BEFORE: That's right, "The Butler". NOT "Lee Daniels' The Butler", because a director's name should never be part of a film's title. It's not "Orson Welles' Citizen Kane", is it? Or "Steven Spielberg's E.T."? Because the title is the title, and there's a place for the director's name in the credits that is NOT the title. Can we all get some consistency on this? I also do not allow "Disney's" to be part of a film title, because, well, it's not. We don't say "20th Century Fox's Star Wars" when referring to the 1977 film, or "Miramax's Shakespeare in Love", now, do we?
(Once again, I blame Tyler Perry. He negotiated a great deal for himself, to be sure, but the grammatical abomination that is "Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection" should make my point for me. You simply can't have more than one possessive in a title. I admit that there is something called "name above the title", which some directors are guaranteed, according to their contracts. But's that just for the specifications on the poster - and anyway, it's name ABOVE the title, not IN the title.
(EDIT: Supposedly, Warner Brothers filed a claim to have this film renamed, because they own a 1916 silent short film called "The Butler", and this justified the re-naming of the film. I'm not buying that, because I happen to know that you can NOT copyright a title. There are different films released with the same title all the time, like "Crash" or "The Illusionist" or "Mr. & Mrs. Smith". If I wanted to make a documentary about tornado chasers and call it "Gone With the Wind", I have every legal right to do so.)
Why this film, why today? Well, it's Mother's Day, and I have a feeling that there's going to be some material in here that relates to a mother-son relationship. Plus, my mother saw this film and recommended it to me, which is usually a sign that I'm going to hate it. My mother doesn't have a good track record after suggesting I watch "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" - of course, she spoiled the ending after I asked her not to. She'll typically say, "Just let me tell you this one thing..." and of course that one thing will be the whole key to the plot - thanks, Ma.
My linking this week has been rather extreme - from Stan Lee to Dave Bautista to Karl Urban. These are not people who have a ton of acting credits. The trend continues today as Lenny Kravitz (really?) carries over from a cameo in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". Take that. But this also kicks off a week of films with Robin Williams (last seen in "The Big Wedding"), as he plays President Eisenhower (really?) in "The Butler".
THE PLOT: As Cecil Gaines serves eight presidents during his tenure as a butler at the White House, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and other major events affect this man's life, family, and American society.
AFTER: I don't address Black History Month in my schedule, because my February is usually filled with films about love and romance, so I have to play catch-up on this topic when I can. I could easily see connecting to "12 Years a Slave" if I were linking by topic, which I'm not. Thematically I'm going to bouncing around for a while. There is some plantation-based stuff at the start of this film, which almost calls the timeline into question for me, because 1926 Georgia here is depicted as if it's really pre-Civil War.
Let me be clear about this, this is a look at American history from just one angle, a review of 8 presidencies (really, 5) that really only takes into account each leader's record on civil rights. Not that the struggle isn't important, but if you're going to judge a President, you need to look at everything, how many trips he took, how much legislation he vetoed, how many unjustified wars he started, how many affairs, etc. I think breaking it down to just civil rights does the office a large disservice. Look, these are busy men. I say 5 Presidents instead of 8 because the film manages to skip over Ford and Carter, so I'm concluding that Carter's record on civil rights was pretty good, and detailing this just wouldn't fit with the narrative that someone was trying to construct.
Beyond that, it seems to be a detailing of clueless men and lost opportunities. Eisenhower stood for integration, but those school boards in Arkansas kept getting in his way. Nixon was going to support equal pay for African-Americans (at least, that's what he SAID, why wouldn't you trust him?) but then lost the election to John F. Kennedy. JFK was a big supporter of civil rights, when he wasn't hopped up on pain meds for his back, then he had to go and get himself shot (Whoops, SPOILER ALERT). LBJ managed to take a stand, enacting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and hey, free tie clips!
Then we get Nixon again, but by this time he's a complete wreck, a paranoid who's been told of the dangers of the militant Black Panthers, so no progress there. Then there's that unexplainable 6-year gap in U.S. history, during which no civil rights progress was made, because everyone was busy watching "Sanford & Son". (Hey, the movie implied that, not me!) Then Reagan was a douche who refused to support sanctions against South Africa because of Apartheid, but hey, free dinner!
All this time, Cecil Gaines is a butler at the White House who points out to his superiors, time and again, that the black staff only makes 40% what the white staff makes. Yes, even while the politicians are claiming that all Americans should be treated equally, the salaries and promotions at the White House were anything but equal. Are we really surprised by this? And aren't we in the exact same situation right now with women's pay? Why do equality rights always seem like a no-brainer in retrospect, but no one ever seems able to change the current situation?
Meanwhile, Cecil's son gets involved with the civil rights movement at the grass roots level, participating in lunch counter sit-ins in Tennessee, then attacked by the Klan in Alabama in 1961, marching with Dr. King, and then joining the Black Panthers. It's funny how this character ends up everywhere important, becoming sort of a civil rights Forrest Gump, only without the box of chocolates and the childlike innocence. I dare say it strains credulity that one person could have been at all of those events, leaving the other son to fight in Vietnam. (you can probably guess where that plotline is going, this is a very heavy-handed and non-subtle film.)
Yes, there's some mother-son relationship stuff here, so I feel justified in my holiday tie-in. But after throwing one son out of her house, and which questions about her drinking and possible infidelity, Mrs. Gaines may not win any "Mother of the Year" awards. But the film is really a look back at racial tension, important times in history when, as African-Americans demonstrated for their rights, the country was a tinderbox, and riots often broke out. Thank God that doesn't happen any more, and everything got solved when a black President was elected.
NITPICK POINT: I understand the importance of casting name actors in key roles, but picking the people that they did to play U.S. Presidents in this film seems like stunt casting of the highest order. When the guy who played Richard Nixon in the last "X-Men" film looks and sounds better than the guy playing him in a historical drama, that's a really bad sign.
Also starring Forest Whitaker (last heard in "Where the Wild Things Are"), Oprah Winfrey (last heard in "The Princess and the Frog"), David Oyelowo (last seen in "Red Tails"), Cuba Gooding, Jr. (ditto), Terrence Howard (last seen in "Hustle & Flow"), Adriane Lenox (last seen in "The Skeleton Twins"), Olivia Washington, James Marsden (last seen in "X-Men: Days of Future Past"), Minka Kelly, Liev Schreiber (last seen in "Goon"), Alan Rickman (last seen in "Love Actually"), Jane Fonda (last seen in "Barefoot in the Park"), Nelsan Ellis, Olivia Washington, Colman Domingo, Alex Pettyfer, Mariah Carey (last seen in "Precious"), Vanessa Redgrave (last seen in "Julia"), Clarence Williams III (last seen in "Purple Rain"), Elijah Kelly, David Banner, with cameos from Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Walter Cronkite, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, Gladys Knight, Redd Foxx, Hal Linden, Ron Glass.
RATING: 5 out of 10 silver trays
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