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Health & Fitness

Garlic Town Review 8

                Garlic Town Review 8

 

“I am not an eccentric. It is just that I am more alive than most people.” I read this quote in Oprah’s magazine this month, and Oprah certainly shows her acting chops in The Butler with costar Forrest Whittaker.

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The movie, The Butler is based on an African American child  from Macon, Georgia who saw his Dad killed and then went on to serve as a White House butler through 8 presidencies. While fictionalized, the story shows the two faces all black men needed to show in order to survive. What opportunities were available and, indeed, are available to young black men today?

The actor playing Reagan did well. Oprah, as a gin drinking stay – at - home Mom to her two sons and waiting wife who finally gets invited to  a White House dinner kept asking, “How many shoes does the First Lady have?”  Cecil, the butler, knew his place, needing to be in a room and yet not in a room, making the room feel “empty” of his presence. 

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Only a few lines of actual presidential speeches were spliced together at the very end.  There was a good portrayal of the Kennedys.  Cecil’s young son Lewis was supposedly arrested 16 times in just two years for attempting to do what white young men do freely.

Lewis’ younger brother joins the Army and goes to Vietnam.  Oprah hasn’t been this good since The Color Purple.    While The Butler could have been edited and been a little longer on history, the tension created between Cecil and his wife seem real.  The presidents did sometimes ask their black butler his view.  Jane Fonda was fabulous as Nancy Reagan. 

See The Butler for a quiet summer time thought provoking movie that appeals to my young 21 year old adult who has never chosen to vote! I hope she does now. No one has a right to complain about government, if they do not vote. Speaking of which, be sure to vote yes on Measure A, the Santa Clara County Library measure which I hope passes and allows maintenance and perhaps expansion of library hours and programs. Just as schools were once invented to give Moms a break during the day, public libraries now serve not only as a book and computer technology research center, but as a sort of after school day care center. It also houses homeless men and women as well as retired people during the day. 

Our book club is able to get the latest books at libraries  at no cost.  Children without access to cable at home may rent movies that are actually good, some as good as The Butler.

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