By Katherine Bakaitis
“Lee Daniels’ The Butler” tells the story of White House butler, Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), who served eight American presidents over a 30 year period (Eisenhower through Reagan). The film
begins with Cecil as a young boy working in the cotton fields with his parents in 1920’s Georgia and later being promoted to a “house negro” for the farm owners.
Later, Cecil leaves the farm to continue domestic services elsewhere, where later he is referred to work as a White House butler. Cecil’s story is told while he serves through the dramatic changes that swept American society during his time in the White House, from the Civil Rights Movement to Vietnam and more, and it shows how those changes affected his life and family.
Cecil Gaines is not a political man and his only goal while in the White House is to receive the same amount of pay and benefits as the white staff (which he is awarded with during the Reagan Administration). Cecil’s wife, Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) seems to be a bored housewife who becomes increasingly distant when her husband lands the butler job at the White House.
Cecil and Gloria try their best to protect their two sons, but the oldest son, Louis Gaines, goes against his father’s wishes to attend college in the South to take part in the budding civil rights movement, where he later joins the Black Panthers. When Cecil retires from his service in the 1980’s, the relationship he has with his son Louis begins to slowly repair, and tension with Gloria has subsided.
Probably one of the best scenes of the movie is the last one when Cecil is about to meet President Obama and the usher tries to show
him where the Oval office is and Cecil, even after 20 plus years, yells “I know the way,” and continues to rush ahead of the usher. Trust me; it’s more comical if you see it yourself.
The issues facing America during the time of Cecil reminded me of many of the problems with rights we face today; gay marriage, abortion rights and political corruption (which turns out to be the one thing consistent in this world!) This movie has reminded me that if we can overcome the struggles of the past, then we can make it through the issues of today.
The acting in the movie was superb, especially since Oprah hasn’t acted since God knows when. As always, Forest Whitaker deeply immersed himself in his character, Cecil Gaines (who is actually a fictional character based off of the actual butler, Eugene Allen). There seemed to be a little something missing in the movie to make it complete, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
It wasn’t as exciting as I expected an historical biopic drama to be, but nonetheless “The Butler” was still an amazing film with historical accuracy right down to the costumes and hair, and a strong cast.
Overall, I would recommend this movie to everybody, especially if you are old enough to have lived through the decades the film covers.
