to shoot this guy without being obvious about it. Or so he thinks.

Meanwhile on social media, at some point Lolo Jones unwisely decided to bash Rachel in a totally uncalled for tweet. Now Lolo is no stranger to controversy, or being roast in the media and whining about it. Yet here’s what she tweeted:

Lolo Jones tweet, which backfired on the sprinting star

However, Rachel does have supporters, myself included. And here’s a site with a collection of messages of encouragement for Ms. Jeantel:

To Rachel Jeantel, with love. Website collects and shares messages of support

Link: http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/2013/06/28/to-rachel-jeantel-with-love/

Because of her demeanor in court Rachel Jenteal has now been typecast by some. She’s not being “helpful” and she’s not contrite like Aibileen from The Help. And though she’s fiery like Minny, she’s not mirthful, so that makes her the “angry” black woman. But more damning to some, is that her behavior may have an impact on what the jury ultimately decides, and that may be a non-guilty verdict for George Zimmerman.

Internet comments about Rachel Jenteal’s court testimony

More comments about Rachel Jenteal’s testimony

I won’t post the truly offensive tweets or comments about Rachel Jenteal, especially those which demean her physical appearance.

You see, a black woman can be dark, heavy set and inarticulate, but she also needs to behave one of two ways in America to be “beloved”:

Jolly and self-effacing, quick with the quips, “sassy” and boisterous  or as the marketing for The Help crowed “her heart is always in the right place”

Hilly’s marketed as well groomed and pretty, while Minny’s only PR is about her “sass” and cooking skills

Over done angry black woman pose featuring hand on hip

Over done angry black woman pose of a full stare down.

Octavia Spencer received an Oscar and several other awards for breathing new life into this tired stereotype, and uttering lines that made no sense, like “frying chicken make you tend to feel better about life.”

This advice was simply the insertion of a known slur about blacks loving fried chicken. Unfortunately for Rachel Jenteal, there will be no accolades for her performance. While Rachel was teary eyed and belligerent during her testimony on Wednesday, and showed a bit more restraint on Thursday, she’s already been judged and found guilty.

The filters one needs to appear saintly, or even to parse words so that others can be won over are not there yet with Rachel. But she wasn’t the one on trial. It’s George Zimmerman. And because I’m older, I recognized the head games being played, the repetition of asking her to state something over and over, which caused her frustration and embarrassment at admitting she couldn’t read incursive. Still, her situation is not unusual to me, and it’s also not limited to the black community in America. This is not solely a cultural difference as many have stated. But it also involves current technology, and how the younger generation communicates with each other, which is different from previous generations. Everything is shortened. Even our language. And our level of patience, especially at that age.

That’s why it’s important for parents to also learn to navigate social network sites, so that they can better prepare their children and explain just what it means to practically live on the internet.

On Rachel’s second day taking the stand, George Zimmerman’s attorney Don West gently chided “You seem different today. Did someone speak with you? (about her demeanor the day before).

Rachel replied in an equally soft voice, that she’d gotten some sleep, though her eyes still narrowed in his direction.

West then said he couldn’t hear her, and Rachel repeated her answer, keeping her voice soft and calm. Yes, it’s sad to say, but she’s now beginning to learn a hard lesson.

But here’s the irony. Attorney Don West is currently embroiled in his own public relations fiasco. Because it’s being reported that the screen shot just below was posted by his daughter, which proclaims West scored points because ”We beat stupidity” (Now, what or who is this statement referring to?) also part of the controversy is the wording of the hashtag “#Dad killed it” since this is a murder trial and the victim is just 17 years old.

Don West Instagram celebration

Link: http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/06/zimmerman_defense_lawyers_daughter_we_beat_stupidity.html

It would seem to me that West wouldn’t want anymore notoriety, not after opening with a knock knock joke that wasn’t the least bit funny. And right now, just like Rachel Jenteal faced scorn on the internet for not appearing serious enough, he and his daughters are feeling the heat also. Social grace stumbles in this new age of technology appear impartial to race, ethnicity, education or economic status.

Update: George Zimmerman’s attorney Don West told The Daily Caller in a statement that his daughter made an “immature and insensitive comment” under an Instagram photo on Thursday, for which she is sorry.

Link: http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/29/zimmerman-attorney-says-daughters-instagram-post-immature-and-insensitive-apologizes/

The other accepted caricature for African Americans is the Aibileen model. Shy, cringing, cowering. Knowing one’s place. Born to serve. In short,  A MAMMY

“Of course I had trepidations. Why do I have to play the mammy? But what do you do as an actor if one  of the most multi-faceted and rich roles you’ve ever been given is a maid in 1962 Mississippi? Do you not  take the role because you feel in some ways it’s not a good message to send to Black people?”  – Viola Davis, in a quote from Essence Magazine

“I’m playing a maid, a black actress playing a maid in 2011 in Hollywood, is a lot of pressure. You don’t play a maid. That is something you don’t do. When you play a maid where a white woman has written a story and a white man is directing it, so there is no way that it’s gonna be. . . I’m essentially playing a Mammy. So I felt a lot of pressure. Absolutely. And then and of course pressure from the readers who all wanted Oprah to play the role. And saw her as being seventy years old and about two hundred and fifty pounds or you know, yeah, I felt a lot of pressure. But it’s like Tate says, if you work from that point of pressure and fear, your work is gonna crack. At some point you just have to leave it alone. And know that we have our own standard of excellence . . .”

Link: Atlanta Mom’s on The Move http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shc0mdT-0Cc

Had Rachel Jenteal behaved on the stand like either of these accepted stereotypes, a lot more people would be comfortable with her, as many readers and moviegoers were with the black domestics in The Help. Instead, to some Rachel came across too real, too raw, too rough.

And yet, she managed to sit for hours at time, just a few feet away from the man who’s admitted killing Trayvon Martin:

“You gotta understand . . . I’m the last person — you don’t know how I felt. You think I really want to go see the body after I just talked to him?” – Rachel Jenteal quote while under oath, when asked why she didn’t attend services for Trayvon Martin.

Movies, records  and TV have spoiled us. We expect 19 year olds to be rights activists with movie star good looks, because after all, they are on TV, why just look at all the kids who are polished stars by that age.

But it’s one thing to have a difference of opinion on her testimony. It’s hitting below the belt to try to demean her as a young black female, on of all things, her appearance. 

I’m very uncomfortable, and mad as hell with how some are focusing solely on her looks and pattern of speech. I’m sick and tired of some people trying to make black women feel ashamed of our bodies or our complexion, as if there’s only one standard of beauty.

You know what I saw on the stand? A young lady with gorgeous, skin, a flawless brown complexion, lovely, upturned eyes. And she was tastefully dressed.

There’s nothing wrong with the way this young lady looks. Let me say that again. THERE IS NOTHING WHAT SO EVER WRONG WITH THE WAY THIS YOUNG LADY LOOKS. And as a parent, there was nothing out of the ordinary about her demeanor. Because she’s still a teenager. She has time to learn and to grow. Which is something Trayvon Martin will never be able to do.

And may I remind some people, that this is EXACTLY what some were doing to Trayvon Martin? Judging him simply on his looks, his twitter feed, and because he was a seventeen year old black male. There was an outcry then. Why no outcry now, at how Rachel Jenteal is being mocked and condemned? 

Trayvon Martin shows off his grill, something many young people post on social media

Yet Trayvon’s friend is facing a double standard, simply for being who she is. A nineteen year old female in America, doing what others do on Twitter and Facebook, posting photos of her nails and spilling out things someone older, and more savvy would hide.

Trayvon Martin, a happy 17 year old

So let me bring more history into this post. Because there was a time that this woman, who I call a Lioness for Civil Rights, the one and only Fannie Lou Hamer, was once a 19 year old just like Rachel. Fannie didn’t join the rights movement until she was in her forties. And some would say that her speech wasn’t articulate. And that she was heavy set and brown, and the powers that be at that time labeled her belligerent (back then they used the word “uppity”) because she refused to cower and grin. Fannie was much too real for some people. Here’s what she said at the 1963 Democratic Convention, the speech President Lyndon Johnson deemed too controversial for prime time and American viewers, so the network cut away just as she was talking (however since it was recorded, it was broadcast later that night):

Fannie Lou Hamer’s famous slogan “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired”

“Mr. Chairman, and to the Credentials Committee, my name is Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and I live at 626 East Lafayette Street, Ruleville, Mississippi, Sunflower County, the home of Senator James O. Eastland, and Senator Stennis.

It was the 31st of August in 1962 that eighteen of us traveled twenty-six miles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to become first-class citizens.

We was met in Indianola by policemen, Highway Patrolmen, and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the time. After we had taken this test and started back to Ruleville, we was held up by the City Police and the State Highway Patrolmen and carried back to Indianola where the bus driver was charged that day with driving a bus the wrong color.

After we paid the fine among us, we continued on to Ruleville, and Reverend Jeff Sunny carried me four miles in the rural area where I had worked as a timekeeper and sharecropper for eighteen years. I was met there by my children, who told me that the plantation owner was angry because I had gone down to try to register.

