I saw the movie The Help today

It was even better than I anticipated. I never read the book, but perhaps I should.

This is a movie you will especially appreciate if a maid, a housekeeper or a nanny helped to raise you.

But the book is terrific. I highly recommend it.

take home the Oscar for Best Actress.

Her name was Carrie. She didn't have children of her own. She knew how to talk to me. Got me to do things I refused to do for my mother. She watched me grow up. She was always there. She was there to comfort me when Mom died and I was there for her in the hospital and later took her to the cemetery. She was my other mother.

housekeeper? I think I read that a week or two ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/books/18help.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/hearing-scheduled-in-the-_n_923534.html

p.s. Ms. Cooper is seeking damages of $75,000, an amount strategically chosen, as it would prevent the case from being removed to federal court.

before I made plans to see it (Lawrence O'Donnell's show). Now, I don't think I would enjoy it. I guess the movie has a very different impact, depending on ones vantage point... But, her impressions and analysis are now fixed in my mind, so I guess I will pass it up... :shrug:

A link to MHP's summary review and the video follows for anyone interested....

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/melissa-harris-perry-breaks-down-the-help-ahistorical-and-deeply-troubling/

was it seemed to be reviewing more the movie she wanted to make rather than the movie made.

A lot of works of art aren't particularly historically accurate. Poor Macbeth gets a terrible treatment by Shakespeare. I think it's perfectly fine pointing out historical context wrongly displayed in a movie.
At the same time I think you have to review if a movie or any work of art, it is worth watching based on the space and time created by the movie itself and addressing if the movie works in that way. Which is usually something different. As Roger Ebert says for the movie JFK, he had no idea if Oliver Stone's movie was historically accurate, but the movie worked. He gave this movie *** and an alright review. I imagine it's worth watching but no something one really needs to seek out.

on a very good book. Oprah raved about the book and it was in her book club where people loved it. Then Michelle Obama held a screening of the movie at the White house before the movie was released to the public.


I can understand what professor Harris-Perry was saying but I feel instead of petty bad mouthing and complaining, she who is perfectly capable, should have instead written a better book herself! Then she could have righted all the wrongs she felt were done in "The Help".

As for myself, my friends and family, we all enjoyed the book and then the movie both! Our theater was aprox.85% full on a Monday evening. And as we were walking out people were talking about how good the movie was done.

What she has done has all the validity of criticizing one of her lectures for lacking subplots, a strong story arc, dynamics and character development. Indeed, her voice lacks many aspects one looks for in a performer's voice, to the point of bringing the words 'speech therapy' to mind. So you know, as theater, she stinks. As performance, her work is grating, whining, dull and amorphous. As drama, her presentation is flat, static, and lacking in emotional connections. Of course, she's not a performer, her TV show is not drama, nor comedy. Her vocal qualities are just fine for a commentator or professor. But as Broadway, the woman is a failure. Just as the film might be a crappy master's thesis in her subject area while being a good film.
Her major, most glaring error is that a story is about specific people, not about The People, or A People. It has to be specific to the characters, and they can not exist to 'symbolize' the times, nor can events be constructed within a story to serve preset 'needs'. She has the same 'issues' about story telling in film that prevent the right wing from making good films. She's clearly from the left, but her desire to see story be constructed to make political and historical points rather than to communicate human events is also their mistake.
Her 'review' reminds me of the 'reviews' of Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" on the right, they trashed it without seeing it, for being a conspiracy film. On the left, the Harris Perry types trashed it for NOT being a conspiracy film. Bot groups nearly demanded that Stone was supposed to make this other film, the one they had in mind, when what he made was a focused story about rescuers on sight who survived the day. He told that story, and that film was very good. Most folks hated it because they were furious that it did not blame GW Bush- the story happened on the day, the characters did not even really know what had happened, and yet, the 'critics' wanted Stone to have made a film like JFK. And they refused to 'review' the film he made, and like Harris Perry, they reviewed instead the phantom film they imagine the author and director would have made if they were as smart as the reviewer. Of course, Harris Perry clearly likes being on TV, and the 'more than academia' money. If she is such hot stuff with a camera and a page, she owes it to the world to make her own damn film. I'd love to see it.

