Inequality In Film

The issue pertaining to equality has been an issue in the American culture since its existence, and in the articles The Butler VS The Help and The Offensive Movie Cliché That Wont Die, we see how gender and race have a rise of issues into American films. In the article The Butler versus The Help there is mainly a gender concern between the male character in The Butler and the female character in The Help. The butler is a movie about a male butler who works at the white house. In The Help, the main character is a female who is a maid in a middle class home. The article The Offensive Movie Cliché that Wont Die talks about how films in the American industry are discriminatory against race. An example provided from the article was that films express

Even though work environments were different, they were still invisible to everyone else, but only because one character did “women work” it changes the view of how things are pictured making it easy to condemn Aibileen’s character. And even though both roles are played as ‘stereotypical’, the women was always let down, while the man was praised.“But Aibileen’s world is dominated but women she does “women’s work” –cleaning, cooking, caregiving. Cecil, though just as invisible, occupies space crowded by men. He’s “in service” and “serving his country” as President Regan (played by Alan Rickman) puts it.” (353) Andrews uses a quote from the movie told by a big political figure to prove how Cecil’s character is honored by everyone because of Cecil’s service. Aibileen “services” a family the same as Cecil does but a male character in the White House looks a lot better than a woman who is in a middle class home. Lets think about if the roles were switched, would this article even be written discussing the discrimination of gender roles? In The Offensive Movie Cliché That Wont Die, Seitz uses no evidence as to how gender affects the “magical negro.” Seitz does not discuss the difference of how a “magical negro” role can be differed if it were a women playing it. Seitz only provides

Because Aibileen is a black maid, it was easy for her to be attacked about her role in the movie because of her race. Viola Davis, Aibileens character has defended Aibileens character many times and explained that her character was to only empower women, but other took it the complete opposite. “From Hattie McDaniel onward, the debate about whether or not black actors and actresses (along with screenwriters, directors, and producers) should ever play the roles of the maid or butler has been going on.” (353)This quote from the article can raise a lot of questions. It states that black actors should not become butlers, because it causes some sort of issue, but because a white man is a butler, he is seen as a hero. This alone can show you that you can portray a character in a good or bad way depending on what race they are, not matter the