Hollywood History: ‘The Butler’ Tells Us How To Interpret An Era
Hollywood may be the most influential reframer, shaper, and interpreter of history. Can any history book have as wide an audience as a hit Hollywood film?
Since the early days of cinema, Hollywood has shown its ideological muscle by defining and shaping important historical events for mass audiences. Movies infiltrate the culture so much that many Americans may view history through what movies depict — with all their inaccuracies and biases.
That’s happened since the silent movie era. The notorious “Birth of Nation” depicted the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan and the reconstruction era and helped to usher in a devastating and oppressive era for African-Americans. But whatever their politics, as soon as filmmakers realized they had the power to educate a broad audience on history, they used that power to interpret historical events. Even Woodrow Wilson reportedly described the racist “Birth of A Nation” as “history written in fire” –showing the power of the new creative medium. And in the years since filmmakers haven’t been able to resist occasionally using that power to frame and define history.
Almost every major war, historical figure or historical period in America has been Hollywoodized — with good, bad and ugly results. And it’s fascinating to see when Hollywood revs up the history defining machine — because these movies come in batches. And recently there’s been a crop of movies about the history of slavery and the civil rights movement.
Hollywood reinterprets the civil rights era, slavery
“The Butler” is one in a series of recent movies in that genre. It started with “The Help,” which was about servants in 1960s Mississippi (Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer) telling their behind-the-scenes stories of their working lives to a young white author Skeeter (Emma Stone). In “The Help,” the civil rights movement is just an occasional backdrop — a major act of rebellion here is secretly making a poo pie for a racist employer. The motivation is for Skeeter to publish stories about the lives of servants, not to take part in demonstrations against racism.
Next came Quentin Tarantino‘s slavery revenge action movie “Django Unchained” — which even with its sometimes over the top black comedy is edgier and feels more realistic than the movies in this genre that try so hard to be earnest and noble. Soon to be released is another slavery movie (“12 Years A Slave“), about a runaway slave who is kidnapped and returned to slavery in the brutal Deep South.
“The Butler” covers the Depression era to the election of Barack Obama in 2008 — but its main focus is the civil rights era of the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Many people who will see this movie won’t have a firsthand knowledge of that era, so this movie will shape that time period for young people.
Much of Hollywood’s interest in the civil rights era may have to do with the presidency of Barack Obama. Now that an African-American has been elected to the highest political office, Hollywood apparently feels comfortable looking at the history of racism. Because an African-American was elected to the highest office, Hollywood may see this as an indication that the worst of racism is over. So it’s now safe to look at the skeletons in the closet of slavery and racism.
Hollywood is more comfortable depicting racism in the past
Apparently, Hollywood doesn’t believe that people are interested in current examples of racism. The movie “Fruitvale Station” which depicted the controversial shooting of the unarmed Oscar Grant by Oakland police came and went in movie theaters with little attention. But with this current examination of racism there was no Oprah, no star power, no huge promotion behind it.
However, there’s lots of star power in “The Butler” with major stars playing even minor roles. It centers on the life of Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) who grows up on a cotton plantation in the repressive Jim Crow south. After his father is murdered, he is brought inside a plantation home to be groomed as a house servant.
Forest Whitaker plays a character based on a real-life butler (Eugene Allen) who served eight U.S. presidents. There's little in "The Butler" that resembles Allen's real life, but how the movie reshapes history is what makes the movie so interesting to examine (Photo courtesy Weinstein Company)
He’s instructed about how to serve food to white people — with the cautionary note that when working as a butler “the room should feel empty when you’re in it.”
Years later through no effort of his own, in a fairy-tale like twist of fate, he lands a job as a butler at the White House. He attends to presidents from Dwight Eisenhower (Robin Williams) through Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman) — where he also becomes a sometimes confidant to the presidents. At home his son Louis is active in the civil rights movement (David Oyelowo), his son Charlie volunteers to fight in the Vietnam War (Elijah Kelley), and h