Jennifer Popa
ENGL 601
3.5.12

Popa Does Postcolonialism (Not Unlike Debbie Does Dallas, but far less titillating)

I am interested in this particular branch of criticism after taking Jen Schell’s class last semester. We read a variety of works, but the issue of identity was certainly an ever-present theme within the course. I’m curious as to how identity is formed; we read one particular scholar who made the claim that national identity doesn’t exist, that is merely myth. And yet within this particular chapter there’s at the very least the distinction that there’s a hegemonic force operating.
So as I was reading this particular chapter, for some reason my thoughts kept straying to the wildly successful film and novel, The Help. And perhaps this is because this is a more immediate example of examining Postcolonialism, but it is a book I read on the plane ride to Alaska. I found it particularly horrifying and barely made it through, but I pressed on, as it was a novel that a great many seemed to be enjoying. I felt really uncomfortable, mostly because it was a whitewashed work of historical fiction. The African American women within the book were portrayed to be Aunt Jemima types exclusively; the only use of dialectic language in the dialog was with these women. This is in spite of the fact that the novel is set in the deep south, and yet, the only characters that seem to be dumbed down, or made to have a specific manner of speaking are the African American characters. There isn’t even a drawl on the language of the white women.

Meet Aunt Jemima:

One of the characters has an entire monolog about how fried chicken will cure all ailments. Aside from enforcing these archetypal perceptions, the worst part is that it is a young white woman who swoops in and serves as their voice. It is through her that they’re “saved” or given a voice. I think these careful, controlled versions of really horrific moments in history are dangerous. It allows the modern reader to fictionalize and imagine the plight of the African American maid in the entertaining, whitewashed package wherein the chief issue is catty female dynamics, rather than the horrific reality of racial persecution. The reality was that the maids of the time often not only feared for her own safety, but dealt with the sexual advances of the employer, which sometimes took the form of groping, and sometimes even rape. These tragic realities are often glossed over. With regard to postcolonialism, it’s an interesting dynamic, because it’s easier to view these woman working within our homes as loveable nurturing types, or sassy women from the south. It’s harder to know the gruesome details or the reality of their persecution. And in this story, it’s a refreshing take for a white reader to see the redemptive role of a young woman who speaks for the rights of the maids. What’s interesting about identity is how often identity is created when projected via a dominant class, for the sake of creating one’s identity in relation to the other identity. How often are we identifying ourselves, based upon what we are not? And how much are we attempting to water down the black marks of the past so that we find our national identity more palatable? How does othering enforce our identity as the dominant class? In the clash with African American women working in the US as maids, they were silenced until they received the help of this one white woman. How curious to be identified through the lens of the oppressor, and it is only through that medium which their voice exists.