Lord 'Help' Me

I know if I go to any number of websites I can find a myriad of dissections of the "new" movie 'The Help', both pro and con. Of course any film dealing with race is going to have adoration and detraction. To be honest,  I don't even know very much about it, just the commercials I've seen on the television, while I'm trying to watch Law and Order ( I am the world biggest nerd-fan of Law and Order.)
Butthe little that I do know about this movie, just makes me want to barf.

Barf, barf, and barf.

Why do we need more depictions of black women as maids? Seriously,  there are so many stories of black people in the United States that are just dying to be told. Artists, architects, educators, scientists, mothers, bankers,  probably even bank robbers. So many. These are the stories I want to hear. How about a movie about the life of Betye Saar? Seriously, there's a story that needs telling.

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, by Betye Saar. 1972

I am sure studio heads figure a white audience is a lot more comfortable watching a movie about 'the help" in past tense. They can pat themselves on the back and say,  "I'm so glad we're all done with that" and "Man, I don't treat black people that way, I feel so good about myself." 
But if Hollywood is all of a sudden ready to invest in movies about the lives of domestic servants, there are films that are relevant and fascinating that I'd really like to see.  Here's an idea: a movie about present tense filipino nannies, working insanely long hours and raising peoples kids, and cleaning their houses. What about their inner thoughts regarding the people they work for. What about their children and the families they support with their paychecks, back in the Philippines? A movie like that doesn't allow a contemporary audience the same back patting though. We're a lot more likely, regardless of race, to be connected somehow, maybe even complicit.
If we look at contemporary domestic workers the color palette would be much more complex now. Black, Mexican and White families have maids these days. Many people of color are still living with a legacy of slavery and poverty, and are still overrepresented in this labor that is looked at as somehow less than worthy of respect, so it's not as if race and class aren't intertwined here. But things would be much more messy now if we were to divide the good guys and the bad guys by race. Really it's about being able to see people, or a group of people as an other, as somewhat less than human.
When we were discussing moving to Asia my (now very EX) husband was very excited that we would be able to afford a maid there. He was so happy to inform me "Just about every family there has a Filipino house keeper who is also their Nanny!" Saying this as if he were telling me " Every yard has a mango tree and the streets are paved with gold". Needless to say we were not on the same page. That  way of thinking about people in terms of what you can get away with leads to situations like this, which is an article, or more of a rant, written about the island where we later moved to, Saipan.

I have worked as a maid and it's so f-ing weird. 

You are intensely intimately close with these people, this family, you learn about their family dynamics, their habits, their fights, their worries, their habits, their passions, and their general grossness. But you are not their friend or even an acquaintance. It's such a bizarre dynamic. I could not ever, no never ever, stand the idea of having someone be that personally intimate with me and my family, unless they were someone that I loved and was close with. I wouldn't ever, and can't imagine inviting someone into my home if I didn't trust and respect them as a human being. And when you trust and respect someone as a human being it's difficult to ask them to clean your toilet two or three times a week. I'm not saying it's impossible to have a mutually  respectful relationship with the person who cleans your house. But it is a relationship that is ripe with weirdness and an odd imbalance  and I think most of the time people just don't give it much thought.
And how, if you must de-humanize someone in order to deal with the idea of them cleaning your house ( and many people do, because you can not think of them as a stranger in your home, you must think of them as a worker, whatever that is in your head) can you expect them not to de-hamanize you in some way too?
If the dynamic is one where a stranger is cleaning your toilet, how do you think most people feel cleaning someone else's toilet? I know many, many good and decent people who are house-cleaners, and nannies, and they are incredibly kind and generous people who would never, ever even disrespect their employer in any way. Yet, not everyone is a pillar of goodness. Not me, that's for sure. I couldn't help resenting the people I cleaned up after, even though they were perfectly fine people, if not a little gross. When it comes right down to it, do you want that power dynamic in your own home?
Jan Wong wrote an incredible series of articles over at The Globe &Mail about going undercover as a maid. She is brilliant and I fell in love with her writing when I read these.
And another thing...why does there always have to be some white savior in these movies? Why do we need  a white person as the central character to bring these stories forward? These days I think white people will go watch a movie with a central character that isn't a white lady. I think they can handle it. Also, I am pretty sure people of color go to the movies too.
At best, "The Help" might inspire larger conversations into the rights of domestic laborers  in contemporary North American culture, but to me it just seems like another attempt to drag out another tired horse that needs to be put out to pasture.