Most people who see “The Help” are giving it high praise, but I found myself with mixed feelings about it prior to going. The film is about a myriad of Southern black women upon whose backs white success was built and for whom things have not changed a lot by the film’s end. It alludes to, even arguably sanitizes, the Jim Crow South.
White people like to think of ourselves as more evolved than the white women in this film, and it is easy to feel good about the benevolence of the white woman who brings the plight of these women to light. But the marvelous Viola Davis, arguably the main actress in the story, got second billing under Emma Stone. I could not help but wonder: What do black women think of “The Help?”
I went to this film with my mother, who lived through the Civil Rights movement and believes that the portrayal of the early 1960s in America was a true one. In the packed theater with us, I noticed, were many older black women who I would estimate were in their 40s and up. At many times throughout the film, the theater rang with the shouts of the black women, something I found as fascinating and surprising as I found it entertaining.
“You tell it, sister!” shouted one.
“Aw, you KNOW she did!” yelled another.
At one point, a moment that was supposed to have been poignant erupted into peals of laughter because of one woman shouting, “You gonna go home and kick his ASS!”
I was not sure what to expect upon going to the movie and not being entirely comfortable with its premise. What I observed, however, was a theater packed to the gills with a majority of black women for whom this film resonated enough to make them yell out loud.
After the film, my mother and I found ourselves leaving the theater at the same time as another mother and daughter, both African-American. I asked because I was truly interested in their answer: “What did both of you think of the movie?”
The daughter explained that she, for the most part, does not hear racist talk but when she does, there seem to be plenty of people, of both races, who object. Her mother said that she’d had an aunt who was a domestic in the South at the same time shown in the film.
“She raised about 15 white babies,” said the woman. “And when she died, it was every single one of those white babies who came back, paid for the funeral, and saw her laid to rest properly. It was beautiful.”
I would like to think the women were being truthful, but wondered whether they would be truthful about any mixed feelings they had about the film to a pair of white strangers in the theater hallway. It’s the same kind of uncertainty I had about the film itself. The issue isn’t about whether the film, or the women, were being honest. It’s about whether anyone is being honest enough.
You should go to “The Help” in order to start provocative conversations, and you should go if you are an Oscar watcher; there will be some nominations following this film (most notably, I hope, for Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer and for “Living Proof,” the original song penned and performed by Mary J. Blige).
But you should not see “The Help” with any set sort of expectations about how it is being received. I for one was surprised — surprised to enjoy it, and even more surprised that the black women in the theater with me seemed to enjoy it most of all.