*When “The Help” first came out, Melissa Harris-Perry quickly became one of its most vocal critics, arguing that the film sets back black actors by reducing them to the role of maids and glossing over some of the more heinous aspects of the black domestic worker experience.
Now that “The Help” is is up for an Oscar today, she’s still not feeling it.
On her eponymous MSNBC program Saturday, Harris-Perry revisited the film, reiterating that the obfuscating of serious concerns for black women in the service industry was particularly problematic.
She and her panel had lots more to say.
Watch:
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Great show. It is surprising how anti “The Help” Melissa considering she is half white. But good anyway. I will never read the book, I will never watch the movie, and I hope Viola and Octavia lose. Because if they win, it will make it extremely hard for dark skinned, especially overweight actresses to get better roles.
I don’t like Viola anymore because she took this role, knowing her mother and grandmother were maids for white families. She knew that if she took this role, she would get interviews which she never got before. Even here in Boston, they did a local tv special interviewing her sister since she grew up in Rhode Island.
You wrote “Because if they win, it will make it extremely hard for dark skinned, especially overweight actresses to get better roles.”
Question: How frequently have dark skinned, overweight actresses been given jobs before this movie?
I saw the movie last week because I wanted to have an opinion on something I saw rather than something I heard about. I felt better sitting in the comfort of my home and pushing a few buttons rather than using up gas, throwing on some clothes and paying double to see it in the theater. And yes, I know, I still supported it but I did so consciously not because somebody’s commercial prompted me to do it or somebody else told me I should.
Their performances, Spencer and Davis, I felt, were deserving of an award for the artistic prowess they showed. Surprisingly, I actually liked the movie for what it was – a movie…a piece of entertainment that took me away from reality during the moments I purposely gave by viewing it. Believe it or not, there truly is a silver lining to every cloud, so I guess outside of its entertaining value, there are probably many minds that walked away changed possibly for the better on various levels. As far as depending on a product of Hollywood to be true and factual, I’d be foolish to expect that…Hollywood itself is fantasy.
It’s funny that I have more of a problem with the likes of Melissa Harris-Perry than the movie. My reason for saying so is because of her seeming outrage with the film. Listen, you can only see ‘the matrix’ for what it is once you remove yourself from it. Having done that I know the conglomerates that own these major so-called news outlets are not going to allow ANYONE to come into their establishment and speak against what the establishment fundamentally promotes and was founded on/in – it will not happen. So for Ms. Harris-Perry to portray herself as if she’s appalled by the taking of these roles, the roles themselves and Hollywood is yet another farce…her employer is Hollywood…lol. Her panel discussion, while a forum mixed with truthful tidbits, in the end will do nothing to free us from the oppression that still exists on every front…it just won’t. Revolution nor revolutionary activity is not-will not-cannot be televised if the ‘powers that be’ choose to remain (materially) in power.
I still haven’t seen this movie and I have no plans to. I agree with the criticisms made by Ms. Harris-Perry and her guest. At the same time I think the actressess were faced with the professional delimma of racial and personal and artistic integrity. My understanding is that their performances contained the ring of truth although the story itself was a destortion of the often very ugly social and political realities of the relationships between black workers and their white employers in the civil rights era.
What I am uncomfortable with most of all is the notion that black people needed good natured white people to be their champions for freedom and that again, this idea was put on film. Although white people contributed and in some cases paid the ultimate price in the fight for racial justice in this country. Overwhelmingly black people are responsible for the advancement of black people to the level of achievement we have reached in 2012. Not some ficticious, wellmeaning white benefactors.
Word…
Perry’s segment was really good and I’m feeling the diversity of her guests. I wish she was on @6 rather than Al because at least SHE has the chops to encourage intellectual discourse.
I thought the movie was very well done and for me, it really helped me understand what women of color were subjected too and why? You really think if any normal person black or white would want to be subjected to being a maid..the mentality of white people and their mindset of being superior during those dark days and how it still plays a major part of this society. I didn’t see this film as demeaning but more so understanding real trauma that black women were subjected too…