Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Movie Monday

 

A short posting because an early morning, long, dental appointment is staring at me.

 

It's a new month and my Verizon movie package has cleaned house, at least this early in the month. I expect the same dross as the month advances but last night I could have watched The Help, Primary Colors or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  I picked up ESotSM too late into the movie so that one will have to wait for another day

 

I approached The Help with trepidation and it didn't let me down. Right up to the end where the black maid walks triumphantly down the street accompanied by the triumphant walking-down-the-street-music. That's a scene used so often in movies and, except in The Third Man where the final street walk is the necessary coda, most of these endings are just saying "Hey, I really got screwed but doesn't this music make you and me feel good?"

 

The Help's plot is a story which should be told; the relationship between the black maids and the white wives who employed them in the period before civil rights became the law of the land in the US. It wasn't told here. The Help succumbs to stereotypes early in the game: understanding young white woman. world-weary and wise black maids and over-the-top bigoted white wives. For me, it was directed and acted proclaiming the emotions I should be feeling as it went along so I didn't have to invest anything. It reminded me of The Nanny Diaries. These employers were and are bitches. Maids/nannies have had to and still have to put up with a lot of shit. (Hey, as the economy implodes for the middle class, we all have to put up with a lot of shit.) Unfortunately, I got the feeling with The Help, as I did with To Kill A Mockingbird that white racists are really, really bad and make life horrible for blacks (or minorities in general) but not to worry. A white knight will arrive for a rescue. In TKAM, it was Atticus Finch; in The Help it's the understanding good white "master" in the form of the young writer.

 

This ground has been tread so many times before. Show me something new. For example, show me Rosa Parks as the active civil rights worker she was, who knew exactly what she was doing when she refused to move on that famous bus ride so long ago. It's a shame that The Help can't rise above these stereotypes.

 

And finally, Primary Colors. Wow! After 14 years, this movie is still fun to watch with probably one of Travolta's best performances as Gov. Jack Stanton aka Bill Clinton. Ides of March gets stuck in banality but this movie doesn't let the treacle of well-worn themes bog it down. Both treat the same themes: liberal, idealistic Democratic candidate who can't keep his zipper closed, but that's where the comparison ends. In Primary Colors, we get an active relationship between a candidate and his family, we get strong roles and interaction with supporting players, Emma Thompson, Kathy Bates, Billy Bob Thornton, etc., and we get to see the seedy machinations needed to win a nomination. At 14, this movie is fresher and more innovative than the much newer Ides of March. And it's doubly depressing that the 1998 Primary Colors has blacks playing a large role (the Henry, the staff worker; the black family which owns the restaurant; extras) in a political movie about a Democratic candidate while in 2011, Ides of March has gone almost lily-white in casting.

 

OK, I have more to say (when don't I have more to say?) but the DDS beckons.

 

Next week: Anonymous. Subtitled: Shakespeare didn't write them, or: only the elite have talent.