Understanding The Message Behind The Movies

News Blaze ^ | 8/20/11 | Chuck Ness

[wardaddy]

Rich folks everywhere with serious staff have separate bathrooms and often kitchens too ...it's not a race thing.

It's just a separation especially if they are live ins and works better really...gives them their private quarters.

We did not have that but my grandfather did...but no one would refuse them food or water on the fine china.

I don't have illusions either...especially now. I know this...however bad it was then...black culture was intact...black illegitimacy was only 20%...black crime and corruption was negligible except on Farish streets on Saturday nites..and I could have my car break down any where and all the city was safe.

Today it has all fallen apart.

It's difficult to judge really how much better is progress. We were never truly segregated and now we are not fully integrated...Jackson has resegregated with richer blacks joining whites on the perimeter or in pockets of the Northeast holdouts.

Every year exponentially more whites murdered or raped etc by blacks than the total of all blacks killed during everything from Reconstruction thru Jim Crow

so what did we really gain?

a clearer conscience..mine was fine already after New York

or a larger black middle class that votes for entitlements after decades of pundits assuring us that once opportunity and education gave them this they would adopt out values

hell they shared our values more when they were oppressed.

I never thought it would turn out like this...it's a very mixed bag and the future is grim.

Right now my kinfolks who stayed in Clinton are trying to get out because they see where it's headed...down...they don't know whether to go to Raymond or Madison...maybe down below Terry...

helluva way to live....it's like South Africa..staying ahead of the blight

and no cure in sight

struggle mentioned black middle class flight...that reminded me of the first nice black neighborhood when I was a boy...out Delta Drive ...Presidential Hills...past Northside dr

now when I'm in town for family or family business...I often stay at Cabot on County Line and drive across county line to NE Hinds to see my cousin who lives out near that tort lawyer's big horse farm on former Irby land...Carson road I think...anyhow...looks like a lot of nice black homes out Hanging Moss and Watkins...former white areas in my day but they look like they held up

My maternal grandma lived on Lexington..tween St Charles and First...near Whitfield elementary...decent in the 60s and 70s then nice blacks moved in but later the riff raff ...same pattern and everyone leaves and you get zip for your home

How do you stop that cycle?

Drive thru there now and it is bad....like really really bad.

You got me thinking though ...did I ever see anyone mistreat their domestics?

I cannot say I did though what do I really know...I was kid. I know my dad spent many a sunday morning bailing his black men outta the tank...brawling...got “staubed” or domestic fighting...I got to ride along since he had built the new jail...we'd walk right in and fetch everyone to take them to their homes where wives were waiting...yes they all married back then more so...they'd be all humble and contrite...I loved it...I could miss church and we'd slip by Primos for a box of brownies..

yep..great place to grow up for me....I'm able to replicate that for my kids here in Williamson county TN but in Jackson proper today it would be a tall order..

it sucks...I'll never shake it...it's in your blood...anyone from Mississippi gets it...the moss, the decay smell, the faded gentility..I miss it in some ways though I know life for my kids here is safer and I don't have a private school bill

[SuziQ]

All my cousins in Jackson area read it and were livid about how poorly it reflected on folks (like us) who grew up with old black women cooking and ironing or had black gardeners etc...my grandfather...not us though my mom did have “help”...just one lady...Violet Davis..and her husband Moses. I recall all their names...benevolent folks very kind to me...I can look back now and realize I was living in a fleeting time but unlike MS Stockett I have no guilt over it...though she actually is just writing about what she heard about.

When listening to the book on CD, I got the impression that the white women being described were the 'society' women, not a typical middle class white family who could afford 'help' on a regular basis, but were not at all in the "Junior League" class of family, which was always conscious of what others might say about them.

Hubby's Mama employed a black woman who truly helped raise her kids, when she had to return to work to help the family's finances. All of the kids still speak fondly of Ida Mae, for whom hubby's Mama set up a Social Security account, and paid into it, while she was working for them. We have a family picture in which Ida Mae is holding my hubby, when he was just a toddler. They also had a gardener, Mr. Fred, and when he became too ill to work for them anymore, hubby's parents still gave him money, and she took food to his house on a regular basis. I remember going to his house, when hubby and I were first dating. He was a very nice man, and had a lovely garden at his own house, which he was just barely able to keep up, at that point.

Hubby's Mama once told me that she thought the South was able to 'get over' the racial changes more quickly than the North ever did because many white people in the South had known, and loved, black people all their lives. Nothing changed for them, except the public trappings; their private behavior simply went on as before.