After they told me, my husband came, and said the plantation owner was raising Cain because I had tried to register. Before he quit talking the plantation owner came and said, “Fannie Lou, do you know – did Pap tell you what I said?”

And I said, “Yes, sir.”

He said, “Well I mean that.” He said, “If you don’t go down and withdraw your registration, you will have to leave.” Said, “Then if you go down and withdraw,” said, “you still might have to go because we are not ready for that in Mississippi.”

And I addressed him and told him “I didn’t try to register for you. I tried to register for myself.”

Read and hear the remainder of her statement here:

Link: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/flhamer.html

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However, I need some of the younger people who may be reading this to understand. The individuals being held up today as legendary leaders in the black community, weren’t always depicted that way in the 60s. Back then, national and local newspapers, radio and TV sometimes deemed them far too often as troublemakers, uneducated, uppity, causing problems among the “good negroes” who were obedient, in short, the people who were part of the freedom movement were ridiculed and hounded, because they didn’t fit the stereotype of how a “good negro” should behave, all because they appeared “different.”

Newspaper prints bigoted jokes in 1963

Snide article on King, calling his “Der Dark Fuehrer” Note the insertion of another myth about African Americans and cadillacs

:

For more on the Diverse Heroines of The Civil Rights Movement, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/song-of-the-south/

:

Paula Deen emotes on The Today Show. Photo from nbcnews.com

“Bubba and I, neither one of us, care what the color of your skin is” or what gender a person is . . . It’s what’s in your heart and in your head that matters to us.” -Paula Deen’s answer under oath, noted in the deposition papers.

Unfortunately for Deen, there’s a video that contradicts that statement. Take a look at how Paula Deen describes and summons a black  man she says is like her son, a valued employee who has worked for her company over 18 years. Notice how Deen makes a point to single this employee out for of all things, how dark he appears in her eyes:

“I have a young man in my life, his name is Hollis Johnson and he’s black as that board. Come out here Hollis. We can’t see you standing against that dark board.”

After the host says, “Welcome to New York” to Hollis Johnson, Deen quips, “Welcome to the south!”

Deen then goes on to joke, “But you know, I tell people he’s my son by another father . . . ” Next comes a lengthy, and I’d say heartfelt statement on what Hollis Johnson means to her. But by that time the damage had been done. And Paula Deen’s views on race become clearer.

Paula Deen singling out the “valued” employee she claims is as black as the background board, both insulting and then complimenting him in this interview

Link to this video footage:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2013/06/22/us/100000002296089/paula-deen-on-race-in-2012-timestalk.html

After  seeing and hearing that, even with Paula taking his hand and giving “testimony” on how deeply she felt for Hollis, her affection was moot as far as I was concerned. What she showed was that insulting the man’s color publicly, and expecting it to be funny to all was ingrained in her. Had the same type of non-compliment been directed to her by someone of color, something tells me there would be no laughter. It also sheds light on just how unaware (or clueless, take your pick) Deen is at how unsettling her own actions are, and perhaps there’s some truth to how her employees are treated, thus the working environment could be uncomfortable, to say the least.

“I is what I is, and I’m not changing” -Paula Deen’s quote on The Today Show.

Now, contrast both Rachel Jenteal and Paula Deen’s behavior with what was written in The Help. Please take note of how often a character’s skin color was referred to as black, and not in a way that the reader would think the color was attractive, but as if it were some sort of handicap:

“That night after supper, me and that cockroach stare each other down across the kitchen floor. He big, inch, inch an a half. He black. Blacker than me.” – (Pg 189  Aibileen’s battle of wits with a cockroach in the novel The Help)

“We was all surprised Constantine would go and . . . get herself in the family way. Some folks at church wasn’t so kind about it, especially since when the baby come out white. Even though the father was black as me.” – (Pg 358 Aibileen describing Constantine’s ex-lover and father of her mulatto daughter Lulabelle, Connor)

“Minny doesn’t smile back. She is fat and short and strong. Her skin is blacker than Aibileen’s by ten shades, and shiny and taut, like a pair of patent leather shoes.” (Pg 164  Skeeter’s observation of Minny, the first time she meets her)

“Sometimes two girls from next door would come over to play with me, named Mary Nell and Mary Roan. They were so black I couldn’t tell them apart, and called them both just Mary.” (Pg 62 Skeeter’s observation of two childhood playmates)

Pascagoula is described as tiny as a child, not five feet tall, and black as night (Pg 59  Skeeter describes her family’s new maid)

Constantine was so close, I could see the blackness of her gums (Pg 65) Skeeter

The foreman drags a red cloth across his black forehead, his lips, his neck.  (Pg 239) Skeeter

The women are tall, short, black like asphalt or caramel brown. If your skin is too white, I’m told,  you’ll never get hired The blacker the better. – (Pg 257) Skeeter

All the “blacker the better” maids in one room, as the film attempts to duplicate Stockett’s words with heavy handed film shots

And here’s a section where Aibileen gave a former charge advice to grow on, specifically on how not to “turn colored”, which highlights just how self loathing the character was concerning her race:

How his foot fell asleep and he say it tickle. I told him that was just his foot snoring. And how I told him don’t drink coffee or he gone turn colored. He say he still ain’t drunk a cup of coffee and he twenty-one years  old. It’s always nice to see the kids grown up fine. (Pg 91) Aibileen

Aibileen isn’t just saddled with being a Mammy. She’s also such an Uncle Tom she never gets angry though she’s treated like a doormat, and she’s used to salivate over how Yule May’s hair has no naps. She does hiss at the character of Gretchen to get out, when Gretchen confronts Skeeter.  The Help is full of descriptions which border on WTF? a number of times when the author describes an African American character. They are “black” much like Paula Deen’s free flowing comments on Hollis Johnson. Stockett even claimed in the back of her novel that her childhood maid, Mrs. Demetrie McLorn was “stout and dark-skinned and, by then, married to a mean, abusive drinker named Clyde.” Pg 447, under the section TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

Here’s a photo of Mrs. McLorn, and also please note, that’s a white baby she’s holding:

Photo of Demetrie, Stockett’s grandparents maid. Funny, but she doesn’t look dark complexioned to me.

Stockett on CBS, a photo of Demetrie is in the background

However this is the real-life maid of Stockett’s brother, Abilene Cooper. Cooper filed a lawsuit that was tossed out due to the statute of limitations, where she claimed the character of Aibileen Clark was based upon her, and that Stockett had taken pieces of her life without her permission. Stockett denied this, but contrast how Viola Davis appears in the film vs. Cooper:

Abilene Cooper’s photo from the UK Daily Mail. This is the “real deal” Abilene

Viola Davis saying the line that was never uttered in the book “You are a Godless woman”

For more on Abilene Cooper, the real life maid who filed the lawsuit, please see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/abilene-coopers-tale-continues/

Next, please take a look at a screen shot from a copy of the script for The Help, which was available for public viewing and downloading on the studio’s website:

Scenes from Dreamsworks script of The Help. Note the wording “her dark black skin”

Much like Paula Deen, both the novel and the screenplay reflect a preoccupation with skin color, especially with those considered dark being labeled “black.” Whether Deen, Stockett or Tate Taylor realized it, this is a viewpoint handed down from slavery and also segregation, passed from generation to generation, especially of those residing in the south.

Mammy 2.0 Image from Ferris State Museum of Jim Crow Memorabilia. These items were sold during segregation, and were supposed to represent blacks.

Aibileen and Mae Mobley from the film The Help

Celia gives Minny a hug, which is supposed to make moviegoers chuckle and go “Awww”

During segregation, African Americans, particularly those dark brown were used to spread propaganda on how others of their race should behave. They became the poster child for good race relations:

Everybody’s favorite “Aunt”, Aunt Jemima, still “large and in charge” even today

Smiling Aunt Jemima clone

Example of how the black male was used in advertising during segregation

Old GE ad with the fried chicken and pickaninny stereotype. Showing how children were not immune from mockery.

Hires ad, “Yassuh . . .” Black males were also required to grovel and give service with a smile

An artist’s depiction of Topsy and Eva from Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The tendency in old Hollywood was make both black females and males meek and guileless, affable and easily lead in order to have them acceptable to white audiences. Thus the mantra of performers like Hattie McDaniel and Stepin Fetchit being a “credit to their race” was based on how well they popularized the ideal behavior of blacks, which was rooted in caricature since their character traits had been created by white writers during segregation.

Al Jolson, a beloved American entertainer in blackface singing about his “Mammy”

The creators of the radio show portraying Amos and Andy in blackface

A few other examples that unfortunately, have a heaping dose of making the dark in complexion black character “acceptable” by having them slow but sweet:

Poster for The Blind Side

In The Blind Side, even though Michael Oher knew very well how to play football (and other sports, like basketball), the film instead shows scenes of his loving, adoptive family teaching him in record time how to “protect the family” by becoming a top offensive back in high school. Oher currently plays for the Baltimore Ravens and has written his own book which addresses some of the inaccuracies of the film.

Aibileen’s folksy sayings and demeanor resemble Uncle Remus from Disney’s Song of The Song

The Uncle Remus character was a popular set of books, and finally, a movie by Disney studios. The actor playing Uncle Remus was awarded a special Oscar for his role in the film Song of the South even though he was not allowed to attend the ceremony.

