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The HELP
The Mammy Archetype: A Black Maiden Syndrome
Viola Davis Regrets Making The Help:
“It Wasn’t the Voices of the Maids That Were Heard”
“There’s no one who’s not entertained by The Help. But there’s a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself, and my people, because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready to [tell the whole truth],”
Davis says. The Help was “created in the filter and the cesspool of systemic racism.”
“What did Octavia Spencer say? Fox News reported that the actress said she doesn’t know if the film would have been made today, but that it absolutely should be made. “Why can’t the story be told? I think what’s happening in society right now is very, very dangerous because, you know, we are scrubbing the history books.”
The Help (2011)
L-R Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis
At the time of the movie’s release, the Association of Black Women Historians said the movie “distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of Black domestic workers.”
Davis agreed, saying: “I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard.
The Help. “An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African-American maids’ point of view on the White families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.”
http://newsone.com/1456115/the-help-maids-in-america/
The big difference is that while the movie is set in the racially segregated South of years past and focuses on the plight of African-Americans, many of today’s domestic workers are from other countries. Some have many years of education in their backgrounds, but when they come to the United States, the only work they can find is domestic. And they are organizing.
In addition to the challenges of seeking acceptable roles, actors and actresses, must battle the challenges of colorism, sexual exploitation, and a lack of desire within Hollywood, to create educational, historical, and accurate portrayals of Black culture.
