"The Help"

This weekend, Lovely English Lass and I finally got to go out on our date night instead of just ordering in food and watching a movie at home.  When we got back, the place was still intact and the babysitter hadn't run screaming into the night (and even stated she'd be coming back on Friday this week so we could go out for an early Anniversary dinner), so all in all a success.  We got to go to the movies here, which was an interesting experience.  Many similarities between the movie watching experience in the US and in SA.  1) Teenage boys will still act incredibly stupid, hold up the line at the concession stand, and generally be an idiot just to impress a girl.  2) The seats are nice with a a lot of leg room.  3) the bathrooms are still always being cleaned by someone that looks like at any second they'll snap.  The differences?  1) They have a salt station for your popcorn.  There's butter salt, Salt and vinegar, mango chutney salt, cheese salt, popcorn shrimp, butterfly shrimp, rock shrimp.... (wait, I went Gump there didn't I?) 2) The screens are much smaller than a new movie theater in the US.

However, gotta talk about the movie.  We went to see "The Help" which came out at the beginning of the month here.  What a great flick.  It was a bit surreal seeing it in SA as a lot of what they were talking about in the movie was very recent history here in SA.  We're talking 20 years ago, not 40.  I can remember the protests and anti-apartheid movement.  The movie theater was about 1/2 white and 1/2 black, so I was expecting some sort of reaction.  There wasn't one.  Just people talking about how the enjoyed the movie. 

Now, I am a Southerner through and through.  We can probably trace my family back to the beginning of Georgia on one side.  (Yeah, they were criminals.)  There is a lot to be proud of when you think of the South.  Peanut Butter and Dr. Pepper being two of my favorite things.  But you've also got the writings of William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Harper Lee, Truman Capote, most of the Founding Fathers, Rock n Roll, Coca-Cola and our ability to fry anything and make it taste good.  (Fried Dill Pickles being one of those things.)  However, that era was not one of them.  I still find it hard to believe that the setting of this movie took place while my father was in High School.  It wasn't that long ago, you know.  My dad was in Junior High School* during the integration of Central High School in Little Rock in 1957, and later graduated from there.  The elementary school I went to in Texarkana was originally the school for the African-American kids.  My first grade teacher talked about teaching in the school when segregation was still in force.

I look at the movie and think, how did it get that way?  And then I look at the history of South Africa and think the same thing.  There are a lot of parallels between Jim Crow South and Apartheid South Africa.  The question is: Have we progressed much from those days?  I hope so.  I hope that we can all see each other for who we are and not what we are.  I'm not sure if we're there yet, but I can hope we will be. 

Quite a lot of deep thoughts from a movie on date night, don't you think?

*correction, my dad was 10 and in elementary school during the integration of Central High School.  The year following the integration, 1958, Governor Orval Faubus closed all the public schools in Little Rock to stop black children from attending white schools.