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Can Hollywood Ever Rep MyBlack®?
My Black Networks Exclusive Interview with the Association of Black Women Historians Regarding The Help
Last Wednesday, The Help, a film based on a book of the same title authored by Kathryn Stockett, launched itself into the pop-culture consciousness. The film was peddled by the kind of marketing muscle normally reserved for summer action blockbusters, or at least sequels to prior box-office success. However, in the dizzying hype of this highly anticipated work, a lone, if not singular, voice emerged; speedily trailing the clap of the clapper board and refusing to be drowned out by the megaphone-like adulation howling from the Hollywood flash mob elite. This voice, this vox clamantis, was the thoughtful critique of the film by five African American college history professors on behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH).
We, at MBN, think it’s safe to say that outside academic circles devoted to history, the ABWH remained a secret gem prior to the publication of its critique. But in this era of Web 2.0 syndication, the truthfulness of their message demanded to be heard, read, emailed, tweeted, re-tweeted, liked, dug, tumbled and stumbled upon; swirling in a mitotic gumbo of communications created by our new lexicon of social network analysis. The power behind their message lit up the blogosphere, and the Afrosphere in particular, until at its conclusion, The Help had probably benefitted to some degree from the premise that “no press is really bad press.”
We must confess that although we thoroughly appreciated the article, we were left with two gnawing questions; both of which led to our request for an interview. The ABWH graciously agreed. First, 4 out of the 5 authors, like MBN, reside in Austin, Texas. We work hard to be plugged-in to local organizations involved in efforts to document, celebrate, and improve the Black experience. For those who may not be aware, the University of Texas at Austin and Huston-Tillotson College boast some of the nation’s best resources in this regard, but that is the subject of another article. Despite our best efforts, we find ourselves constantly discovering new organizations and people with whom we hope to develop relationships.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we wanted to understand why during this nation’s Great Recession, when Blacks have suffered so many economic and political setbacks, did the ABWH’s critique of The Help resonate on a scale that seemingly more serious issues did not. We have been following Black unemployment, the widening wealth gap, the foreclosure crisis, the disenfranchisement of minorities via voter id laws, etc. Yet, we can’t recall a single story in the media recently that resonated with Black folks the way ABWH’s article did.
With these two primary motivations in mind, we sought answers to the questions below from Dr. Janice Sumler-Edmond, a life member and former national director of the Association of Black Women Historians as well as an accomplished author, professor and attorney . We hope this interview helps the conversation about The Help evolve in a slightly new direction and encourages readers and writers to move beyond a descriptive review of what the movie does or doesn’t accomplish. Instead, in full disclosure, we are equally concerned with a more normative question. Why, in 2011, should Black folks continue to pay attention to such a film, and more importantly, what role might they (we) play in its complicity via their patronage, Black actors and actresses, and distracted focus from issues clearly of greater imminence, and arguably greater significance. We are certain that there will be a diversity of opinion, and that is more than okay with us. That is the raison d’être of MyBlack®. Read the interview and tweet us your thoughts at @MyBlackNetworks. Use the hashtag #MyBlack.
1) Many would argue that Hollywood is replete with stereotypical images and misrepresentations of Black culture. As a historian, what did you find uniquely egregious about this film’s rendering of race relations in early 1960s Mississippi?
Well, it was disturbing to see them really sort of dumping on a group -- a voiceless group, a pretty powerless group of domestic workers that were powerless then, and now kind of exploiting them once again in both the film and the book. If I could look at both of them, not just the film, the idea of the book and the dialect in it, which was a little bit more palatable in the film, but in the book most people I’ve talked to just cringed to read the dialect that they had the domestic workers speaking. And we just don’t know people who spoke that way. Black women didn’t use the word “L-a-w” for Lord, but that was throughout the book, and I can’t imagine where the author would have gotten that notion. People would say “Lawd” L-a-w-d, but not Law. Then there’s the depiction of Black men. As we stated in the statement there are really no intact families with husband and wife and children. We don’t see that at all. We see husbands or men who are very abusive or absent. That was very distressing. Then the whole concept of the Civil Rights Movement. That was disturbing to see that they were not really showing the fact that it was a community effort and we would suggest that the Black women, even Black domestics, played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement. They would go to the church meetings and listen to the speakers and do the marching and picketing. Certainly they wouldn’t wait for a young white writer to come charging in on a white horse and say I’m going to save you guys. I’m going to write your stories. Those are just some of the things that really disturbed us when we were reading and watching the film.
2) Over 70 years ago, Hattie McDaniel won an Academy Award for her controversial role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind. What statement, if any, does The Help make about the evolution of the movie industry’s representation of Black culture in film?
Well, The Help, as I see it, is just one movie which shows us I think that there’s been a little bit of regression, but just one film. There’ve been so many really positive films since Hattie McDaniels and Gone with the Wind- thank goodness; so this is sort of like a hiccup and there have been other hiccups. I’m not saying that there have not been. But I don’t think that we can look at The Help and say oh Hollywood is doing Black people in and not treating us right and not depicting us well overall. I think that there’s just been too much progress. That’s why I think this film and this nostalgic stereotypical look at Black people especially Black women and the era--that’s why it’s so glaring, it disturbs us so much. It makes us pause and say we want to say something about this because we know this really wasn’t the way it was. So we’ve been coming along pretty well I’d say overall over the past 70 years then all of a sudden this and we just had to speak out.
3) Do you think nostalgic or even comic representations of historical race relations construct our understanding of the need to examine current racial issues? And if so, how?
