August 8, 2011 • Category: Blog
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The current issue of Entertainment Weekly (August 12) has a wonderful cover story on The Help, the blockbuster book that was made into a movie, opening soon. As part of the photo-heavy spread, Entertainment Weekly asked Algonquin author Martha Southgate, whose new novel The Taste of Salt publishes 9/27, to write about the book. Her piece is below. Be sure to pick up a copy of the magazine–one of our favorites around here–on newsstands now.
Tags: civil rights, Entertainment Weekly, Kathryn Stockett, Martha Southgate, racial issues, The Help, The Taste of Salt
Miriam Ferguson says...
Well said Martha, we all can do without Help this week and evermore…
August 12, 2011@ 8:31 AMs. justice says...
I NEVER will pay money to watch a film on the civil rights movement as told through the eyes of a white person. It’s a testament to the struggle that I can afford to go to the movies and I feel that I would dishonor those forgotten heroes by hearing their voices contained and controlled by condescending white liberals. They are just giving us the usual types. Fat ,black maids ala Hattie McDaniels and skinny petite white women ? Nice try Hollywood but I’ll pass on this. And the next until you get it right and let us tell OUR stories.
August 11, 2011@ 1:49 PMSarah L. says...
I understand Martha’s point in the article, however I don’t think that The Help should be criticized so heavily. Yes, the author was a white woman trying to write in a black woman’s perspective, but I think that was actually a good thing. She may not know what it was like for the house maid’s in that time period, but she was trying to put herself into someone else’s shoes, which shows empathy to the situation rather than ignorance. Maybe the fact that it centers around a white character isn’t ideal for some people, but that’s what it is. That’s how the story was told.
August 11, 2011@ 10:53 AMPingback: Chocolate Breast Milk: A Review of The Help « Phillis Remastered
Katy G. says...
Furthermore, my mother did not pawn me off on a surrogate because that was her choice. She would have preferred to stay home with me and my sister. But the economic reality was that she needed to work full time, and day care was not as prevalent then as it is today. You make several inaccurate assumptions in your post. Just because I’m white does not mean I’m unaware.
August 10, 2011@ 7:19 AMKaty G. says...
Yes, Lisa G. I do understand all of that now, in my 50th year. I surely do “get it”. But at age 5? Not so much. Do not dare to tell me that my feelings at age 5 were not genuine. And no, I did not ask you to reminisce with me in my childhood memories. I was stating my own reality, not yours.
August 10, 2011@ 7:16 AMLisa G. says...
@Katy G: your comment IS the entire problem, in a nutshell. “sweet memories of your [mammy].” that woman only worked for your family because of the economic disparity that remains in this country, not because she just wanted to find a small white child to love. she probably, like most domestics, had kids of her own at home, who should have received the care she [was made to] give to you. yet, you folks say these things loud and proud as if we are supposed to reminisce in your sweet vision. don’t you realize you are having tender memories of modern day slavery? don’t you realize your own mother was supposed to raise you and not pawn you off on a surrogate? this very common “unrealization” of these “sweet memories” are the very thing folks are in an uproar about, and apparently none of the women like you who had a “sitter/maid/nanny/mammy (mother nanny) get it…get that this is indeed and has been a huge PROBLEM. we are not put on this Earth to be your nursemaids.
August 9, 2011@ 6:15 PMNea Anna Simone says...
Beautifully and eloquently explained Martha! This nation has spent much time and energy on homogenizing the Civil Rights Era so that it by default becomes the victory not of the oppressed; but that of the oppressor. Like you, I was repulsed by yet another attempt to convince me that dirt is not dirty.
August 9, 2011@ 5:03 PMTina McElroy Ansa says...
Brava, Martha! What an interesting and perceptive piece. You certainly got to the crux of the matter and why the attention this novel and film (and others like it which place white people at center of black folks’ lives and of Movement) have received is bogus. It is also troubling to me as an African-American female writer how often our voices are co-opted by white writers who know nothing of our authentic selves. Good job!
August 9, 2011@ 2:28 PMTroy Johnson says...
Nice article Martha. It seems to me however that The Help was essentially a white story told by a white woman for a white audience. I’m don’t think it is realistic or even logical to expect the Black perspective to be told accurately. Throw in the fact that the film is a commercial endeavor; one quickly realizes the prospect of faithful a representation of this aspect of the civil rights story becomes a virtual impossibility.
August 9, 2011@ 12:09 PM