Review of The Butler

Here is my hastily prepared draft :

I watched the Butler today, the movie begins in 1926,  literally the first scene in  a Cotton farm (reminded me of Cotton Wood Heights) , has a white plantation owner rapes Mariah Carey (possibly half black- half white)and shoots her husband (black)in the head, killing him. Their son grows up to become Forest Whitaker’s Cecile Gaines(I think this character is a combination of a lot of real people, just insert African American woman’s husband could be anyone I may have dated could be a version of my dad). Cecil Gaines leaves his family and eventually becomes a Butler at the White House. His first President is Robin Williams as Eisenhower.

Cecil’s wife is played by Oprah Winfrey(me or mom), somewhere in the middle of the movie she might have an extra marital affair with her neighbor played by Terence Howard. Terence is somewhat of a jerk. The couple have two sons, Louis who is a civil rights activist who insists continually on going to the racist Southern part of the country to particiapate in the civil rights movement , and continues to end up in Jail as a result. His parents would rather he stayed away from these dangerous sitiuations and stay in DC, they are the ones funding his education.

The second son Charlie is a nice guy , he enlists for the war in Vietnam and ends up dying there, there is a scene in the Arlington National Cemetery. I live close to a town called Arlington Heights.

In Cecils professional life he has Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz as co-workers, as well as the various big name actor cameos as Presidents and Presidential spouses.  I think John Cusack as Nixon was interesting despite usually acting asa nice guy he does say some hurtful, racist things as part of his acting for the job. I think that situation comes up a lot where a white character is made to behave racist as training for a protest. Which brings me to the Freedom Bus that the elder son Louis was in that gets blow up by the Ku Klux Klan.

I think with the two children the parents want them to be safe at home, but they make independently make decisions to contribute to the welfare of the country. Towards the end, the Reagan administration does not want to get involved in Apartheid in South Africa. Cecil make a moral decision to resign from his post under the Reagan administration and get more involved in Louis activities thus ending their estrangement. The movie ends with Cecil going to meet President Obama at the White House with a picture of Lincoln(Illinois) displayed prominently in the closing scene.


There is also a scene with pay raises, where the African American staff have consistently been paid less than their white counterparts
and the Butler wonders why he isn't an engineer though he has spent a lot of time training for it. This could be anyone honestly, dad,me UT

Forrest Whitaker is my ex- boyfriend who i am still FB friends with

Current coworkers of mine seem to be there especially the civil rights protest instigator.

This was a good movie. The theatre was packed. I would give it a 4/5 rating.

The Butler is an important movie because essentially we are all Butlers

Winfrey: 'The Butler' is about perseverance over racism

How many times can you go to Alabama to fight racism, it is tiring for the parents. #1960's

. They have a row over his paying more attention to what is going on in the White House than in his own home.

"The performances compound its impact, aided by the quiet dignity almost everyone brings to their roles. Yet in 2013, with all we’ve learned and supposedly overcome, the gasps are telling. For some, the events in The Butler will be previously unknown and now new. That should never be the case, considering how shortsighted we can be as a society. " http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/174421-racism-the-butler-and-the-audible-gasp/