Upon
watching the film “The Secret Life of Bees,” I was immediately struck by how
similar the settings/themes were similar to my own hometown. In the film, the protagonist, Lily, lives in
the Deep South and experiences many of the prejudices that occurred and are
still effect in today’s modern age. The
struggle between blacks and whites has been a conflict we have been dealing
with since the creation of our nation.
The nature of this paper is not to examine the racial discrimination
events of the past. Rather, our focus
will be on how these past events have influenced our current society and how we
are to navigate forward towards progress.
I grew up in small
river town on the outskirts of St. Louis. The town consists of roughly
two-thousand blue collar individuals.
Young men, many who never finished high school, work as farmers and/or
construction workers while the women were either stay at home moms, teachers,
or waitresses at the small cafés in town.
While this may sound like a fairly idyllic life to some, the town has
its own way of doing things; many of these things go unspoken. Going through the town today, one would
notice that there is a very clear divide within the city. Blacks lived on the
south side, whites on the north. Growing
up, we always knew the unspoken rule of never commenting on this anomaly, it
was simply accepted. Also accepted were
the “four-way stop donations” for the KKK, never asking why all of the black
students were never seen in school due to being placed in “special education,” and
not asking about the burnt out house on the north side; a house in which a
black man went against the norms and moved into the north side, only to
discover a stick of dynamite in his woodpile.
This represents
the current state of the town’s dynamics, but in order to understand why this
is we will examine a historical perspective through the lens of the film “The
Secret Life of Bees.” In the film we see
the same tension between blacks and whites that is found in the small present
day town in which I grew up. However,
the tension is more confrontational. In
one of the scenes from the film, Zach takes Lily to a film in town and his
dragged away by whites and beaten (Secret Life of Bees). This form of confrontation was more prevalent
during the time in period in which the film takes places but today’s tension
has changed. Rather than the folks in
the present day town dragging the north side man back to the south side and
beating him, they allowed him to purchase the house and quietly slip dynamite
into his woodpile during the night.
Another example
from the film would be the scene in which Rosaline is going to the poll to vote
and ends up getting beaten for standing up to the white men (Secret Life of
Bees). Again, while the confrontation
that occurs in the film is more physical, the confrontation that occurs in
today’s small town is a more discrete confrontation. The town has a sizable black population, yet
if you were to attend a graduation ceremony at the high school, you would be
hard pressed to find more than 5 black students graduating. Is this simply due to Blacks quitting out of
school due to lack of interest? Again,
we know not to ask these questions.
After examining
the historical context in the film “Secret Life of Bees,” we can see how the
past events of racial tension have a clear effect on how our societies today
are constructed. We also notice how the
manner in which the two ethnic group confront each other has Many of these
tensions are still very raw in today’s day and age. The way in which we will ease these societal
tensions and help to construct a more tolerant society is through the uses of
education and positive role modeling. By
learning what past events still linger in our society’s consciousness, we can
help lead the way in bridging the gap between blacks and whites and create a
society in which both voices are equally heard.
Works Cited
The Secret Life of Bees. Fox
Searchlight Pictures, 2008. DVD.
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