The Help reaches number one on Netflix nine years after theatrical release… amid criticism of ‘being racial reconciliation movie’ and regrets from co-star Viola Davis
The period drama film, The Help, was a critical and commercial success, garnering four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.
And now, nearly nine years after its theatrical release, it has become the most watched movie on Netflix, all while garnering renewed criticism, which in the past has included co-star Viola Davis, for its ‘white savior’ tone.
The renewed interest in the film coincides with ongoing protests across the US following the killing of unarmed African-American George Floyd at the hands of a white police as three other officers looked on.
Resurgence: The 2011 drama film The Help, starring Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer and Viola David is currently the number one movie on Netflix
Ashly Perez, Ira Madison III and Rebecca Theodore-Vachon are among the journalists who are speaking out against its renewed surge in viewership, according to Indie Wire.
‘I’m so sorry but the last thing folx need to be watching are bootleg ‘racial reconciliation’ movies like The Help,’ Theodore-Vachon wrote, before adding that if someone needs a list of Black film, Black film critics were ‘happy to suggest some really good ones.’
The Help tells the story of a young white woman who gets the idea to write a book that shares the point of view of black maids in the early 1960s in Mississippi.
In hindsight, Davis, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Aibileen Clark, has been open about her regret in taking on the role.
Davis praised her experience working with all the people involved, including the actors and director Tate Taylor, in a New York Times interview in 2018 before offering her critique of the final cut.
In hindsight: Davis, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Aibileen Clark, has been open about her regret in taking on the role
‘I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard,’ she revealed.
‘I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They’re my grandma. They’re my mom.’
She added, ‘And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.’
The 2011 film was added to the Netflix catalogue on June 1. It became the number one film on the US website by June 4.
The backlash: Some critics, who have called The Help a ‘racial reconciliation movie’ are trying to convince people not to watch the film; Davis is pictured as Aibileen Clark in The Help