For more information on what went wrong in The Help, and the negative myths from segregation that the novel resurrected, please see these posts:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/ten-issues-that-tarnish-the-help/

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/the-affection-myth/

Coming up . . . Depicting African Americans as the “other” for profit, for propaganda, and for pity

This post is still in development . . .

I held off on putting up this post, until after the Martin family testified. But after hearing the questions that George Zimmerman’s attorney just asked of Trayvon Martin’s mother, for example, had she held out the hope that her son had not contributed to his own death? I have to ask,

Is Trayvon Martin on trial for his own murder?

Trayvon Martin, in happier times

“. . . If it was in fact, George Zimmerman screaming . . .  then you would have to accept the probability that it was Trayvon Martin who caused his own death?“

- Mark O’Mara’s question to Sabrina Fulton

O’Mara continued down this line of questioning several times:

“You certainly hope, as a mom, that your son Trayvon Martin would not have done anything that led to his death, correct?” – Attorney Mark O’Mara

Link: http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/07/04/george-zimmerman-trial-trayvon-martin-day-9?hpt=hp_t2

I hope to have up all four questions O’Mara asked. This is not a football game for either team to score points. But increasingly, both the defense and prosecution’s one upmanship are on display. I truly wish a female defense or prosecutor had been involved in this case. It was solely needed.

O’Mara asked four times. FOUR TIMES, a question that, in my mind, infers that Trayvon Martin was somehow responsible for killing himself.

First time question framed directly referring to Trayvon being responsible:

“If it was not your son screaming, if it was in fact, George Zimmerman, then you would have to accept the probability that it was Trayvon Martin who caused his own death?”

Second time question is framed:

“You certainly would hope that your son Trayvon Martin did nothing that could have led to his own death, correct?”

Third time question is framed:

“You certainly hope, as a mom, you certainly hope that your son, Trayvon Martin would not have done anything that would’ve led to his own death, correct?”

Fourth time question is framed:

“And now dealing with the reality that he’s no longer here, certainly your hope as a mom, hold out hope as long as you can, that Trayvon Martin was in no way responsible for his own death, correct?“

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOokQxyGtTE

After watching the Jody Arias trial and now the George Zimmerman trial, the American system of justice continues to spiral down a very dark road.

Putting the murder victim on trial, as if to say “they deserved it.”

This type of defense isn’t unusual. Far too many rape cases put the rape victim on trial. Of note is one recent case, The Steubenville Rape Case.

In the George Zimmerman trial, I’m struck by how comments around the internet mention the Trayvon Martin trial as perhaps an innocent slip, but one that should be addressed. Trayvon Martin isn’t being tried for murder. But with the attempts by some to label him as a violent thug (who got what was coming to him) paint an attempt to do just that. So Trayvon Martin is a seventeen year old on trial for his own murder.

In order to have Zimmerman either acquitted or convicted on a lesser charge, it’s important that the defense form a depiction of Trayvon Martin as not just a young black teen, but a scary, brutal black male.

“As he bowed his thick neck in pompous courtesy, she caught with a shiver the odor of pomade on his black half kinked hair. He stopped on the lower step, looked back with smiling insolence, and gazed intently at her beauty. The girl shrank from the gleam of the jungle in his eyes and hurried within.” – Pg 207 of the online text of The Clansman, 1905 novel by Thomas Dixon and basis for the racial propaganda film The Birth of A Nation.

Birth of a Nation movie poster

For more on the black brute trope, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/fear-and-loathing-for-the-black-male-in-america/

I  also thought that I’d take a look at some of the questions that continue to dog this case, and also look at how racial stereotypes may have contributed to that tragic night.

“Why didn’t Trayvon just call the police?”

I’ve seen that question asked more than I can count. But depending on whose account is believed, Trayvon’s friend Rachel Jeantel stated she was still on the phone with Trayvon and as some sort of altercation began, the phone went dead:

“Trayvon said, ‘What, are you following me for,’ and the man said, ‘What  are you doing here.’ Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and  somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him  again and he didn’t answer the phone.”

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/US/trayvon-martin-death-friend-phone-teen-death-recounts/story?id=15959017#.T2iJ48zBp7w

Rachel Jenteal tears up in court

“And then he said, ‘That N-word is still following me now,’” said Jeantel. “I asked him how the man looked like. He just told me the man looked ‘creepy.’ ‘Creepy, white’ — excuse my language — ‘cracker. Creepy [expletive] cracker.”

Jeantel says she heard Martin talking to Zimmerman in the background of the call.

“He said, ‘Why are you following me for?’ And I heard a hard-breathing man say, ‘What you doing around here?’” said Jeantel.

Jeantel also said she heard a bump from Martin’s headset hitting something and “wet grass sounds.”

“I start hearing a little bit of Trayvon saying, ‘Get off, get off!’” said Jeantel.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/26/justice/zimmerman-trial/?iref=obinsite

JEANTEL:  He got close to Trayvon, yes, sir.

WEST:  And you don’t know whether the man was approaching Trayvon at that point and getting closer or whether Trayvon was approaching the man and getting closer?

JEANTEL:  Trayvon would have told me he’ll call me back, sir, if he was going to approach him, sir.

WEST:  So you’re assuming that Trayvon didn’t approach the man because he would have told you if he was going to confront the guy, he would call you back when it was over?

JEANTEL:  Yes, sir.

SAVIDGE (reporter):  Then West went after what could be the most damaging part of her testimony for the defense.  Jeantel says over the phone she heard a bump then Trayvon say get off, get off, to Zimmerman.

WEST:  So the last thing you heard was some kind of noise like something hitting somebody.

JEANTEL:  Trayvon got hit.  Trayvon got hit.

WEST:  You don’t know that, do you?

JEANTEL:  No, sir.  WEST:  You don’t know that Trayvon got hit.

JEANTEL:  He could be –

WEST:  You don’t know that Trayvon didn’t at that moment take his fist and drive it into George Zimmerman’s face.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Please lower your voice.

WEST:  Do you?

JEANTEL:  No, sir.

Link: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1306/27/acd.01.html

This is contrary to George Zimmerman’s account, though Zimmerman admits he’d hung up from the non-emergency dispatcher. What’s at issue is whether Martin accosted Zimmerman, or George Zimmerman continued to pursue until he accosted Martin.

“Zimmerman recalled how Martin turned around to confront him and said “yo, you got a problem?” He said that he was reaching for his cell phone when Martin punched him in the face.”

Link: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/george-zimmerman-walks-police-through-shooting-of-trayvon-martin-full-tape-played-in-court/

The Walk through video can be viewed at the link above and also here:

Zimmerman: “I got to right about here, and he yelled behind me. He said ‘Yo, you got a problem?’ I turned around and I said, I don’t have a problem man.”

Police Officer: ‘Where was he at?”

Zimmerman: “He was about there, but he was walking towards me.”

Police Officer: “(In audible) Here”

Zimmerman: “Yes sir, I was already past that so I didn’t see where he came from, but he was about where you are.”

Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57457640/zimmerman-walks-through-fatal-fight-in-new-video/

Additional Information used in this post:

Link: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/i-am-trayvon-stop-stereotyping-black-males/

That last scream on the 911 call recording is a death wail. It stops right after the gunshot, and there is an eerie pall after that.

And yet, when witnesses come upon Zimmerman here’s what was said about his emotional state:

“He stated to me that he was yelling for ‘help’ and that nobody would come help him,” said Smith.

Defense attorney O’Mara asked Smith whether Zimmerman seemed angry, frustrated, spiteful, cavalier or if he had any ill will or hatred that night. Smith said no to each individual description and called Zimmerman compliant throughout the entire ordeal.

Another neighbor named Jonathan Manalo, who was the first to approach Zimmerman after the shooting, was also asked to describe Zimmerman’s behavior that night.

“He wasn’t acting like anything different. He was coherent, he was responding to my questions just like any other person,” Manalo said.

Defense attorney Don West asked Manalo if Zimmerman told him, “This guy was beating me up and I shot him.”

“I was defending myself and I shot him,” said Manalo in response.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/29/justice/zimmerman-trial-recap/index.html?iref=allsearch

The tape audio clearly shows a highly emotional, even hysterical call for help. And what can probably be agreed to by all, is that with such an unsettling scream, the individual is in fear for his life.

George Zimmerman states he’s calling for help, because he feared for his life while getting beaten by Trayvon Martin.

Yet what’s also chilling, is since Zimmerman had a loaded gun in the ready to fire position, there’s another plausible scenario. Trayvon Martin was the one screaming for his life.

What the trial has done, at least in my mind, is bring up even more troubling questions.

Whatever the outcome of the trial, George Zimmerman will have live with the fact that he killed a young man who was merely walking back from the store.

So what’s a parent to do? Trayvon Martin was a lone black teen who was profiled. When kids are young, many parents caution children to stay in a group so that they aren’t singled out by someone looking to kidnap, rape, or far worse, murder. Yet when they get older and appear as a group, many times children of color are labeled “gangs” or “thugs” simply by sticking to what they’d been taught for safety. Unfortunately, on the night George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, I fear that if BOTH Martin and his 14 year old friend had been coming back from the store, there may have been two killings, judging from George Zimmerman’s paranoid state of mind.  