I think so because if you’re looking at the nostalgic representation, that is typically like one or a small group’s perception or remembrance of something that happened in the past, and if it is a distorted view then it would deviate from what really happened and people as in this case are going to get upset. The history books don’t depict the era the same way that the author of the book did. So that that’s going to cause some people to say “Wait, let’s get it right. Let’s put it in the proper historical context.” I think comic representations do much of the same thing because if you’re laughing at something very comical it’s usually a distortion, a great distortion of what is the reality. But at the same time you’re laughing about it so you know that the reader or the film goer is in on the joke. So you say “I know this isn’t really the way it was, the author or filmmaker is just making it so.” So that can sometimes be a little bit more palatable, but sometimes disturbing as well because if it’s nostalgic or comedic people can get upset because it’s not the way it really should be and if the way it really should be is something important to the individual viewing it then they can be very upset, or perhaps as you were mentioning then maybe it’s something we should sit down and talk about and try to get back to what it really should be.
4) Some might say Hollywood celebrities wield a degree of social influence over their fans and therefore that Black actors have a particular responsibility to dispel common stereotypical images. How would you respond to people who believe that it is irresponsible for Black actors and actresses to portray such images?
Your question is very interesting, but I could not call, I could not go that far. I couldn’t say, I couldn’t agree that it’s irresponsible for them to do that because I truly believe that it’s everyone’s right to make a good living, to make a decent living and to practice their craft and their profession whatever it is. I wouldn’t want anyone to say “Oh, you can’t teach history the way you’re teaching it,” or something like that. So I would never say that to the actors and actresses. I would only wish from the bottom of my heart that they had a wide array of roles to choose from on a regular basis, and that their talent would take them very far to have many options so they could portray individuals that were true to history and also portray more of the positive aspects and images and depictions of the African American life which there were so many. And this stereotypical view of a kind of a Mammy type image, that’s just not helping a lot of people, but I certainly wouldn’t go as far as to say it was irresponsible to play it. I just wish they had other options so they wouldn’t have to.
5) How do you think the election of America’s first Black president impacts the on-screen depiction of Black people and culture today? Does the nation’s “post-racial” mythology contribute to acceptance of “Southern nostalgia” or is it merely a by-product of it?
Well, another great question. You use the words “post-racial mythology” and you know maybe that’s really perhaps where we are. Because, as a myth, we’re really not in a post-racial age. Because, if we were, from my vantage point then we would be talking about people and events and experiences where race doesn’t matter at all. We would indeed be post-racial. So, we would be talking about, we would be looking forward, and we would be talking about issues that address our common humanity, not going back to a nostalgic idea or long gone age where there was difference, race did matter, the color of your skin did matter and did mean that you would get a certain job and couldn’t go above a certain rank in life. So I think that we have a long way to go if we’re going to truly be [post racial]. There’s this talk about a post-racial world and I hope we can get there, but looking at The Help and seeing how comfortable people are by looking back and saying “Oh wasn’t it great in the 60s when I had the help.” Then we have to say “Oh, my God! We’re not there yet.”
6) Recent reports indicate that Black America has experienced significant setbacks during the Great Recession. For example, the national unemployment rate for Black people is currently 16%, nearly twice the rate for Whites, and White families now have 20 times the wealth of Black families as a result of subprime mortgages and the foreclosure crisis. Tea Party intransigence towards the debt ceiling is predicted to lead to the destruction of social safety nets critical to many Black families, and a recent ruling by an Atlanta federal appeals court jeopardizes efforts to make healthcare universal when so many Blacks are experiencing debilitating healthcare outcomes. Against this backdrop, should we really expect accurate portrayals of Black culture from Hollywood? More importantly, why should we care?
You have really hit a very important point there. I remember hearing about the judicial decision in Atlanta and thinking “uh oh.” So when you look at those major issues that impact life and death- when you compare those things with a film like The Help, you say “Well the film is minor. Why should we worry so much about the film when we need take care of these issues and make sure people are housed and have good health?” That’s definitely something that people should consider, but at the same time there are these battles out there, these issues that have to be addressed and we don’t expect everyone to fight every battle. If I can attack the film, let someone else attack the healthcare or the legal issues or the debt ceiling and those kinds of things. The bottom line is that while film in the larger scheme of things is not perhaps a life or death situation, it is still important and we need to give it its due. When you come out of a film--you sit there, watch the film and come out of the film, those images could really impact your interaction with the people you see down the street, your neighbor, your friends, your school mates your co-workers, etc. So what happens on film may, in fact, have an impact on the interaction that people have on a daily basis. So we can’t say it’s not important. Perhaps it’s not as important as the debt ceiling and making sure that people are employed. But I still would say that we should care because it is a part of life and we want to get along with everyone. We want to have good feelings and good relations—intra-racial, interracial, globally we want to get along and if we depict people in a certain negative light with stereotypes, and others in another way, it’s not fair. It’s not getting us to a level playing field and a global understanding which I feel is fairly important.
7) At the end of your statement, you list recommended books. Do you have any recommended films that could be also be included?
You know, I really do not at this time but what we are going to do as a group --we have an ABWH website and we’ve gotten a lot of good feedback and reactions to this little list that we put together. So, we’re considering making the list of books much more extensive and people have also recommended, just like you are, films. And just other things in life, we may recommend them as well maybe with a little bit of a brief description so that if I‘m looking for a book dealing with the Great Depression or I’m looking for a film that depicts the 1960’s, I can go to the ABWH list and get a brief synopsis and hopefully that will help me narrow my choices. That’s going to come up in the future we hope.
Dr. Janice Sumler-Edmond is an accomplished author, professor and attorney. She currently teaches United States History at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas. She holds memberships with the American Bar Association, Organization of American Historians, the Southern Historical Association, and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Dr. Sumler-Edmond is a life member and former national director of the Association of Black Women Historians.
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