Movie Review: The Help

So full disclosure, I liked it. I like the movie and the book. I know all about the racial issues when reading/watching a book/film about race relations and domestic labor when written by a white person from the point of view of an ethnic minority. That being said, it is fiction and thus not true to life so there is no reason to disclose the race/gender/income of the author. When writing non-fiction full disclosure is necessary.

So the movie left out a few things pretty relevant to the plot and evolution of the book. One of the main things that stuck out to me was Skeeter's inspiration for writing the novel The Help. In the movie, Skeeter comes to this all on her own, but in the book she gets the idea from Aibileen's story about her son's own work about African America blue collar work. Another short coming, was the political undertones. In the book they were more evident, which is a benefit of fiction opposed to film. The author can tell you what is happening and what the characters are feeling, but in the film the director has to show you. If the viewer doesn't have a background or is young they may not get it.

Finally, the good. Casting. It was awesome. I'm not sold on giving a pretty girl glasses and frizzy hair the calling her ugly. I have straight hair, but if I took off my glasses I wouldn't be Tina Fey or Emma Stone. But Sissy Spacek, Allison Janney, and Cicely Tyson are all amazing. The dialogue felt a little punchier, and the flow worked really well.

All that said, the best part was watching this in a crowded theater with commentary. I'm serious, the elderly African American woman sitting next to me was ridiculous. Between talking about the soundtrack, the cars, and then general comments about plot. I was laughing the whole time.

I'm giving it a 5/5.

"That's Gay!" Literature

I do love plays on words. I was skimming HuffPo this morning, and couldn't help but notice a post on books for LGBTQ teens. They listed thirteen great books for teens and specifically gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, and questioning/queer (depending on the circle you use) teens. To my dismay, I've only read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky, but I fully intend to get a DC library card and borrow the rest of these. I'd use my school one, but we're having some difficulties with communication.

The list offered by HuffPo is as follows:

• The Arizona Kid, Ron Koertege
• Boy Meets Boy, David Levithan
• Deliver Us from Evie, M.E. Kerr
• From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun, Jacqueine Woodson
• The God Box, Alex Sanchez
• Jack, A.M. Homes
• The Misfits, James Howe
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
• Rainbow Boys, Alex Sanchez
• The Bermudez Triangle, Maureen Johnson
• Absolutely, Positively Not, David LaRochelle
• Annie on my Mind, Nancy Garden
• Kissing Kate, Lauren Myracle

It is important that these books are becoming part of popular culture especially with the advent of Twilight and other reactionary fiction depicting hetero-normative lifestyles and a disturbing amount of gender based violence at least in this specific example, but Twilight will be for another day. After reading the brief descriptions of these books I'm sold on reading almost all of them. Perhaps my end of summer reading list. They're all young adult books so should read fairly quick.

I remember reading Perks of Being a Wallflower for the first time. It was a pretty huge experience, and still sits on my bookshelf. Sometimes I forget some how some books are banned and for these ridiculous reasons such as homosexuality is obscene and offensive. Still the increasing in readership is huge and hopefully will get these books off banned book lists, and maybe even into middle school reading lists.

Well, I'm still reading 1984...

And I'm just about finished now. I've stopped reading it outside of work so I haven't had a chance to read it since about November, but I think I've come across the best line in this book.

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-for ever"

Amazing.

This could actually be pretty funny

Someone put out a comic book of "missed connections" called I Saw You...: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections. I think I may actually have to check this out because I know just reading the missed connections on craigslist is funny enough as it is, but with drawings it can really only get better!