And what I find truly reprehensible, is how the defense is intent on painting Trayvon Martin as both the aggressor of this tragic situation, and with the most recent ruling, perhaps as a pot head who went ballistic. Thus the defense’s depiction of Trayvon Martin will come full circle, as they follow the playbook of portraying yet another black male as one who is violence prone, but especially when under the influence.

So when George Zimmerman makes this statement:

“This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”

Link: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/326700-full-transcript-zimmerman.html

It put me in mind of the Rodney King beating, where officers stated:

1:16 a.m. From Powell and Wind to the foot patrol: “I think he was dusted…”

Link: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/Kingtransmissions.html

This post is in development . . .

The verdict is in. And for me, certain things became clearer once the trial progressed.

It’s important to point out, that although the verdict is not guilty, that does not mean George Zimmerman is innocent.

Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman will forever be linked in history.

Without cross-examination, only Zimmerman’s account of what happened seems to be the accepted version. And sadly, throughout American history, the murder of an African American male holds less weight than letting a killer “get back to his life.”

A Lynching in Omaha, Nebraska in Sept of 1919. America has a sad history of letting killers go free.

For more history on how black males have been stereotyped in American society, see this post:

http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/i-am-trayvon-stop-stereotyping-black-males/

At the end of his closing statement, Mark O’Mara implored the jury, ” . . . let George Zimmerman get back to his life.”

Now, which “life” would that be?  

Chalk this one up to George Zimmerman’s defense attorneys. Because in order to paint Trayvon Martin as the aggressive big, scary black guy, they decide Zimmerman’s 18 months of MMA style training should be ignored, using witnesses and card board cut outs to infer that Zimmerman was somehow too pudgy, too short, too traumatized and couldn’t punch (yet lying down he could still shoot straight into the teen’s chest, striking Martin in the heart).

At the time of the murder, George Zimmerman was 5′ 7 inches and 204 pounds. In the initial police report, Zimmerman was described as weighing 170 pounds.

Link: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2012/images/03/28/sanford_files/PoliceReports.pdf

Zimmerman re-inacts the shooting, showing where his gun was holstered which appears as though it was behind, not in front or the side. In the same video, GZ states “I feel like he saw my gun.” The initial police report stated GZ gun holster was inside his pant waistband.

Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57457640/zimmerman-walks-through-fatal-fight-in-new-video/

Initial police report describes location on Zimmerman’s gun holster

Screen shot above is from Page 7 of Police report PDF

Link: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2012/images/03/28/sanford_files/PoliceReports.pdf

Trayvon Martin’s autopsy information shows he was 5′ 11 inches tall and weighed 158 pounds, contrary to the misinformation being spread on the internet, that Martin was 6′ 3 inches tall and heavier.

Link: Trayvon Martin Official Autopsy Report

Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57407115-504083/trayvon-martin-shooting-what-do-we-know-/

This was a very difficult case, especially considering Florida Law. And I don’t think it was a surprise that Zimmerman walked, especially in light of the Casey Anthony case.

To review, George Zimmerman took his duties of watching over his gated community as a calling of sorts:

“But even more than cars, he [Zimmerman] was concerned about black men on foot in the neighborhood. In August 2011, he called to report a black male in a tank top and shorts acting suspicious near the development’s back entrance. “[Complainant] believes [subject] is involved in recent S-21s”—break-ins—”in the neighborhood,” the call log states. The suspect, Zimmerman told the dispatcher, fit a recent description given out by law enforcement officers.

Three days later, he called to report two black teens in the same area, for the same reason. “[Juveniles] are the subjs who have been [burglarizing] in this area,” he told the dispatcher.”

Link: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/trayvon-shooters-911-calls-potholes-piles-trash-black-men

Until one night in 2012, he happened to see Trayvon Martin, and referred to a youth he did not know like this:

GEORGE ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining, and he’s just walking around, looking about.

911 DISPATCHER: OK. And this guy, is he white, black or Hispanic?

GEORGE ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.

911 DISPATCHER: Did you see what he was wearing?

GEORGE ZIMMERMAN: Yeah, a dark hoodie, like a grey hoodie, and either jeans or sweatpants and white tennis shoes.

911 DISPATCHER: Are you following him?

GEORGE ZIMMERMAN: Yeah.

911 DISPATCHER: OK, we don’t need you to do that.”

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/20/walking_while_black_florida_police_resist

 

For the PDF Transcript of the call, click full-transcript-zimmerman (Please note, the controversial “F***ng Coons” is redacted in this version, as are other words which are debated as being inaudible.

And defense attorney Mark O’Mara dared to ask Sabrina Fulton, Trayvon’s mother a question I found highly offensive, and he did it four different ways when he didn’t get the answer he sought: “And now dealing with the reality that he’s no longer here, certainly your hope as a mom, hold out hope as long as you can, that Trayvon Martin was in no way responsible for his own death, correct?”

See more on O’Mara’s WTF line of questioning here

George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin were complete strangers. They did not know each other. And it possibly could have stayed that way. Except George Zimmerman took a look at Trayvon Martin, and decided Martin looked suspicious.

What’s ironic, is that Zimmerman is the one with a public arrest record for assaulting a police officer and a domestic violence charge. During the trial Zimmerman’s martial arts instructor testified that George couldn’t punch and was out of shape, yet the gym is now touting Zimmerman’s fighting prowess in this marketing ploy:

Zimmerman Training Information, for those who want to learn MMA style fighting, but not really:

kogym dot com capitalizes on George Zimmerman’s infamy

HLN has unfortunately given Zimmerman’s self proclaimed “best friend” Frank Taafee more than his 15 minutes of fame. Taafee’s quips include calling Rachel Jeantel “Precious” and claiming Trayvon Martin was a thug, and that Martin lay in wait to accost Zimmerman but dropped a bag of weed in the process. Taaffee told another talking head arguing on the Nancy Grace show that he’d “Stand Your Ground” on him. But what Taafee also revealed, is that not only did George Zimmerman patrol the neighborhood with a 9mm gun, but with his Rottweiler.

I’ll just say that Zimmerman certainly took his duties as a neighborhood watch captain seriously. And some would say, to the extreme.

PDF on Zimmerman call history:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/327330/george-zimmerrman-911-call-history.pdf

911 Call history of George Zimmerman:

http://www.motherjones.com/documents/327330-george-zimmerrman-911-call-history

Here’s just one example of George Zimmerman “mis-remembering”:

“I’m very sorry for the loss of their son, I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little younger than I am. And I did not know if he was armed or not.”

Link:

http://live.wsj.com/video/zimmerman-apologizes-to-martin-family/19549A37-BBBD-4E33-AAAB-657FEF48418B.html#!19549A37-BBBD-4E33-AAAB-657FEF48418B

Yet here’s what Zimmerman states on the recording:

Dispatcher: “How old would you say he looks?”

Zimmerman: “He’s got a button on his shirt. Late teens.”

Link: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/326700-full-transcript-zimmerman.html

Dispatcher: “What’s your apartment number?”

Zimmerman: “It’s a home it’s 1950. Oh crap, I don’t want to give it all out. I don’t know where this kid is.”

Link: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/326700-full-transcript-zimmerman.html

Hannity: “Is there anything you regret? Do you regret getting out of the car to follow Trayvon, that night?

Zimmerman: “No sir”

Hannity: “Do you regret that you had a gun that night?”

Zimmerman: “No sir.”

Hannity: Do you feel you wouldn’t be here for this interview if you didn’t have a gun?”

Zimmerman: “No sir.”

Hannity: “Do you feel that you would not be here”

Zimmerman: “I feel that it was all God’s plan. And for me to second guess it, or judge it . . .uh  (shakes head no)

Hannity: “Is there anything you might do differently, in retrospect, now that time has passed a little bit?

Zimmerman: “No sir.”

Hannity: You know Detective Singleton quoted you as saying, ‘the bad guys always get away’. You also said that on the 911 tape. Did you have a feeling that there were  a lot of people get away with crimes? In other words were you sort of pre-disposed in your mind, in some way to think that criminals get away too often ?”

Zimmerman: “Not in general. . . “

Link: http://video.foxnews.com/v/1741927642001/

My hope is that Sabrina Fulton relies on her deep faith to see her through this, and that Tracy Martin and Trayvon’s brother are granted the strength to find peace. Because in truth, no matter what the verdict, Trayvon Martin is still deceased. As someone who’s lost a child, it’s difficult to explain to others the devastation of knowing a loved one will not return, and that when a child dies, it feels like the most un-natural thing in the world. So while George Zimmerman, Frank Taafee and Zimmerman’s lawyers can park themselves on Fox News for the next few months, I beg to differ with Attorney Don West. The “travesty” isn’t that George Zimmerman was ever tried for killing Trayvon Martin.

It’s that he became so enthralled with catching criminals, that on a rainy night in 2012, he wrongly profiled Trayvon Martin, and the rest is history or HIS-story.

This post is in development . . .

I  shouldn’t have to state this, but I will.

