I agree with the film reviews that Oprah's acting in Lee Daniels' latest film The Butler is good. But it is not exceptional. How hard is it for an intelligent, black woman like Oprah to act like a black woman? She was acting type.
In an interview about The Butler, I am reminded that Oprah was the producer for Precious, that awful, badly directed, badly acted film about welfare fraud directed by Daniels, but which he presents as black victimization (as I wrote here). No wonder she's back again on Daniels' crew.
Oprah is doing the interview circuit basically saying that things haven't gone far enough for blacks in America. Here is the richest woman in American media talking!
Now, Forest Whitaker, the butler of the film, deserves praise for his acting, because he really had to act. Whitaker is a trained actor. He studied acting in Berkeley. He has also trained as a classical singer - an operatic tenor. His family history includes a grandfather who was an author.
But, in The Butler, the butler that Whitaker decided to portray, or was directed to portray, was that of a cripple of a human being: lifeless and listless. And that choice of character was not just an artistic choice. Like everything else in this film, it was also to address a socio-cultural grievance.
Photographs of Eugene Allen, the "real" butler, do show him in subservient poses during White House functions. He is a butler, after all, and in the White House. Even ordinary waiters in restaurants have to assume some kind of subservience to their customers, unless they want the manager involved. But Allen is also photographed in the White House looking genuinely happy. His personal encounters with presidents and their wives show him pleased to be in their presence, where he seems more like a trusted friend than a servant.
In an interview on CNN, Whitaker talks about:
...the circular motion of things still trying working themselves is going on, as in Emmitt Till, and we’re looking at Trayvon, we’re looking at Oscar Grant, we’re looking at all these situations and recognizing we have to move ourselves forward with this change.Ah yes, what Trayvon Martin revealed about America.
Whitaker is too cautious to use the word racism, in this era of ample, and continued, black privilege. but he doesn't need to. Coming from a black man, everyone knows what that "change" is. After all, Obama made it the word of his campaign.
I will add here that Eguene Allen, the "real" butler, was a light-skinned black man. Lee Daniels, like all the films he makes, adds a socio-cultural critique even in his choice of actors, let alone themes.
I think Daniels carefully chose the very dark-skinned (and clearly negroid-featured) Forest Whitaker as the "black" butler of the White House. The darker the butler, the more grievous the white crime.
Lenny Kravitz, who acts as one of the White House domestic staff in the film, would have been a better candidate. His acting wasn't that bad either.
Lenny Kravitz, photoshopped with a balding hair,
and Eugene Allen during the Eisenhower years
Left: Forest Whitaker as the butler, in Daniels' film
Right: Eugene Allen, the White House butler, during the Eisenhower years
Look at the listless, lifeless, expression that Whitaker takes on,
Whereas Allen hasn't lost his character. He has his head lowered,
and he looks a little cautious. But surely that is normal, since
the photograph is from this scene (posted below), where Eisenhower
is clearly discussing important national issues, and wouldn't want
anyone disturbing their meeting.
Allen during a meeting held by Eisenhower.
I cannot find what the meeting was about.
It looks like a delegate from Africa,
or Black Americans in a discussion with the President
Here is Allen at a Ford family gathering during President Ford's White House:
And President Ford leaving the White House and the presidency, solemnly saying goodbye to a beaming Allen:
With Nancy Reagan, happy to greet Allen, and with a beaming Ronald Reagan:
Below is an interview of Eugene Allen in the 1992 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Workers at the White House documentary: White House Workers: Traditions and Memories. Allen is alert and informative, and nothing like the dull creature extracted from some nefarious depths by Whitaker.
The Butler stars recently came out in all their finery for the film's Los Angeles premiere. Nothing like a movie premier to set things straight: Oprah et al. are rich!
Oprah, the 59-year-old adolescent, who likes to "talk"
A more self-effacing Jane Fonda, who seems
to have reformed from her Hanoi Jane days
Forest Whitaker with his wife Keisha
Cuba Gooding Jr., with his white wife.
Is she racist?
It is interesting that successful blacks still (always?) seem to gravitate towards white, or very light-skinned black, women. And they still continue with their anti-white rants.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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