Not comparing this to that. But I couldn't resist. There's not a person per hundred that will "get" the reference anyway,

Because Mississippi in the early 1960's was indeed very racist. Any other portrayal would not be accurate.

A real whitewashing of the history. They had some black historians on NPR the other day and apparently it's upset quite a few with how poorly done it all is.

A call-in listener had one particularly good point. In the book, all of the black character's dialogue is phonetically spelled to their regional dialect/Stepin Fetchit stereotypes. Sure Southern African Americans of the period would have had a dialect, but the author didn't even bother to get it technically correct. And all the white characters, who would have spoken a different yet still thick southern drawl, all had their dialogue written in grammatically correct Queen's English.

So it sounds like that phony-ass racist-as-hell feel-good-for-out-of-touch-white-people bullshit like "Crash." So fuck that shit.

"phony-ass racist-as-hell feel-good-for-out-of-touch-white-people bullshit" was the impression I got of it.

If these people are sincere then they should put pen to paper and write a novel that will be read, enjoyed, made onto the bestseller list and then be turned into a movie!

Historians have no room to criticize a well written novel that is now a blockbuster.

If they want to tell the story that they feel is free of the whitewashing of the history or if they don't like the black character's dialog. These superior ones could certainly write a lowly novel that would be a best seller and considered good enough to be filmed for the big screen.


This is the first book Kathryn Stockett has ever written. It's a blockbuster book & movie. Can those high & mighty ones do that??????????? Do they even know how to write in a way to make people want to read the story they are trying to tell or point they are trying to get across???

Piss on em!

If my post made it seem like I did, my mistake.

Many people I knew growing up, however, did.

I didn't have a nanny but we did have a live in housekeeper when I was young. Does that make me evil. Oh, and then I was a nanny.

In the 'comments' area on the thread link below there are links to film video clips and actress interviews

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1716133

I read a couple people somewhere on the net that said that they wished they had seen the film first before reading the book.
So, I'm glad I decided to wait and see the film first (which I haven't yet) before I get the book.

I've watched all the video clips and actress interviews on the link I posted in my previous comment and I think the film is going to be wonderful. Everything I've seen and read so far regarding the film appears to show that the film highlights the point of view of the household help and that it is an inspiring film.

In my opinion, MHP's review was over the top and it came from a professorial point of view and not an average American POV.
I think MHP's review of the film rubbed me the wrong way and since that evenings broadcast on O'donnell's show she's had two more segments on various issues that I found offensive/over-the-top.
So, I am not going to let her review affect my desire to see the film :)

She is a professor who knows a lot more history than most of us and we're not used to hearing about in such a straight forward, unvarnished way. I think her review was spot on. We're just so used to hearing everything whitewashed or soft peddled... or couched in certain terms... It was harsh (as life was), but not remotely unfair. Sounds like you're suggesting she's getting a little uppity.

There is a difference between a feel good inspiring film and a historical documentary.
I believe MHP missed the boat and was analyzing the film as she would a documentary.
Sometimes even professors have to take off their professorial hat and sit back and enjoy a film for what it is and not for what it is not.

The film 'The Help' is not in the same category as say a film such as 'Roots' which shows more of the brutality of the times.
It was not written or filmed to show 'all' the injustices and 'all' the historic facts of the era.
It's a film that was written to expose only 'some' of the injustices, and written to be an inspiring 'fictional' tale of women that could take a negative and turn it into a positive.

to review it from your viewpoint, not from hers. She saw what she saw from her perspective and that's how she reviewed it. As I said before, she reviewed it from a much more historically informed position than most of us have and I was pleased that she reviewed what she saw honestly, instead of sugar coating it. I think they could easily have done a better job and still had a large audience for it.

Honesty is best.

made into a movie. It was never meant to be 100% historically correct. It was not a true story, it was a very well written, enjoyable novel. It gave the flavor of that time. It was honest about itself because it was written as a novel.

period in time from a white perspective, as usual. It purported to be from the point of view of "The Help", and MHP gave a review that belied that theory.

I cried at quite a few spots in the movie and left the movie, feeling disgusted at how these women were treated.

It was a good movie, and even a better book.

Both Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer (I sure hope I'm getting the spelling correct) deserve Oscars. So does the movie.