I never really knew much about Jackson, growing up. I was born and raised in Hattiesburg, and know more about the Coast, where we have a family Fish Camp, and spent most of our summers. My s-i-l has lived in Pearl, and worked in Jackson, for almost 30 years, and she hates what has happened to the city.

[HungarianGypsy]

Watched Green Lantern. Learned that you can overcome fear by bringing about courage, because you truly love something. Maybe that wasn’t the message, but that’s what came across to me. Meanwhile, I got an entertaining movie, while my comic geek acquaintances were busy analyzing what wasn’t right about it.

[petitfour]

I loved the movie. It is fiction, and I viewed it as such even though there are many similarities to the way things were in Jackson. I’m the same age as Kathryn though I don’t think I ever met her. My best friend went to Prep, but she is a year older. I also went to Bama as Kathryn did. I feel somewhat of a kinship with her since I left Jackson, went to college, and married “a Yankee” even though he was born in Atlanta. lol I’m probably more generous with writers and their artistic license because hubby writes fiction, and it often seems very real.

I visited family outside of Jackson last week. I had not been back for at least 15 years. I had my oldest two daughters with me and drove them around my old neighborhood in South Jackson, and it was so sad to see how run down the whole area is. My old neighborhood, which was upper middle class in the late 60s, 70s, and 80s, is very much run down. I could see it as being an inspiration for the book.

I don’t want to get into my opinion of the 60s or even beyond that as far as Jackson goes. I didn’t live through the 60s. I was oblivious in the 70s and most of the 80s. Then I left. When I left, the first black family moved into my old neighborhood. The white folks could not sell their houses fast enough.

Someone above mentioned the condition of Peeples. They have built a new building on the property, but the old building remains. It is quite an eyesore. Not that the people who live around the school seem to take pride in their own houses. I can’t believe how fast things went downhill, but historically speaking, the same thing happened when the white folks started moving out of the big homes near downtown. (I can’t remember the streets—maybe Robinson Rd?)

We had a maid when I was a wee one. We had two bathrooms in our house. And I think we were considered rich BECAUSE we had two bathrooms. lol I’m guessing our maid used our bathroom.

[OneVike]

Meanwhile, I got an entertaining movie, while my comic geek acquaintances were busy analyzing what wasn’t right about it.

Your experience is similar to what happens when they make a movie off a book. Those who never read the book usually come away feeling as if they liked the movie, while the ones who read the book spend the whole time criticizing the way the it never lives up to the standard of the book.

Although I must admit that I have only seen two movies in my life that came real close to what the book was like. "Little Big Man", with Dustin Hoffman, and "The Green Mile" with Tom Hanks.

That being said, I have never been one to expect a movie to live up to a book. I guess the truth would be that words can seldom transfer to celluloid in an equal way that does justice to the authors vision.

[dixiechick2000]

I read quite a bit of the book, but had a hard time with it. Since you are from Jackson, I’m glad to read your perspective.

I didn’t recognize many things that Stockett wrote about.

We bought a very old home in NC to remodel. It had a bathroom for “the help” and a butler’s bell in the dining room floor. So, I guess she wasn’t totally making up stuff. However, this home was so old that she wasn’t even a gleem in her grandmother’s eye at the time.

I’m going to be out of town for a while...just so you know. It’s good to see you. ;o)

[HungarianGypsy]

Book to Movie. That was my experience with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Here was my favorite book of the series and I spent the whole time, "That's not right. No. WTH were you thinking when you made this!?" My frustration was more complete, because the first two movies were quite similar to the books.

I remember watching The Princess Bride before reading the book. It took a second reading about ten years later, before I truly appreciated the quality of the book more than the movie. Even though I still enjoy both.

[petitfour]

I have to correct something from my earlier post. My BFF says that Kathryn is two years older than she is, and that would make her three years older than I am.

[wardaddy]

You are a mere child then dear...

[cradle of freedom]

As a person in my sixties, I was around at the time that the big change happened in American society and it happened through music and the mass media. Young people are basically lemmings, they will follow each other off a cliff if you let them. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll worked to seduce young people away from traditional values into a feel good, thoughtless, narcisistic, hedonist society.

The reason why I looked up the topic of movies is because I was thinking about the influence of popular culture on people especially young people. I wanted to ask you and others if they have ever heard of a Christian website that critiques movies, television and books according to OUR values—not theirs. There is a real need for this now more than ever.

If anyone knows of such a website please let us know and let’s spread the word.

[cradle of freedom]

Hi, I have often wondered why it seems that blacks in the south are all moving into the cities. Since, I do no live in the south, I am not sure if this is true but I do get that impression.