Like millions of other women, I read The Help for a book group. I enjoyed the book and appreciated that it led to a spirited discussion of its strengths and weaknesses among the women in my group. But in the year and a half since I read the book, I didn’t really give The Help a second thought. And then the film adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s book, also called The Help, came out, and quickly racked up both impressive box office receipts and a slew of controversy.

While each critique is different, the main objections appear to present a sanitized, stereotyped view of race relations; that it glosses over a particularly turbulent and dangerous part of the Civil Rights movement; that both the book and movie focus on white experiences and, indeed, that the book was written by a white woman; and that the highest-profile, female-driven movie of the year only depicts black women as maids.

I’ve undoubtedly left out other accusations, but you get the idea: for a movie that’s just a little over two hours, it sure carries a heavy burden of expectations. In part, this can be explained by the fact that the film is based on a best-selling novel, and its casting and filming was pretty heavily covered in the press (well, the entertainment press, at least). But there’s also the fact that female ensemble movies are few and far between, particularly ones that have black women in lead roles. Reading all the criticisms of the film, it’s hard not to think that people are projecting their own hopes of what they want a movie about black women in the 1960s South to look like, and that it’s the inability to meet these expectations that’s driving the backlash. But to expect any one movie, particularly one made by a mainstream Hollywood studio, to be all things to all people is unrealistic.  [Read more...]