Starting yesterday, millions of mature Southerners are engaging in cinematic mirror-gazing as they view "The Help." I am one; although as I want to write that my recollection of my community's relationships weren't mean-spirited-base as portrayed in the book/movie, the accepted class system was wrong, wrong, wrong. We know that now and in our heart-of-hearts we knew it then. The situation has changed and continues to change. Unfortunately in the meanwhile people suffered beyond the gross inequities to the ultimate sacrifice of dying -- lynchings, little girls in the basement of a bombed church in Alabama, Freedom Riders, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr. . . .
I attended the movie with my small group (typically "small groups" are mini-groups of church members, but at least four churches are represented in our small group.) Most special, though, is a couple in our group are the proud parents of Shane McRae, who portrays one of the husbands in the movie. Shane's dad taught at Mississippi State for years, so Shane got to go back to the state of his youth -- yes the movie was actually filmed IN Mississippi.
To my peers: Go see the movie. We need to recollect from whence we came.
Thrifty Footnote: We got one of the tickets free through our Regal Crown Club membership!
Posts
The book of course was a favorite of the bookclub set. As a Southerner living in Minnesota, i was the expert on the validity of the events portrayed. It was embarrassing to think about the things we considered to be acceptable. But change did come. We just buried my 95 year old father in law who had changed many of his perceptions of the role of his black brothers and sisters.
ReplyDelete