Yes, The Help was based on a “beloved” novel (see my post on “beloved” novels, where many of them contain offensive depictions of minorities, yet they’re still crowned “beloved” by some non-minorities in these two posts Beware the Beloved Character  and Classics We Now Question). And yes, The Help grossed well over 200 million when counting DVD sales, overseas and domestic box office, and its still popular, both in novel form and the film.  But the PR spun reason for the novel’s creation and the unwitting (?) errors and resurrection of highly stereotypical tropes of blacks, in both the book and film didn’t leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy, unlike some who enjoyed either the book, the movie, or both (I refused to view the movie. I read the book, and downloaded both versions of the screenplays of the film). And I’ll say this also. I recall segregation.

These are solely my opinions, and this list is in no particular order:

Oprah in The Butler

Oprah’s character is named Gloria Gaines in The Butler. She’s flawed, has an active sex life, and at least gets a decent wardrobe budget. In short, she’s been given the chance to act like a normal woman back during segregation, which is a more rounded portrayal of a black female in my opinion. The film is very loosely influenced by the life of a real white house butler named Eugene Allen.

The Help had three MAMMIES, both on the pages of the book and on screen.

Here’s an example of how Aibileen was described in an early screenplay of the book:

Click for a larger view:

Early script of The Help describes Aibileen, hitting the trope of the black Mammy to a T.

The items in yellow are the stereotypes associated with blacks in America, especially those who are dark in complexion, which the book and the movie capitalized on for unsuspecting readers and moviegoers. In American history, dark complexioned African Americans were used to promote negative propaganda on how other blacks behaved and SHOULD BEHAVE. Some examples of what items and ads were popular in depicting blacks during segregation, which those involved in the making and marketing of the book and movie glossed over:

Mammy 2.0 Image from Ferris State Museum of Jim Crow Memorabilia. Similar to lawn jockey’s, items depicting black women as hefty and dark against their white uniforms were popularly sold for kitchen ornaments

Hires ad, “Yassuh . . .” Black males were also required to grovel and give service with a smile

Sanka Coffee Ad, featuring the sassy maid caricature

Mammy lamp. Not sold on HSN, but popular during segregation. Image from Ferris State Museum of Jim Crow Memorabilia

To review: Aibileen was a rip-off of Delilah from the 1933 novel and original 1934 film version of Imitation of Life. Long suffering, cowering, cringing, with the patience of a saint and more important, she was asexual (blindly loyal Mammies can’t have a longtime companion, as per their historical depiction, because they’re the “good” chaste Mammy). The novel has a seriously low down depiction of Aibileen’s lothario of a husband Clyde, running off with Cocoa in the offensive “spoilt cootchie” scene where Aibileen thinks that by the grace of God, she’s given a venereal disease to her rival because she prayed and everyone in her church thinks she’s got a special pipeline to God’s ear  (Pgs 23-24 in the hard copy of the novel). The scene also contains this line “You saying people think I got the black magic?” stated by Aibileen, even though she’s supposed to be a devout Christian, which adds yet another negative slur from segregation, that black Americans revert back to paganism or voodoo, no matter what religion we believe in. It’s also important to note that Kathryn Stockett and Octavia Spencer went on the road and performed this scene to sold out white audiences. Octavia Spencer apparently had no problem with Stockett inserting an often told slur about blacks during segregation. For more on their magical minstrel road tour, see this post

The spoilt cootchie reading, where Stockett voices Minny and Octavia Spencer does her best “What you talkin’ ’bout Willis?”
expression.

The movie makes no mention on Treelore’s daddy, thus cementing the often used stereotype of single black women without their child’s father in their lives.

Minny was a knock off of Mammy from Gone With The Wind, and just about every bossy black maid/domestic in film and television. Since the actress who portrayed Minny once worked as a comedian in real life, the part appeared “Taylor” made for Octavia Spencer.

Minny is described in the Dreamworks screenplay of The Help, which was available for downloading online during Academy Awards voting

Mammy and Minny, together at last. This image is from racismstillexisttumblr.com

Too bad she was saddled with cringe worthy, historically offensive lines like “Frying chicken tend to make you feel better about life” as though none of the principals involved in the movie had any inkling how fried chicken has been used to mock and malign blacks in American history:

Scene from the film The Birth of a Nation, where a corrupt black legislator is eating a piece of fried chicken. This still hailed as a classic film has several scenes stereotyping blacks

This GE ad uses the stereotype of blacks and fried chicken, picturing a child.

1950s bigoted advertising, for of all things, blacks and fried chicken. This is just one of the many ways African Americans were used as symbols of mockery

Tate Taylor’s short film Chicken Party, starring Octavia Spencer, Allison Janney and of all things, “fried chicken”

I’m pretty sure Mary J is wondering how come The Help got a pass, while she got backlash:

Mary J Blige Chicken loving Burger King commercial that caused a major backlash and was pulled by the company

“The Be Without You singer remained silent  while critics slammed her for taking part in a short film that many deemed  racist. But she told Martinez: ‘I would never just  bust out singing about chicken and chicken wings.’ “

And:

“Burger King did not admit to pulling the ad  because of the criticism. The fast food giant said it did so because of music  licensing issues. Nonetheless, the company has since apologized to the singer.

And Blige also wanted to say sorry if it  appeared she knew in advance how the commercial would turn out.

‘I want to apologize to everyone who was  offended who thought I would do something that was so disrespectful to our  culture,’ the Prison Song musician said.

‘I would never do anything like that. I  thought I was doing something right.’ “

Link to article on Mary’s quotes: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2166748/Mary-J-Blige-says-racist-Burger-King-advert-crushed-her.html

Constantine was the wise old sage Mammy, one who gives comfort and advice, much like all old Hollywood Mammies were enlisted to do. Veteran actress Ethel Waters played this particular trope to the hilt, on Broadway and on film (listen, I’ve got nothing but mad respect for Louise Beavers, Hattie McDaniel and Ethel Waters, as well as other entertainers who worked during segregation).

Pinky Promo poster, starring Ethel Waters and Jean Crain. The nurturing domestic was a popular character during segregation

Ethel Waters gives comfort, just like Aibileen and Constantine in The Help

Louise Beavers in nurturing mode

Louise Beavers in Bell Starr, once again in nurturing mode

Delilah (played by Louise Beavers) begging to stay in Imitation of Life, the 1934 film version

Cicely Tyson as Constantine in film version of The Help, coddling a young Skeeter

And if there’s still any doubt the maids were Mammies, here’s a quote from actress Viola Davis from an interview with Essence Magazine:

“Of course I had trepidations. Why do I have to play the mammy? But what do you do as an actor if one  of the most multi-faceted and rich roles you’ve ever been given is a maid in 1962 Mississippi? Do you not  take the role because you feel in some ways it’s not a good message to send to Black people?”  – Viola Davis, in a quote from Essence Magazine

Read more in my breakdown of the parts two beautiful actresses decided to play in http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/all-souled-out-in-the-help/

Primary poster for The Butler

Another poster from The Butler

The tagline claims “One Quiet Voice can Ignite A Revolution” but much like the restrained performance of Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day the character Forest Whitaker plays doesn’t really cause waves, unless its in reference to him asking for a raise for himself and the other staff twice. I’m guessing the tagline piggy backed off The Help’s “Change begins with a Whisper.”

The Help Movie Poster (US version)

The US cover of the novel chose the Disneyesque three little birdies, unlike the UK version:

US book cover for The Help

UK Cover of the Help AKA The cover they dared not put on US bookshelves

In the novel of The Help, Aibileen and Minny wanted no part of the civil rights movement, as the plotline of helping Skeeter write the book “HELP” became their primary focus. This was changed for the film. Medgar Evers murder became the catalyst for assisting Skeeter, and not the jailing of Yule May as in the book. For more on this, please see the post Fact vs. Fiction surrounding The Help

Note the variations in complexion among the actors hired for The Butler

Thankfully the movie version of The Help didn’t stick with the misguided notion from the book. In the novel, there’s the  separation of Lulabelle, Gretchen and Yule May as light in complexion, articulate and slim, in stark contrast to the Mammyfied  trio of Minny, Aibileen and Constantine as heavy, dark and unable to speak English properly. However, what the film did in an attempt to correct this, was to make just about all the maids one complexion fits all, which was dark brown. All this did was reinforce the stereotype of having  dark complexioned African Americans being relegated to domestic status, when real history shows even African Americans who were light in complexion were also steered into domestic work. Unfortunately, both now and during segregation there was a belief of excess physical prowess and limited mental intelligence within the black culture, and dark African Americans were pinned with this misguided theory far more than those who were light in skin tone. Sadly, both the book and the movie of The Help continued this offensive trend.

Lulabelle’s name was changed to Rachel in the movie, and the film also dropped the tragic mulatto storyline that was also a bust in the book.

The novel also had the highly insulting and totally WTF theory of ”the blacker the better” line used by Skeeter to explain why all the maids she interviewed were described like this: ”The women are tall, short, black like asphalt or caramel brown. If your skin is too white, I’m told,  you’ll never get hired. The blacker the better. – (Pg 257) Skeeter

All the “blacker the better” maids in one room, as the film attempts to duplicate Stockett’s words with heavy handed film shots

Pretty Maids all in a row

Now, take a look a pic of Mrs. Demetrie McLorn, the real maid from Kathryn Stockett’s childhood (publicly stated as the inspiration for the character of Aibileen), and someone Stockett claimed in the back of her book was “dark skinned”:

Photo of Mrs. Demetrie McLorn, Stockett’s grandparents maid. Funny, but she doesn’t look dark complexioned to me. And that’s a white baby she’s holding.

