It started with the extremely unpleasant showdown between Gloria Steinem and Melissa Harris Lacewell, (now Perry) surrounding Steinem's NY Times Op Ed about then-Senator Barack Obama.
This was followed by the late Geraldine Ferraro's dismissive comments that Senator Obama was winning the race because he was not White.
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. ...He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
And even now that we have an elegant Black First Lady, our popular culture obsession is with the “largely fictional” book, The Help. Sounds like an opportune moment for second wave feminists to engage in some serious deconstructionist critical analysis.
Or maybe not.
I recently purchased a copy of the New York Times best-selling novel with an open mind despite its criticism. I assumed the book would be racially problematic, because for me, most things are.
The first chapter is in the "voice" of a Black maid named Aibileen, so I hoped that the book would actually be about her. But this is America, and any Southern narrative that actually touches on race has to focus on the noble white protagonist (in this case, Miss Skeeter, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch) to get us through such dangerous territory.
As a Black female reader, I end up feeling like the "help," tending to Miss Skeeter’s emotional sadness concerning the loss of her nanny (whom she loved more than her own White momma).
Perhaps the only thing sadder than Kathryn Sockett's unexamined life is Salon.com's writer Laura Miller's analysis of the legal controversy surrounding it. In her article, The Dirty Secrets of The Help, she writes:
"At issue is Aibileen Clark, a character in The Help…Those of use who have read The Help may also wonder why anyone would be "severely" distressed or outraged to be likened to the noble Aibileen. Although poor and uneducated through no fault of her own, Aibileen is intelligent, brave and kind, apparently without significant flaws. Cooper's lawsuit does manage to unearth two remarks from the novel in which Aibileen seems (arguably) to disparage her own color, but they are tiny scratches on an otherwise glowing portrait. The suit further claims that Cooper finds it "highly offensive" to be "portrayed in The Help as an African-American maid in Jackson, Mississippi who is forced to use a segregated toilet in the garage of her white employer."
Here’s one of those “tiny scratches” posted on ABCnews.com."That night after supper, me and that cockroach stare each other down across the kitchen floor," Aibileen says in the book. "He big, inch, inch an a half. He black. Blacker than me."I refuse to waste my own blog space deconstructing everything that is wrong with this, because I have saved the "best" for last:
"Although it's difficult to believe that anyone would feel "outrage, revulsion and severe emotional distress" at being identified with the heroic Aibileen, her employer, Miss Leefolt, is another matter. A vain, status-seeking woman married to a struggling, surly accountant and desperately trying to keep up appearances in front of fellow members of the Jackson Junior League, Miss Leefolt is the one who insists on adding a separate "colored" bathroom to her garage. She does this partly to impress Miss Hilly, the League's alpha Mean Girl (and the novel's villain), but she also talks obsessively about the "different kinds of diseases" that "they" carry. Furthermore, Miss Leefolt is a blithely atrocious mother who ignores and mistreats her infant daughter, speaking wistfully of a vacation when "I hardly had to see [her] at all. Like all of the white women in the novel (except the journalist writing the maids' stories), Miss Leefolt is cartoonishly awful -- and her maid has almost the same name as Stockett's sister-in-law's maid. Fancy that!"
Miller of course is insinuating that the real life Aibleen lacks the agency to have initiated the lawsuit, and that Stockett’s sister-in-law coerced her. The plot thickens (sorry, I couldn’t resist) on the revelation that Robert Stockett III (the author’s brother) has cosigned his longtime nanny’s claims. Not that Miller gives him much credence.
So, in the end, The Help is about a white woman and the lawsuit is about a white woman, maybe because it's always about them. Which is why they need help.
Great blog cousin. There is something unique in our dna when it comes to race and racism. I have noted on several occasions that stories about black people are only interesting evidently when they are framed by the reactions or actions of white people, who nine times out of ten end up being the heroes of the piece. I am pleased and proud we are cousins!
ReplyDeleteSo many of the women in my demographic and even my mother have aplauded this book on so many levels I never once say the point of all the hoopla. Our posisiton as "The Help" needs to be carried on in the teaching of our history. Not immortalized in print and soon film as a reflection of our current being. There is no shame in being this character 50 years ago. but there is little dignity in being this character in 2011. Espcially not with all the other positions that black women hold.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like two stories joined surgically at the hip. First, we have an analysis of racism in the Feminist movement. Then, we have a book review. Both are well-written, but the juxtaposition seems odd.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the critique. The juxtaposition is because the book reflects racism in the Feminist movement. I could have said that explicitly.
ReplyDeleteSick. I saw the trailer for this movie and cringed. Another "Secret Life of Bees." Well, given what you've presented here, it is something far, far worse.
ReplyDeletePandering, self-absorbed, narcissistic crap like "The Help" makes me want to vomit. And I'm white.
The reality of the Help is that it is a fairly accurate potrayal of someone that I know. She is is very dear to me in her retired state, but the book only captured a snapshot of her life in the nearly 10 decades of her living it.
ReplyDeleteLife goes on and the only satisfactory story, for Americans of African decent, is the story of her influence and dedication to her children. How she, and an invisable but strong husband fought through the Jim Crow and participate in the Civil Rights activities. How the eldest children (there were many) were lost to the violence and drug addiction of the '70s; and the middle kids exceled in academics only to be ostracized by the New Dixiecrats who ruled the academic venues with racial bias towards tokens who capitulated their dignity for position and tenure. The youngest of the Help's children forged deeper into technology and medicine but found their futures equally obstructed by hypocritical administrations that fear black innovation and innovators.
The story hasn't been related of how such pressures and religious preconceptions tore apart the unity of the family as children married and bore children. The Help is a story of continual reinvention of self, but not in the book published to date.
The Help's story isn't about one lady as much as it is about a people on whom a kind of forced matriarchal culture was enforced. This is the story that hasn't been told.
I read this article after I read the book but before I saw the movie. I have to be honest and admit that I was fairly surprised by your reaction to the book, but after really thinking about your comments, I agree - and after seeing the movie, I agree even more. I still recommend the book to my friends and I did go see the movie because I believe that discussing these "controversial" topics (even if imperfectly)is very important, but without constructive criticism (like you gave in this article), I'm afraid our society would be very content with never digging any further.
ReplyDeleteAfter much debate with several people who had already seen the movie, I took my 5 year old to see it. She was by far the youngest in the audience and I'm pretty sure I caught some whispers about me as we were walking up the aisle. But her and I had talked before the movie (at a very high-level) about what the movie was portraying and she understood. I am very pleased with my decision to bring her because it gave me an opening to discuss with her how race relations were (and to a certain extent, still are). My daughter is part African-American and part European-American, and this is her history.
The movie and book are far from perfect but I'd rather take imperfect over nothing. In my discussions with my daughter, I'll just be making sure to add more facts to our discussions.