A
Butler Named Oscar
A Review of Lee Daniels’s “The Butler”
By Brian H. Settles
Supported
by an all-star cast, “The Butler” is
an amazing cinematic experience for the story line alone. As is the case in so
many human lives, Cecil Gaines’ road to a life of White House employment was
generated by tragic childhood events that molded his character. In an apparent
sympathy move by the plantation owner, after Gaines’ witnesses his father’s
gunshot murder by the molester of his mother, portrayed by Mariah Carey, who
becomes an emotional cripple incapable of raising young Cecil. The latter is
brought into the big house to become, as emphasized in the movie, “a house
nigga,” learning to practice the intricacies of properly serving wealthy white
folks. The skills learned in serving others paved the way for his future
leading to waiter position at a posh New York hotel before his highly honed experience
waiting on the most powerful of society eventually garnered an invitation to interview for
employment at the White House. But this is only the tip of the story.
As a
baby boomer, who lived through the turbulence and suffering of the civil rights
struggle, I was mesmerized by the crawl down memory lane magnificently directed
by director Daniels, as the audience witnessed the longitudinal juxtaposition
of Cecil Gaines insulated White House routine with the bloody struggle by African
Americans for voting rights, integrated eating facilities and societal equality
occurring on the streets across America. Gaines’ role is brilliantly acted by a
seasoned Forest Whitaker and an equally stellar performance by Oprah Winfrey
who plays his wife. The slideshow of contrasting scenes bouncing back and forth
between the bloody chaos of the Freedom Rides in the South, rioting in the
streets after Dr. King’s assassination and his son dying in the Vietnam War are
in stark contrast to Cecil Gaines distracting himself from the madness of
society by obsessively polishing the gold inlaid White House silverware.
Throughout
the film, the private life of this self-made, uneducated father of two sons and
a husband, serving as a White House butler for the Presidents, is interwoven
with the extraordinary subservience to the most powerful men in American
government, giving film goers a sampling the private verbal interactions with
presidents from Eisenhower to President Bush II, concurrent to the generational
battle going on between old school Gaines and his new wave sons being nourished
on the Black consciousness of the late twentieth century. For me this was the
essence of the film’s profoundness: the conflict between family generations who
have not experienced the same life circumstances of their parents’ struggle
with race in society and the anxious hopefulness of loving parents who only
want to raise successful offspring who are not crippled with excuses for not
working hard in school to prepare for a better life that awaits them than the
one available to their parents. I heard some moviegoers comment “they wished
the film had offered more insight into the actual inside functioning of the White
House staff.” I guess there just was not
space to cover it all without risking tedium. The opening and closing scenes depict the highlights of
Cecil Gaines’ life as a White House butler: finally, after retirement, being
invited back to the White House to meet President Barack Obama, the first Black
President of the United States.
This
Butler is named Oscar. The superstar cast of actors made this move Bravisimo.
With Winfrey and Whitaker, you couldn’t go wrong accompanied by strong work by
Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz who ceased being cool long enough to turn in
a plausible support performance. Although not touted as a docudrama, “The Butler” is a valuable piece of American
cinema that depicts not only how far Cecil Gaines climbed in his life, but how
far America has come in its life. For those who love an American story, go see
this movie; it’s part of what makes Black folks proud and America great.
Brian Settles is a
retired airline pilot, Vietnam combat veteran, poet and author of No Reason
for Dying: A Reluctant Combat Pilot’s Confession of Hypocrisy, Infidelity and
War. Twitter@BrianHSettles and Facebook
