An Open Statement to the Fans of "The Help"
Quote:
"On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), this statement provides historical context to address widespread stereotyping presented in both the film and novel version of The Help.
...
In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.
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Full statement available at
http://www.abwh.org/images/pdf/TheHelp-Statement.pdf
and as a community-discussion post at
http://blackhistory.livejournal.com/264154.html
I really hate it when widespread oppression and struggles for basic rights become a backdrop for someone else's story, especially when those struggles are whitewashed so they don't interfere with the "main" story.
Several people and some organizations have pointed out that one of the reasons the book is so popular (which popularity will no doubt be extended to the movie) is that it reinforces the myth that black women are more interested in taking care of the white families who hire them than their own lives and families--that service is their "natural" role.
(And, yeah, this is somewhat tangential; political to the point of "off-topic"--but if we're going to discuss popular books, we should be willing to at least acknowledge how the communities represented in those books are reacting to them.)