 

 

 

 

4) The lead character and his wife remain together in The Butler

 

Some of the criticism of The Butler concerns how one-note Forest Whitaker plays the part, and those upset at Jane Fonda playing Nancy Reagan (oh, and hating on Oprah and John Cusack) The Help was lauded even though the black male was demeaned something fierce in the book, with BS like:

“my no-good drunk daddy” – Minny, describing her father

“Plenty of black men leave their families behind like trash in a dump, but it’s just not something the colored woman do. We’ve got the kids to think about.”  (Pg 311 of the hard copy book. Minny, giving a biased and unproven sociological assessment of black men that should never have been part of the book, as its another stereotype and a negative myth that was spread during segregation).

“We start calling  his daddy Crisco, cause you can’t fancy up a man done run off on his family. Plus he the greasiest no-ccount you ever known” – (Pg 5 Aibileen trains her then adolescent son Treelore to call his absentee father Crisco)

During slavery, segregation and even today, far too often the black male was used as a scapegoat while black females were put on a fake pedestal because of how well we could cook, grin or watch somebody else’s kids. Black males of a certain age were usually considered “Brutes” and depicted as violence prone.

 

Betty Page surrounded by the Brute stereotype

 

 

Intra-racism with the Black Brute Stereotype

Very young black males and elderly males weren’t the issue (See Uncle Ben in your local grocery store).

Uncle Ben, now distinguished looking and a permanent sales image for Uncle Ben’s Rice

It was when a black male became a young man that history shows they were the primary targets for a lynching or deadly assault. At just 14 years of age, Emmet Till was reportedly killed because he flirted with a white woman.  In The Help, Connor beds and abandons Constantine to raise Lullabelle/Rachel alone. In keeping with the stereotype that follows dark complexioned blacks, Aibileen states “he was black as me” as if there’s some problem with being dark-skinned. And don’t get me started on Aibileen doing a color swatch test with a roach, where she states on page 189, ”He black, blacker than me.” Bull. Shit.

Minny is paired with the brute named Leroy, who’s called a fool in the novel, and given this choice line “You don’t get tired. Not til the tenth month” (Pg 406 when Leroy corners a very pregnant Minny with asinine reasoning. And no, it’s not written as if its a joke. Leroy is serious when he says it).

So just like in the book, Aibileen is abandoned by her man, living alone in the movie. Minny leaves her husband and runs into the waiting arms of the good, hunky segregationist Johnny Foote and his blonde bombshell wife. And Constantine is abandoned by Connor and remains an asexual hermit, living to give love to Skeeter.

Aibileen writing out her thoughts and living the life of an asexual hermit. Those who love the novel and film don’t dare dwell on why Aibileen, at thirty-three years old would swear off having a companion of any kind, whether male or female. The same thing happens with Constantine, which completes their assent to Mammyhood

And to show just how unequal the treatment was behind the scenes regarding the black and white depictions, notice how two characters who practiced segregation in the film got marketed overseas:

That “Southern Gentleman” and “Dreamboat” Johnny Foote

“A Handsome Good Ole Boy” You’ve got to be kidding

That’s not all. While the black characters played by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer were praised for how kind and sassy they were, a double standard was at work in the PR department, focusing on the attractiveness of the white stars:

Click for a larger view

Hilly’s marketed as well groomed and pretty, while Minny’s only PR is about her cooking skills

 

 

 

 

5) The Butler’s lack of merchandise

 

Trust me, this is a good thing. Unlike The Help’s collaboration with HSN where pots and pans by Emeril were touted as well as dresses that Hilly and her gal pals wore and perfume, in a misguided attempt to milk even more a profit without regard to the subject at hand. The only thing they didn’t sell were maid uniforms:

HSN product tie in for The Help. Emeril’s pots and pans were on sale, but thankfully no maids uniforms were part of this misguided promo for the film.

For more on the selling of The Help brand, see this post:

Making The Help Pay

6) The historical accuracy backlash is a smoke screen

The movie states at the beginning that it was “inspired” by the story of Eugene Allen, who actually served in the white house as a butler. Mr. Allen’s story was told in the 2008 Washington post article “A Butler Well Served By this Election”    written by Wil Haygood.

What has a number of very vocal critics up in arms, is the liberties taken, as if the film is based on the book. It’s one thing to state “inspired by”. It’s another to state “based on”. Controversy dogged the film “A Beautiful Mind” when events were changed and added. “The Hurricane” also edited out information that became the source of controversy during Oscar voting, and some believe the controversy cost Denzel Washington an Academy Award for Best Actor.

The Rape of Cecil Gaines mother:

Mariah Carey plays Cecil’s mother, who’s raped and her husband killed by a racist. While this didn’t happen in the childhood of the real butler (remember, “inspired” vs. “based on”) it’s not like black women weren’t disproportionately sexually assaulted during this time period. As chronicled in Danielle L. McGuire’s chilling non-fiction novel  At The Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance , the assaults and gang rapes of black women weren’t given the gravity the crime needed.

 

At The Dark End of The Street by Danielle L. McGuire

 

 

“Long before Rosa Parks became famous for resisting Jim Crow laws, she was
engaged in advocating for social justice for black women who were the victims of
sexual violence at the hands of white men. Historian McGuire aims to rewrite the
history of the civil rights movement by highlighting sexual violence in the
broader context of racial injustice and the fight for freedom. Parks worked as
an investigator for the NAACP branch office in Montgomery, Alabama, specializing
in cases involving black women who had been sexually assaulted by white
men––cases that often went untried and were the political opposite of the
allegations of black men raping white women ending in summary lynching with or
without trials. McGuire traces the history of several rape cases that triggered
vehement resistance by the NAACP and other groups, including the 1975 trial of
Joan Little, who killed a white jailer who sexually assaulted her. Despite the
long tradition of dismissing charges brought by blacks against whites, several
of the cases ended in convictions, as black women asserted their right to be
treated justly. –Vanessa Bush –This text refers to the Hardcover
edition.

 

 

 

Discovered writings by Rosa Parks disclosed her fight against an employer who tried to sexually assault her. There’s also the recently deceased daughter of staunch segregationist and senator Strom Thurmond.

“An attorney for the former senator’s family confirmed in 2003 that Thurmond fathered a child with a teenage black housekeeper in 1925. Her mother, Carrie Butler, worked as a maid at the Thurmond family home in Edgefield, South Carolina. At the time of Washington-Williams’ birth, Butler was 16 and Thurmond was 22, unmarried and living in his parents’ home.”

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/05/us/south-carolina-thurmond-daughter-obit

 

 

So Essie Mae Washington-Williams mother was probably 15 when she conceived.

And here’s an actual letter, voicing a plea from a group of black southern ministers regarding the sexual assaults of black females, from very young children onward. This is a scan from an actual newspaper in Jackson, MS from 1963:

A plea from baptist ministers

 

 

 

So the primary argument appears to be that the movie shows a rape and other scenes, because its some critics insist upon it staying true to the life of Eugene Allen, when it’s not and never claimed to be about Allen. When Allen’s son gave the film his blessing, that gave critics additional “proof” to claim it should have stayed true to Allen’s life.

But here’s the thing, had Lee Daniels gone ahead and never revealed where he got the idea for the film, and those who knew Allen’s tale realized the similarities, he’d still be in trouble. Unlike Kathryn Stockett, who denied basing the part of Aibileen on real life maid Abilene Cooper, even though there are similarities between Cooper’s life and the fictional Aibileen Clark, like their first names and the nick name of “Aibee” that Mae Mobley calls Aibileen. The real deal Abilene Cooper also looks more like the film version of the character, played by Viola Davis, and in a UK interview she states that Kathryn Stockett’s sister-in-law told her the character was based on her:

” Abilene says she first learned of the book  when she arrived at work to find her employer in tears. ‘Carroll was crying and  she says, ‘Miss Abilene, I’ve got something to tell you.’

She says, ‘Kathryn’s wrote a book and you are  the main character. Rob told her not to use your name. ’ Then a copy of the  book arrived for Abilene from the author with a note saying that while a main  character is an ‘African-American child carer named Aibileen’, she bore no  resemblance to the real Abilene.”

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2033369/Her-family-hired-maid-12-years-stole-life-Disney-movie.html

 

Abilene Cooper’s photo from the UK Daily Mail. This is the “real deal” Abilene

 

Was any of the information listed above carried by the major US media outlets? NO. So why the double standard, why was there a need to ignore the controversy over The Help, yet a conservation news station like Fox wants to rant about The Butler?

Adding in Obama and the “yes we can” slogan  further inflamed critics of The Butler who believe the movie has a liberal agenda, even though the film includes just about every president from Eisenhower to Obama (all but two in that time period are missing, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford)

The smoke screen is when counterarguments are brought up, critics still want to hold the movie to sticking with Eugene’s life, or basically, don’t say anything bad about Republicans, you liberal! 

