The Help + Hollywood Marketing

February 28, 2012 by alltogetherhuman 1 Comment

During last night’s Oscar festivities, I had an interesting exchange about The Help.

One attendee, an Asian-American attorney, mentioned part of the controversy surrounding The Help—concern voiced by African Americans and others that the only people of color nominated this year were two Black actors playing domestic workers during the Jim Crow era. This has certainly been one of the complaints I’ve heard, and has been very nicely rebutted by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer.

I added another concern that I have, and which others have voiced: that The Help perpetuates a Hollywood convention of portraying whites as the saviors of people of color.

The historical fact is that African American domestic workers like Rosa Parks were a major driving force behind the Civil Rights movement. Many white people were certainly active in that movement, but it’s not exactly accurate to portray us as leading the charge.

Hollywood, by contrast, has a long history of portraying white people as the leaders and catalysts of social change—as if to say that it’s only possible for white audience members to imagine ourselves as the leaders of social change efforts (and not to be supportive partners following the lead of people of color).

Another party goer, a white gay man who is a marketing professional, countered (if I understood him correctly) that filmmakers need to choose material that will appeal to a broad audience. The filmmakers, by giving the movie an accessible white female protagonist, ensured a broader audience for the conversation about domestic workers.

The implication of the marketing professional’s comments is that white (and perhaps other non-African-American) audiences are not (and are unlikely to ever be) interested in watching movies that lack a white protagonist.

This rationale is not new to me, and I appreciate his point of view. The Help has certainly offered us an opening for a national discussion of the treatment of domestic workers. Groups like the National Domestic Worker’s Alliance have done a fantastic job of capitalizing on that opportunity, which makes me super happy!I do, however, have a few problems with this argument:

First, it’s possible to have sympathetic white fictional characters like ‘Skeeter’ without giving those characters undo credit for setting things right. There have been more than a few white people who have been strong participants in civil rights and social justice work, while following the lead of and being equal partners to people of color.

I don’t think The Help is that bad on this front—it’s always pretty clear how courageous the characters Aibileen and Minny are, and Aibileen rightly claims authorship of the book Skeeter produces. Still, the original author and the filmmakers do portray Skeeter as a catalyst of the domestic workers’ speaking out, in a way that resonates uncomfortably with Hollywood’s history of portraying good-intentioned white people as leaders, not followers.

And don’t get me wrong—white people can and must take leadership for racial justice (I’m still learning how to do that myself, and don’t claim to have all of the answers). It’s just that we haven’t generally been the kind of saviors or catalysts for change that most mainstream Hollywood accounts portray us as being. Continuing to portray us as such just perpetuates the foundation of white supremacy—that white people are at the center of everything important and good.

Second, although it may be easier to sell movies with white protagonists, it’s not as though marketing professionals lack tools for selling new products to audiences who don’t (currently) want them. Just this morning on NPR, I heard a great story about how marketers made toothpaste a household habit in the early 20th Century, despite the fact that no one had used toothpaste before. Similarly, there has been ample history of white audiences learning to listen to music by African Americans (a history that has it’s own problems—as those who are wary about cultural appropriation have observed).

I believe members of the film and marketing industries—who have a great impact on our society and its values—have an ethnical responsibility to challenge conventional wisdom within their field, and use the considerable tools of their industries to promote a more just, equitable national conversation. That’s always been the case, and a great number of folks in the industry take this duty seriously.

Ethical marketing means doing the work of building audience demand for more varied and authentic depictions of people of color, LGBT people, and other parts of our society that are under- or poorly represented in mainstream media.

The Help certainly isn’t the enemy along these lines—it’s a well-crafted movie with strong performances, and has opened the door up to an important national conversation. By all accounts, the movie’s makers have been good partners to those who have been leading this work, like the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

But The Help is also a painful reminder to some of us about how far we have to go, and how bad things have been. We all need to understand and appreciate why that is the case, and strive for something better.