The Butler from Another Planet



I have written previously that movies do not have to be faithful re-creations of the book they are based on. Because of the time constraints of fitting a story into a two hour or so film, characters may have to be blended and plot-lines shortened or eliminated or events compressed.

For example, I don't have a problem with a film such as the 2013 American crime-comedy 'Pain & Gain' which I recently viewed and which starts off telling us that it is based on a true story even though some film characters are composites of actual people and one character is completely fictional as are some details in the film. The reason I don't have a problem with such refashionings is that no historical revisionism is taking place.

I would object however if a film, purporting to be a true story, changed the character of Adolf Hitler from someone entirely evil, to merely a misguided simpleton unless it is intentionally lampooning him as Charlie Chaplin did in his film The Great Dictator.

Movies sometimes need to change the truth in order to be entertaining. But they should be honest to the truth. In my article Reel Bad Arabs - Hollywood`s Most Maligned Group?, I wrote:

If a movie portrays real life characters truthfully and accurately then one cannot say that the portrayal is either negative or positive or even-handed. Those are value judgments while the truth is not biased. For example, let's say a film portrays Adolf Hitler as a madman bent on world domination who directed the killing of millions of Jews, Polacks, gypsies and others. One cannot say this is a negative portrayal, it is a truthful portrayal. The only way Hollywood can make a positive or negative portrayal of a real person is to lie, fabricate, or fictionalize the story.

So when Hollywood shows Arab or Muslim terrorists blowing up women and children, or beheading journalists, or driving trucks into embassies, this is not a negative portrayal of Arab or Muslim terrorists it is merely a truthful re-creation, nothing personal.


As long as a Hollywood film has honest fabrications, then I have no objections. If it's filled with lies, then it's not a film, it's propaganda. Ronald Reagan's son recently lashed out at the 2013 film 'The Butler,' which he called a bunch of lies because it portrayed his father as a racist and completely distorted the real life story of Eugene Allen:

E! Online, 27 Aug 2013, President Reagan's Son Slams Lee Daniels' The Butler

Forest Whitaker as the Butler
Photo Credit: Anne Marie Fox © 2013 The Weinstein Company

Supporters of Ronald Reagan aren't happy with the way Lee Daniels' The Butler portrays the 40th president, but none more so than his son, Michael Reagan.

The latter penned a scathing editorial for conservative website Newsmax titled "The Butler from Another Planet," in which he blasted the historical drama's suggestion that his father was racist.

"There you go again, Hollywood. You've taken a great story about a real person and real events and twisted it into a bunch of lies," Reagan wrote.

The Butler tells the story of Cecil Gaines, a black man who rose to become White House butler and served eight presidents, witnessing some of the most tumultuous events in 20th-century America, including the Civil Rights movement.

The film, scripted by Danny Strong (Game Change), is inspired by the life of real White House butler Eugene Allen, who worked at the White House from 1952 to 1986 and whom the younger Reagan knew.

Which is why he can speak with authority on the subject.

Reagan attacked Tinseltown for making what he called "a clichéd 'message movie'" particularly given the liberties director Lee Daniels and Strong took with Allen's life, such as giving Gaines a second son the real butler never had and depicting him as joining the Black Panthers.

In his column, Reagan compares the real butler to the big-screen version.

"Guess which one had a happy, quiet life and was married to the same woman for 65 years? And who had one son who served honorably in Vietnam and never made a peep of protest through the pre- and post-civil rights era?" asked Reagan.

"Now guess which butler grew up on a Georgia farm, watched the boss rape his mother and then, when his father protested the rape, watched the boss put a bullet through his father's head? Guess which butler feels the pain of America's racial injustices so deeply that he quits his White House job and joins his son in a protest movement?"

But what particularly rankled Reagan was the movie's insinuation that his father wanted to veto sanctions on apartheid South Africa when, in actuality, he said "it had to do with the geopolitics of the Cold War."

"Portraying Ronald Reagan as a racist because he was in favor of lifting economic sanctions against South Africa is simplistic and dishonest," he added. "If you knew my father, you'd know he was the last person on Earth you would call a racist."

Michael Reagan then went on to list a number of biographical tidbits about his late father that he accused Strong of dismissing, including the fact that the president appointed African-Americans to positions of power when he was governor of California.

He concluded his op-ed by chiding Hollywood for making stuff up to fit what he said was a liberal agenda.




### End of my article ###

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