Thus the whole thing has become political, divided along the lines of those who believe Reagan is wrongly portrayed, because he’s still the Great Communicator and a symbol of all things conservatives should aspire to.

Also, adding a second younger son to the fictional Gaines family,  who dies over in Vietnam is another criticism, as well as the activism of Gaines’ older son in the movie. Oh, and there’s the complaints about the movie beating “Kick Ass 2″ at the box office, and also The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones as well as The World’s End.

Now, a few of the reviews for the film:

“What the film never settles on is a point of view: Is the subservience that makes Cecil a success as a butler (“You hear nothing; you see nothing; you only serve,” he’s told early on at the White House) something to be admired or decried? Is Cecil someone, as a character in the film points out, who by virtue of being hardworking and trustworthy defies racial stereotypes and advances his people? No, his powerlessness, ultimately, is something shameful.”

Link: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-15/news/41412198_1_lee-daniels-the-butler-wil-haygood

“More keen on name dropping than complex storytelling, “The Butler” fails to get at anything tangible or tell us what we don’t already know. Daniels simply picked up a U.S. history textbook and cast Hollywood’s finest; it’s entertaining, but forgettable.”

Link: http://news.moviefone.com/2013/08/14/lee-daniels-the-butler-review-10-things-to-know/

7) No white savior character

 

EW promotes The Help with an insert of Emma Stone sans Davis and Spencer

 

 

For the most part, Cecil Gaines life plays out minus a character inserted, like a non-minority reporter, best friend, adopted mom, etc. whose presence takes up half the movie. Some might argue that the presidents and their wives could serve as this trope, but with the limited amount of screen time each president has, this is debatable. In The Help, Skeeter is someone both white readers and moviegoers can identify with her wide eyed approach to learning about how the black maids suffer and endure, even though she’s been brought up to believe segregation is simply a way of life. In the novel, Skeeter never admits whether she believes blacks are equal and integration needs to happen. And though she graduated from Ole Miss, back then, the school was well  known for racial intolerance.

 

Ole Miss sign, you can’t “miss” it

 

 

Solidarity for Segregation at Ole Miss

 

 

How Skeeter became so liberal is never fully addressed in either the book or movie. It’s a question that was asked by a blogger named Macon D, who identified himself as white and said this in 2009: on his site:

 

“I find it telling that when an interviewer asked Stockett if Skeeter is an autobiographical character, she replied, “Absolutely not. I was never that brave. Frankly, I didn’t even question the situation down there. It was just life, and I figured that’s how the whole world lived. It wasn’t until I was about 30 years old that I started looking back on it.”

Exactly. And that’s exactly what’s wrong with the thoroughly non-racist Skeeter. I’m not surprised that it took moving away from Mississippi, in terms of both distance and time, for Kathryn Stockett to “question the situation down there,” and I’m certainly glad she’s now “questioning” it. Racist thought and behavior on the part of whites during the Jim Crow era was just the norm back then, so seeing the evil in that, let alone thoroughly resisting it, would likely be very difficult while living in the thick of it, and while enjoying the privileges of membership in the white club.

And so, again, it seems implausible that someone like Skeeter, having been born and raised at that time in Mississippi, would be so completely outside of that norm, so different from other white people. And again, it does seem plausible that Stockett (and perhaps her editors) portrayed her that way so that white readers can more readily see themselves in Skeeter. In this sense, and others, this novel is thoroughly white-framed entertainment, designed to appease, rather than challenge, the ostensibly liberal sentiments of white consumers.”

 

Link: http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/11/consume-racially-themed-entertainment.html

 

 

Read more analysis on the character of Skeeter here: http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/is-skeeter-two-faced/

 

 

To be continued, because this post is in development . . .

I can’t make it any clearer than the title of this post, which I’d originally labeled as “Yes, black people lived in England during the 1800s U stupid F@#%,” but decided to change it. Like most things on this site, I’m willing to back up my statement with copies of drawings, paintings, and links from educators around the globe because . . .

Well, the question has come up on the internet, because of this:

Dracula reimagined on NBC. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays Dracula on NBC’s new show

In truth, I fell asleep during the premiere last night, after waiting much to long for Drac to do all the things a naughty vampire should do. Drac’s first victim was a stuffy aristocrat, and all the audience got to see was fake blood thrown against a pillar of a house. The show is visually stunning (yes, even the scene I mentioned was shot and lit quite well). I enjoyed the references to real history (Nikola Tesla) and I’m willing to stick around long enough to hope Jonathan Rhys Meyers gets to drop the American accent, and ex-Morgana from the BBC show Merlin, actress Katie McGrath gets to darken her hair. I get that “Mina” is THE ONE on this show. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be another attractive brunette. And yes, McGrath looks just as fetching as a blonde. But it smacks of the producers thinking viewers can’t distinguish one brunette from another, especially since there are now two blondes on the show, and its not hard to tell them apart.

Here’s hoping for a bit more spark, intensity . . . something. I dunno. Meyer’s is charismatic as usual, but there’s still something missing with this show.

Now we come to the reason for the title of this post.

Dracula promo photo, from Vanity Fair.com

Come closer. I mean, its easy to miss, however there’s mass confusion in some corners of the internet because of THIS:

NBCs Dracula confuses some people because the cast includes a black manservant

I suppose its easier to believe a vampire would live in England during the 1800s instead of a POC (person of color).

Nonso Anozie portrays R. M. Renfield, an assistant/manservant to Drac. Anozie has a killer voice and on-screen presence. The first time I saw him was on Game of Thrones, and I’m glad to see he made it out of the vault (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Nonso Anozie Bio, per google.com

Anyway, much like Sleepy Hollow actress Nicole Beharie’s hair became fodder for gossip, it seems having a black man over in England during the late nineteenth century has some people going “HUH, how can this be?”

I realize the internet can be full of trolls, especially ones who try to highjack threads with “black chick ruins the show” and “why is there a black person playing this role?”

So I thought I’d make this a teachable moment. I’ll be updating this post during the day, since I’m not able to finish it in one sitting. And now I give you, YES, BLACK PEOPLE DID LIVE IN ENGLAND DURING THE 1800s (and even previous to that time period).

Drawing by William Hogarth 1773 title: Four Times of the Day: Noon
Where photo can be found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FourTimesNoon.jpg

Black woman dressing white woman. Drawing by William Hogarth, 1773 title Four Times of the Day: Noon

Playbill featuring Ira Aldridge, a black actor in England during the mid 1800s.

Excerpt from the site Victoria and Albert Museum online:

‘The African Roscius’ was the first black actor to play major Shakespearean parts, appearing for the first time on the London stage and rapidly rising to stardom. He won acclaim as Othello and in many other Shakespearean roles including King Lear, Shylock, Macbeth and Hamlet.

Born in New York in 1807 little is known about his early life. By 1825 he had arrived in England and begun to find acting work. He appeared at the Theatre Royal, Dublin in the same season as Edmund Kean in December 1831. Kean wrote a letter of recommendation to the manager of the Theatre Royal, Bath, on Aldridge’s behalf, praising his ‘wondrous versatility’.

He made his London debut in 1833, as Othello at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Some newspapers protested against a black actor being permitted to appear at Covent Garden, and the tone of their reviews the next day is somewhat sullen. Unable to criticise a good performance outright, the Morning Post grudgingly concedes that ‘it was doubtless sufficiently good to be considered very curious’.

Link with more info and pictures: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/black-and-asian-performance-in-britain-1800-1899/

Main page: http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/b/black-theatre-and-performance/

Stamp in honor of John Archer

The Life and times of John Archer, Mayor of Battersea, South London

Excerpt from the Tumblr site MedievalPOC:

John Richard Archer was born on 8 June 1863 at 3 Blake Street, Liverpool, the son of Richard Archer and his wife Mary Theresa Burns. Richard was a ship’s steward from Barbados, and his wife Mary Theresa was illiterate, making her mark with an X on the birth certificate. She was an Irish Catholic, the faith in which John grew up and remained for the rest of his life.

When he was elected Mayor of Battersea 50 years later, John replied to press speculation about where he might have come from with the remark that he had been born – “in a little obscure village in England probably never heard of until now – the city of Liverpool”. He went on to declare – “I am a Lancastrian bred and born”.

Characteristically pugnacious, but he had been stung by reports which, guessing wildly, said that he had been born in Rangoon or somewhere in India. He was actually part of the already well-established black population in Liverpool.

Later John Archer “travelled round the world”, probably with the merchant navy, so while the newspaper speculation about his origins are off the mark, they might have been provoked by his familiarity with various different parts of the world.

His wife Bertha, for instance, was a black Canadian, but by 1901 the census lists him as living at Brynmaer Road, near Battersea Park.

Link: http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/59864012872/1800s-week-photograph-of-john-archer-mayor-of

I also found this “based on a true story” film called BELLE, which will be released next year

Poster for the movie BELLE

Description:

Belle is inspired by the true story of Dido Elizebeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), the illegitimate mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral. Raised by her aristocratic great-uncle Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) and his wife (Emily Watson), Belle’s lineage affords her certain privileges, yet the color of her skin prevents her from fully participating in the traditions of her social standing. Left to wonder if she will ever find love, Belle falls for an idealistic young vicar’s son bent on change who, with her help, shapes Lord Mansfield’s role as Lord Chief Justice to end slavery in England.

