Great films don’t need the air of big budgets. An organic blend of allure, grip, and rouse are what station movies in success. This Friday's The Secret Life of Bees proves that formula, starring a resplendent cast of women: Queen Latifah, Dakotah Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, and Sophie Okonedo. Moved by the script’s stunning essence, all five actresses even agreed to a pay-cut when director/screen-writer, Gina Price-Bythewood, spoke of the film’s low funds – a validation that lighter checks would not keep Bees from buzzing.
Set in South Carolina during the mid 1960s - a time when blacks prominently fought for suffrage and racial reform - Bees shadows the journey of 14-year-old Lily Owens (Fanning) as she struggles to ignite her autonomy and reconcile the loss of her mother. After a troubling past, Lily and her guardian (Hudson) seek refuge with three independent sisters (Latifah, Keys, Okonedo) who bandage the two in comfort and connect Lily with her mother’s spirit. Themes of sisterhood, redemption, and empowerment rumble the ground of a film whose backdrop is so strikingly relevant to our present historical marker. VIBE.com recently sat down with both Latifah and Prince-Bythewood to discuss the film’s heavy resonance within today’s multi-cultural society.
Choosing Bees over a blockbuster-budgeted movie.
Prince-Bythewood: I had to decide between Bees and a big comedy [with] so much more money. It would’ve been easier, but with Bees I kept being drawn back to the opportunity - which really may never have happened - to have four great Black female parts that were going to be in this film. At the end of the day it’s ultimately what made me choose the tougher road. Now obviously in retrospective, I thank God and it really shouldn’t have been that tough of a decision (laughs).
Creating a film that represents black women on a full spectrum.
Latifah: That was the thing that drove me most to this script. I think for the longest in Hollywood that has been our complaint. The fact that we’ve been relegated to the maid, relegated to the angry black woman. It was always that and it was never the layers of who we really are. This is a film that exemplifies our dynamic personalities. It’s just beautiful to watch and I’m very proud to be a part of it and to have it directed by an African-American woman.
Prince-Bythewood: I’m a director, I go to movies, I know what I want to see as a black woman and I would love a movie like this. I thank God that 90 percent of what I read is ‘Can’t wait for this movie! Can’t believe the cast!’ but I went on [a blog] and it just pissed me off because there were two people who were like: ‘I aint seeing this shit, it’s about these black women with bad hair. Why can’t they look like the women from Sex in the City and they’re taking care of this little white girl’ And I’m like oh my God. I’m making these movies to elevate black film and give us a chance to have this caliber of acting and story cause we don’t get it that often and to read that… it was a little bit disheartening.
Portraying the South during the Civil Rights Movement
Latifah: I kind of lived in the South so I like that this film shows the not so heavy-handed racism side. Here are three different women in a home that they own, a business that they own. Educated, cultured women who have a sense of style about them and are respected in the community. There’s a thing called southern hospitality that masks a lot of the straight heinous racism. People can be very polite and respectful; it’s only when you come and try to sit at that counter, that you would’ve seen it. And it’s one of the interesting things that you get from this movie. Average, everyday life mixed in with [racism]. You got a white lawyer who would be right on the picket lines with a black person fighting for equal rights, but his secretary will be the one calling the Klan on his ass. This is how society was functioning back then.
Knotting the film with the most important election in American history
Prince-Bythewood: That’s the coolest thing [to be] said - that this movie could help Barack get elected. I mean geez if I could have even a tiny, tiny part of that…that would be everything. I think part of it is one of the themes: ‘optimism is courageous’, but also the fact that we have these women, then blacks and whites getting along together. It shows that it’s really going to take everybody - not just black folks to bring forth change.
Latifah: I think what the hip hop community should take [from this film] is how important it is to get your ass out there and vote. People literally died for the right to vote. Exercise your right to be heard. I think if anything that’s what we love to do in the hip hop community. [In the film] you’re looking at Dakotah and this little black boy who live in their own world. They see the hole of possibility until the other world comes in and stains them. But they don’t lose it. They still have it in there somewhere and they inspire each other. That’s important too. The youth are not jaded yet. Most of the people who fight these wars are under 25. The people who change the world are under 25. [The youth] have got to understand how powerful they are and let their voice be heard.
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