2. The Help (2011)
The Help is another film that has been praised by mainstream critics, yet has been savaged by other critics for its use of stereotyping, lack of black agency, and its use of a white gaze. The Help is first and foremost about white heroism, which is a pattern that is just all too familiar with these kinds of films. This doesnt mean that the film is mean spirited, or that Emma Stones character is someone we shouldnt root for. But if you wish to showcase elements of racial history in America, and take a serious look at the past, you cant just whitewash these things and tell all the stories from a white perspective. Regardless of whether it is intentional or not, the film depicts African American domestic servants as completely inactive and passive to the inequality that they have been subjected to throughout their lives. The characters tend to be offensive mammy portrayals (an old marketing stereotype of the motherly, asexual, African American domestic servant) who draw all their views on the world from God and are the subjects of racism from bullying individuals. There is no presentation of the systemic racism of the South in the early 1960s, but even more disappointingly there is no real reference to any of the activism and organisation from African Americans in trying to overcome this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbuKgzgeUIU This last point is showcased explicitly when the film shows John F Kennedys funeral procession but only fleetingly mentions the murder of Medgar Evers. The film implicitly states through this, that for every day domestic African American workers, the assassination of the President was more influential on their lives than that of a community organiser making very real changes within their everyday community. This is not only incorrect, but it creates a racial hierarchy of which lives matter more. The Help isnt an awful film, but it is a pretty awful representation of African American freedom struggles.