It seems like a trend for Hollywood to embrace movies that depict African American women as; buffoonish .. think -Whoopi in "Ghost", uneducated and trashy, think Halle Berry in " Monsters Ball"... Violent , think Mo'Nique In "Precious" or domestics think Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer in "The Help."
It wouldn't be a problem if there were just as many roles showing African American actresses playing characters who are the opposite of the roles I've mentioned. I think there are so many racial wounds that haven't healed yet, and people like to feel that things have really progressed, and then you see a movie like the "Help," being embraced by the masses.
I posted back in January that I was reading the book "The Help". I was disappointed that I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. I'm a little perplexed as to why the trailer tries to make it seem as though it's a feel-good chick- flick.
"Tulane Professor Melissa Harris-Perry broke down for Lawrence O’Donnell the new feel-good move The Help, which downplays the plight of black women during segregation.
“The problem is that it is so ahistorical as to be inaccurate,” Harris-Perry said Thursday after seeing the movie. “Look, the issues that faced African-American women were not ‘Real Housewives of Jackson, Mississippi,’ ‘Mean Girls’ behavior, it was rape, it was lynching.”
“I know there are a lot of bad movies and troubling books, but this one got to me."