Trailer for the movie:

For the actual story on Dido, please refer to this link:

http://mixedracemagazine.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/dido-elizabeh-bell/

Excerpt from site:

Dido married John Davinier, a gentleman steward, in 1793 at St George’s, Hanover Square together they had three sons: twins Charles and John (baptised at St George’s on 8 May 1795) and William Thomas (baptised at St. George’s on 26 January 1802).  They lived in  what is now Ebury Street, Pimlico.

I just wanted to add this, because I found the sculpture so arresting:

Mauresque Noire aka Black Moorish Woman by Charles Cordier, 1856

Bio on sculptor Charles Cordier

Link for more information:

http://michigancitizen.com/presenting-black-moorish-woman/

Info on Charles Cordier     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Henri_Joseph_Cordier

More great links, until I get back:

http://www.blackpresence.co.uk/

The Black Presence in Britain site

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Black.jsp

Old Bailey website

To be continued . . .

Protest against stereotyping African Americans

UPDATED TO ADD:

I mean, WTF is wrong with some grown folks? Before I get to Julianne Hough’s big ass gaffe, take a look at these coaches who decided it was cool to go in blackface to a Halloween party (note to those who think its somehow okay to darken or lighten one’s face to portray another race. IT’S OFFENSIVE, and no amount of back-peddling or excuses like “It’s Halloween!” means the offender gets a pass. Please understand, I think that people have every right to dress in the character of their choice. However, once they reach for the makeup to either darken or even lighten as if to say “Look at me! I’ve become a black person!” or “Look at me! I’ve turned into a white person!” then common sense should kick in. Back away from the makeup table and ask yourself, is this really necessary?

Well, I guess it would be, if the intent is mockery. Because it sure isn’t flattery.

A couple of high school coaches and two others made up in Nu skol blackface. Photo from ibtimes site

Link where photo found:

http://www.ibtimes.com/coaches-dress-cool-runnings-blackface-costume-sparks-outrage-photos-1448450

Be sure to read the comments defending these idiots, since their punishment was suspension (the school employees, not sure about the others) yet for their defenders, even that was way too much. It’s too bad there’s no one standing up for the kids who’ll always have to wonder if these guys ever singled them out or made them feel less than, simply because of their skin color. Because thinking its okay to mock another culture like this, brings up troubling questions as to these guys being partial, or even their hidden biases. Thankfully, some detractors realize how misguided, insulting and hurtful their appearance was:

Link: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Serra-High-School-Officials-to-Address-Coaches-Blackface-Appearance-230244431.html

Also this week, former dancer and some time actress Julianne Hough decided to dress up as her favorite actress from the show Orange is the New Black, Suzanne ‘Crazy Eyes’ Warren played by Uzo Aduba.

Julianne Hough wanted attention. And now she’s got it

From the darkening of her skin and eyebrows, to knotting and also darkening her hair, Julianne decided to totally ”inhabit” the character.

Julianne Hough’s version of blackface

What’s ironic is that while the rest of her friends were also dressed as characters from the show, Julianne took it too a whole ‘nother level.

Another level of offensiveness.

It’s being reported that while Hough walked into the party in blackface (or brownface, take your pick) she wisely wiped it off during the course of the evening. And I have to believe before she even walked out of the house for the evening, someone, possibly among her friends mentioned how the coloring of her face could be taken.

Hough issued an apology after feeling the backlash:

Julianne Hough tweets an apology

Much like others who don blackface, brownface, redface, yellowface and even whiteface, Hough wants it known that her “intent” wasn’t to be disrespectful.

BULL. SHIT. I submit that Hough knew exactly what she was doing. It’s just that she figured it would be funny, and since there’s no hard and fast rule against darkening or lightening one’s face, I mean, what’s the big deal?

To no one’s surprise, Hough’s brother Derek has issued some sort of “but she’s really sweet” excuse for his sister:

“She’s so apologetic. She’s so so sorry and I just hope that we can all forgive her and move on,” he said.  “She’s my little baby sister and she’s the sweetest thing ever. She is just beyond beside herself… Obviously, it wasn’t her brightest moment in her life, but hopefully we can move on.”

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/29/derek-hough-blackface_n_4175160.html

Other apologists have jumped to Hough’s defense, giving the standard BS excuses like “she’s young, she didn’t know about the history of blackface” to “but the Wayan brothers did a whole film in whiteface, and we didn’t object!”

I don’t give a shit what the Wayans did. I didn’t go see White Girls, and when it came on cable I changed the channel. “White Girls” in no shape or form makes up for the centuries of blacks and other people of color being portrayed like this:

One of the most “Beloved” entertainers, Al Jolson doing a parody of a black male, singing to his “Mammy” in blackface

Al Jolson, a beloved American entertainer in blackface singing about his “Mammy”

And this:

The creators of the radio show portraying Amos and Andy in blackface

It should be noted that during old skol blackface, segregated times, actual African Americans were expected to behave like the stereotypes created for them. Thus, icons like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben were born:

Everybody’s favorite “Aunt”, Aunt Jemima, still “large and in charge” even today

So when I’m asked why I have utter distain for The Help, especially the caricatured black characters, it’s because I recognized the domestics in the film and novel were really MAMMIES, not resilient maids.

To quote Actress Viola Davis, “Why do I have to play the Mammy?” – quote from July 2011 issue of Essence Magazine:

So while the publisher and film producers continued to spin the tale of “sassy” Minny, “docile” Aibilene and “loyal” Constantine as honorable characters (much like advertisers tried to convince black folks that “sassy” Aunt Jemima wasn’t a caricature, and that Amos ‘N Andy weren’t offensive, but authentic, because the writers had been around black people and “studied” our ways:

The Pittsburgh Press Jul 28,1929 article on Amos ‘n Andy

Instead of a Mammy Monument in our national’s capital (proposed and almost passed in 1923. For more information, see this post) we now have The Help on paper and celluloid.

More recently, mis-steps have been made when other celebrities try to get into the “act” of becoming another culture:

Ashton Kutcher in Brownface ad that was pulled

Or even local theater:

Brownface in action during a production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood

And this:

These people thought dressing as Trayvon Martin and George Zimmeran would be hilarious. Only no one is laughing, And now, neither are they.

Or this, which reduced blacks to a fashion accessory, per Dolche and Gabbana :

Jemima Jewelry

Jemima Jewelry close up

Fashion Designer from Dolce and Gabbana dons old skol blackface at party called “Disco Africa”

Read more about this “party” here, though a warn you, a shower may be needed afterward in order to wash away the stench:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/fashion-designer-blackface-halloween-party_n_4170014.html

And this book promo, for a completely misguided and offensive self-pubbed novel that shall not be named, but the author was publicly stated she was certain that those who didn’t like her book were blacks who hadn’t read it.  So determined that the world view her misunderstood masterpiece, this same author published a sequel, I kid you not:

Sexual chocolate blackface. Yes, this is still “blackface” though the book calls it “midnight luster”

Oh, and lest anyone think that its only old people doing this shit, check out this Australian woman’s twenty-first birthday party pics that she’s apparently really proud of, which feature whites in blackface and also wearing KKK outfits. I won’t post them, but you can view them here:

Link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/african-themed-21st-birthday_n_4138573.html

Now, when confronted, apparently she had the nerve to claim this in response:

“In fact as you can tell from the photos I dressed up as cleopatra, whilst MAJORITY of my guests came as animals, that can be found in africa or wore traditional african clothes or even dressed up as famous people who come from africa. If anything this was to celebrate the amazing country and people.”

Her goal is to teach in Africa, and I truly hope someone has the good sense not to let her into the country.

I think it’s best that I step away from the computer right now . . .

And I will, however I want to add this. While LL Cool J says to “lighten up” and there are times that I’ve done just that, because quite frankly, when someone decides to portray another culture, the context is important.

So while Robert Downey Jr. did this:

Robert Downey Jr. as Lincoln Osirus from the comedy Tropic Thunder

Ben Stiller wisely added Brandon T. Jackson to call out Downey’s character:

Brandon T. Jackson as rapper Alpha Chino

From the film Tropic Thunder:

Kirk Lazarus: All right fellas, we’re gonna make camp, rest up. Y’all might be in for a treat. You know back before the war broke out I was a saucier in San Antone. I bet I could collar up some of them greens, yeah, some crawfish out the paddy, yo’! Ha! I’m makin’ some crabapples for dessert now, yo! Hell yeah, ha!

Alpa Chino: [mocking Kirk] Hell yeah! Ha! That’s how we all talk? We all talk like dis, “suh”? Yes suh, ha! Yeah mmm-hmm get some crawfish, and some ribs, ha! Ye-aah. You’re Australian! Be Australian! Excuse me, Kangaroo Jack!

[hops away like a kangaroo]

Kirk Lazarus: [confused] I get excited about my foods, man.

Readers, I’m interested in what you have to say. Please leave your thoughts in the comments section, or take this short poll: