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Health & Fitness

Movie Review - The Butler

The Butler **** (PG-13) This sweeping drama summarizes 90 years of American racial history into a feature-length film by condensing events from 1929 to the present into a personal and familial journey of a White House worker. Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Clarence Gaines, loosely based on actual butler Eugene Allen, who served our presidents from 1957-86, opens this year’s season for Best Actor nominations. Whitaker’s role calls for nuance and transitions, not only as his character ages, but as he is changed by the personal and cultural events that swirl around him through several tumultuous decades. Oprah Winfrey’s turn as his wife, who undergoes transitions of her own, is also praiseworthy.

Gaines’ childhood traumas and path to his career may have been hyperbolized, but the circumstances we see have been well-documented in our history as a nation, if not all endured by any particular family. Semi-slavery conditions and lynchings continued well into the mid-twentieth century. We see the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement through the eyes of generations disparately viewing their world and their options, as shaped by their respective life experiences.

For film buffs, the slew of surprising choices to portray a parade of presidents and first ladies will be fascinating. Robin Williams as Ike? Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan? Despite such seeming oddities, none of them are played ironically. Each seems true to the private sides of their historic characters that relate to the depicted events.

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But those stars are a relatively marginal slice of this pie. Director Lee Daniels mainly honors the struggle of those who fought for equality by showing the scope and intensity of oppression and resistance they had to overcome, from overt and violent acts of the likes of the KKK; to ingrained attitudes that were backed by the force of the law; to the passivity, tolerance or perceived futility of opposition behind closed doors of leaders who chose to stay on the sidelines. Despite the MPAA rating, many scenes of violence and cruelty are hard to watch, bordering on R territory. Presumably, the educational value of accessibility to a broader audience outweighs that cautionary consideration.

Gaines was trained to be invisible, never showing signs of hearing, much less having opinions on, anything discussed in his presence by the powerful players he attended. We see how hard that must have been when those positioned to force or enforce justice displayed their ignorance or indifference while he stood helpless. Mercifully, Daniels presented Gaines as a realistic witness to history, who grew in the job and as a human, without making him a Bagger Vance-type of fantasized figure of private influence. What he learned as a mostly-silent witness at work and at home makes a far more meaningful experience for the viewers.

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Whitaker’s Gaines is a compelling microcosm of internalizing the transition from powerless sharecropper to dignified domestic worker, to worried father and confused adult, overwhelmed by the conflict between pride in how wonderfully he’d improved his fate versus how far our country and his people still had to go to achieve anything resembling equality. That duality is also embodied by the fact that the federal government, led variably by several presidents of the 1950s-‘60s drove reforms in many areas, yet failed to give Black workers in the White House equal pay until the mid-1980s. Film makers addressing such important topics sometimes yield to the temptation of manipulating for emotional overkill. Daniels’ production stayed on higher ground, with its emotional moments packing a legitimate punch.  

I’m sure many right-wingers will howl with outrage over certain plot points and character portrayals. Some always do, whether they actually feel it or not. Others will be profoundly stirred by this reminder of how recently Jim Crow laws and attitudes raged within our borders, ideally finding themselves inspired by greater vigilance for all the signs of its residue in the halls of power, and in our communities. (8/16/13)

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