The Help became Netflix’s top-viewed movie in the wake of the global and ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, implying that viewers are turning to Tate Taylor’s 2011 movie to educate themselves on racism and allyship. Yet The Help, a movie written and directed by a white man, based on a novel by Kathryn Stockett, a white woman, about another white woman’s desire to document the lives of Black maids, is far from helpful to the Black Lives Matter cause.
The Help is set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi and focuses on Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), a young white woman and aspiring journalist writing a book about the Black maids of her hometown. The story centers on her relationship with two Black domestic workers, Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer, who won an Oscar for her performance). Skeeter’s anonymously published expose sends the small Southern town into an uproar, as it uncovers what white employers don’t know about Black maids’ lives.
Though The Help proved a box office hit and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, it was criticized at the time for its white savior narrative and its side-lining of Black perspectives. The systemic racial injustices highlighted by Black Lives Matter bring the film’s issues into yet starker relief, so to see it seated at #1 of Netflix’s top-viewed movies is disconcerting and, at worse, damaging to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Help Suffers From A White Savior Storyline
Movies that placate white guilt do well in Hollywood, both at the box office and during awards season. As recently as 2018’s Best Picture-winning Green Book, movies that employ the trope of the “white savior” in their depiction of race and racism receive great applause from the entertainment establishment. The white savior narrative is often deployed in films about race, in which a white character rescues a Black or non-white character from their suffering. Other prestige movies include The Blind Side, Dangerous Minds, and Mississippi Burning, all of which follow this narrative. It can also be more insidious like when Kevin Costner’s Al Harrison smashes the segregated bathroom sign in the seemingly progressive Hidden Figures.
The Help’s Skeeter, essentially a self-insert character for Stockett, is a textbook white savior. She is positioned as the key catalyst for change in the film, while the Black women on whom she bases her book are depicted as resigned to their circumstances and helpless in their oppression. Also set during the Black activist-led American Civil Rights movement, the narrative appropriates Civil Rights history and proposes instead that the Black women of Jackson would not have strived for change were it not for the bravery and selflessness of this white woman. The Help denies its Black characters agency in their own emancipation movement and credits it instead to the kindness of “good” white people.
White savior narratives also place white viewers’ feelings over those of people of color. These films placate white audiences by giving them a story in which they can be the hero championing equal rights, rather than the antagonists benefitting from systemic oppression. Emma Stone’s character in The Help frames the story as one of racial cooperation, rather than one about civil rights, which the Black community was forced to fight for.
Viola Davis Regrets Her Role In The Help
The Help returned to popular attention in 2018, after a New York Times interview was published in which Viola Davis expressed regret at her involvement in the movie. When asked whether she’d ever regretted passing on roles, Davis flipped the question on its head. “Almost a better question is, have I ever done roles that I’ve regretted? I have, and ‘The Help’ is on that list. But not in terms of the experience and the people involved because they were all great.” Davis, who received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role as Aibileen, went on to explain:
“I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard. I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They’re my grandma. They’re my mom. And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.”
Despite Aibileen Clark being the narrator of the film and a central presence to the story, she is depicted as initially submissive to the racism she suffers. She endures it, fearful of objecting to her oppression. Even in the supposedly victorious ending, which sees Aibileen walking away after being fired from her job she recounts how telling Skeeter her story liberated her, and she decides to become a writer. Her character development from a quiet, matronly maid to an empowered woman with a dream is credited almost entirely to Skeeter’s actions rather than as a result of Aibileen’s own agency.
The Real Ablene Cooper Sued The Author Of The Help
Ablene Cooper, the real housekeeper who worked for the author’s brother for many years, filed a $75,000 lawsuit against Kathryn Stockett after the movie adaptation released; she claimed that Aibileen’s character was inspired by her and that her likeness was used without her knowledge or permission. Cooper deemed the portrayal of Aibileen Clark “embarrassing” and “emotionally upsetting” and expressed displeasure at how Black maids were generally characterized in the novel. The lawsuit further read that the author’s behavior “has made Ablene feel violated, outraged and revulsed.”
Despite her employers Carol and Robert Stockett III supporting Cooper’s claims against Kathryn Stockett, the case was dismissed when the author argued that the suit was filed outside the one-year statute of limitations for misappropriation claims. Ablene Cooper’s claims that Aibileen is based on her were therefore never disproven, yet Cooper would never receive any money from the bestselling author. After the verdict was delivered, Cooper expressed her disappointment with the outcome, telling the press: “You know she did it, and everybody else knows she did it.”
Better Movies & TV Shows To Stream To Learn About Black Lives Matter
Rather than turning to The Help to educate themselves about Black Lives Matter and for insight into conversations about systemic racism and the need for mass social reform, viewers would do better to seek out movies focused on Black voices and to support Black creators. Better Netflix streaming options include two Ava DuVernay projects, the Oscar-nominated documentary 13th and the Emmy-winning limited series When They See Us. Dee Rees’ Mudbound is also on Netflix, as is The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, a tribute to the Black trans activist; What Happened, Miss Simone?; Explained: The Racial Wealth Gap; Becoming; and Strong Island.
Warner Bros. have also made Just Mercy, starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx and based on the life work of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, available to rent free through June. The Criterion Collection’s streaming platform Criterion Channel also lifted its paywall to make a variety of films by Black filmmakers free to stream, including Julie Dash’s Daughters of Dust; Down in the Delta; Portrait of Jason; Black Panthers; and Losing Ground. Showtime also lifted its paywall on two documentaries, 16 Shots about the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by police and the cover-up of his murder, and Burn Motherf*cker, Burn by Sacha Jenkins. Best Picture-nominee Selma is free to rent through June on all digital platforms, and IFC Films Unlimited announced that The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is streaming for free on its platform until June 12. Hoopla and Kanopy are also streaming for free the 2016 Oscar-nominated James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro, Toni Morrison: Pieces I Am, Whose Streets? and many other films and documentaries. Tubi has made the incredible Fruitvale Station available for free on their website. Though this is far from an exhaustive list of films and television shows, this small selection will provide valuable insight and education on Black Lives Matter issues – far more appropriate than anything in The Help.
