Fiction Isn't Fact...It's Fiction

Fiction Isn't Fact...It's Fiction

While The Help has garnered rave reviews and made money at the box office, there has been an undercurrent of mumbling and grumbling about the movie. Some, like the Association of Black Women Historians, have denounced the movie because of its historical inaccuracies in the depiction of life as a Black domestic in the Jim Crow south.

The film is based on the novel of the same name, which by definition is a work fiction. The Help isn't a memoir, biography or autobiography. The story is based on someone's real life; however, by calling it a novel, the author acknowledges sufficient embellishments and divergence from facts for it to be fictional. This is nothing new, during the early nineties, there was much ado over Oliver Stone's JFK. Historians denounced the film because Stone told the story from his point of view and used creative license in telling the story of the 35th president, his tenure and his death.

Guess what? It's all fiction...it's all make believe. These are not documentaries or exposes. These are movies and novels; they represent one person's creative expression. 

The good news, people are talking about day work (as my Mother calls it). They are asking questions, researching and learning about an aspect of Black women's history that has mostly been glossed over for the last half century. And discourse and discussion are always good.