How Is The Butler Related To The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement in The Butler
In America’s past history, the Civil Rights Movement was a time period where African Americans undoubtedly faced many hardships and struggled to survive through discrimination and segregation. The film, The Butler, captured the life of African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement through different perspectives of the two main characters, Cecil and his son, Louis Gaines. The story starts with Cecil Gaines as a young boy who witnessed a tragic event of his father getting shot by a white man, which triggered him to have a slight fear of speaking out against injustice acts throughout his life. Cecil Gaines continued his life as a butler and served in the White House through many presidents while Louis

was going against his father’s belief. Louis decided to follow the footsteps of change and headed down South to fight against the injustices that African Americans were facing. Louis believed that he and his community had every right to stand up against white men and be equally treated. The view of The Civil Rights Movement in The Butler informs the audience, through the main characters, Cecil and Louis, that African Americans dealt with the movement in different ways since Cecil believed in not interfering with white men politics, while Louis believed in standing up for one’s natural rights in order to provoke change.
Throughout the film, Cecil refused to talk about the issues that African Americans were dealing with during the Civil Rights Movement. One particular scene where the film depicted Cecil’s behavior towards the Civil Rights Movement was when he was working at his second job as a waiter in a hotel in Washington D.C. While he was serving a group of white men some drinks, the men were talking about how having non segregated schools was harmful to society, and they asked Cecil his thoughts on having white and black children going to the same school. Cecil politely responded with saying that he does not prefer to engage in politics. As the white men were talking to Cecil the camera performed a close up shot, a film technique that zooms into and frames a person or object. Since the camera closed up on the white men he was serving, the close up shot in this particular scene could mean that the white men were shown to be superior while Cecil was depicted to be inferior. The close up shot also gave an effect that the white men should not be questioned about their beliefs and claims about African Americans. The camera also zoomed in on Cecil’s hand when he was pouring out drinks for the white men which also displayed that Cecil was below the men in status and was directed to follow their orders under any circumstance. The cinematography in this scene showcased how Cecil had no power over the dominant and that the group of men were intimidating. It was clear that Cecil didn’t want to risk in saying a claim that would offend the white men and that could possibly result him to lose his job or life. The way Cecil’s behavior towards white men was portrayed in this scene informed the viewers about why some African Americans didn’t speak up because of how they were constantly looked down upon.
Cecil displayed the same attitude of not interfering with the authority during the Civil Rights Era when he decided to ask for a raise in his job as a butler. When Cecil noticed that the white men who were working in the White House earned a higher salary and obtained various promotions, while the blacks, who were working just as hard as the whites, were not getting better benefits, he decided to discuss the issue with his boss. His boss responded by notifying Cecil that if he was unhappy with his opportunity of working for the President then he should seek employment somewhere else. He also warned Cecil to not get involved in the changes Martin Luther King was trying to produce. As Cecil and his boss were having the conversation the camera performed a rack focus, a technique that changes a focus from one subject to another within the same shot. The use of rack focus in this scene constantly diverted the audience’s attention from Cecil to his boss. This showed the tension Cecil experienced and how uncomfortable he was when he finally spoken out against the authority since his father’s death. Through the cinematography in this scene, the audience realized that another reason why some people didn’t speak out against the injustice acts was because they were scared of being punished by the sovereignty.
Louis showed a completely different perspective of how the marginalized handled the Civil Rights Movement.

While his father kept silent and lived his life fairly peacefully in the White House, Louis lived down South to battle segregation even though he was brought up in a household where the topic of politics was always ignored. The film showed one of Louis’s first stance against racism in the scene where he was part of the Freedom Riders and chose to take a seat at the white section of a segregated restaurant. The cinematography used to show the intensity of this scene was flashback, a technique that cuts from the narrative present to past event, and parallel editing, the process of intercutting two or more lines of action that occur simultaneously. While Louis and the other Freedom Riders were being attacked in the restaurant, a flashback occurred that showed how they trained themselves to handle the verbal and physical abuse that would happen in the restaurant. The flashbacks gave the viewers a feel for how the Freedom Riders were determined to break through segregation since what they prepared themselves for came to reality when they were in the restaurant. While Louis and the Freedom Riders were struggling to to stand up for the injustice acts of segregation, the film also showed Cecil working in the White House at the same time by using parallel editing. The use of parallel editing presented a comparison of what Louis and his father were doing during the Civil Rights Movement. When the two scenes were showed at the same time, it informed the audience that there were two groups of people during the Civil Rights Era, those who accepted the challenge to fight inequality and those who did anything they could to keep their family safe and alive. Even though both sides had pure intentions of how they were living their lives, Louis’s perspective was more impactful because of the flashback and parallel editing showed him having a harder time dealing with the harsh

times in the social climate African Americans were living in.
Overall, The Butler showed two opposite sides of African Americans who dealt with The Civil Rights Movement differently. The film wasn’t directed to one specific group of African Americans, instead it captured all African Americans such as butlers, laborers, and activists. The Butler made it clear to why some people chose to stay quiet, while some decided to raise their voices during the movement. Cecil chose to stay out of politics throughout most of his life because he was afraid of getting hurt by the authority and didn’t want to end up in the same position his dad was in. Louis was not fearful of the dominant race and decided to risk his life by joining groups to fight discrimination against the minorities. Both Cecil and Louis had pure intentions to why they chose to handle the movement and it informed the audience about the different views towards the era during that time period.