Viola Davis On Her Role In ‘The Help’: I Feel Like ‘I Betrayed Myself And My People’

Actress Viola Davis now fully regrets her role in the 2011 race relations movie “The Help,” despite being nominated for an Academy Award for it.

Speaking with Vanity Fair, Davis said that “The Help” was “created in the filter and the cesspool of systemic racism.” The film tells the story about a white journalist chronicling the lives of black housekeepers in the segregated South and has been severely criticized in recent years for its heavy focus on the white characters.

“Not a lot of narratives are also invested in our humanity,” Davis said. “They’re invested in the idea of what it means to be Black, but … it’s catering to the white audience.”

“The white audience at the most can sit and get an academic lesson into how we are. Then they leave the movie theater and they talk about what it meant. They’re not moved by who we were,” she continued. “There’s a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself, and my people, because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready to [tell the whole truth].”

In the same interview, Davis described her whole life as being a “protest.”

“I feel like my entire life has been a protest,” she said. “My production company is my protest. Me not wearing a wig at the Oscars in 2012 was my protest. It is a part of my voice, just like introducing myself to you and saying, ‘Hello, my name is Viola Davis.’”

Viola Davis told The New York Times in 2018 that she wished “The Help” explored the black characters more.

“I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard. I know [my character] Aibileen. I know [Octavia Spencer’s character] Minny. They’re my grandma. They’re my mom,” Davis said. “And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.”

In June, actress Bryce Dallas Howard said that she would not agree to act in “The Help” if it were being made today, believing the movie is tainted because it was being told through the lens of white people with mostly white storytellers.

“I’ve heard that [The Help] is the most viewed film on [Netflix] right now! I’m so grateful for the exquisite friendships that came from that film — our bond is something I treasure deeply and will last a lifetime,” the actress and director said in her post. “This being said, ‘The Help’ is a fictional story told through the perspective of a white character and was created by predominantly white storytellers. We can all go further.⁣”
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“Stories are a gateway to radical empathy and the greatest ones are catalysts for action,” she continued. “If you are seeking ways to learn about the Civil Rights Movement, lynchings, segregation, Jim Crow, and all the ways in which those have an impact on us today, here are a handful of powerful, essential, masterful films and shows that center Black lives, stories, creators, and/or performers.”

“The Help” won actress Octavia Spencer an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In winning the coveted award, Spencer became the sixth black woman to take home the gold statue behind Hattie McDaniel, Whoopi Goldberg, Halle Berry, Jennifer Hudson, and Mo’Nique.