The Secret Life of Bees: A Paradox

by Laura Major

Despite being set in the past, Sue Monk Kidd’s 2002 New York Times best seller, The Secret Life of Bees is now a movie adaptation that is ahead of its time. Giving little credence to what is socially acceptable for personal relationships for South Carolina in 1964, Lily Owen, played by I Am Sam star Dakota Fanning, takes up with her African American nanny played by Oscar Award-winning Jennifer Hudson to escape an abusive father after the death of her mother.

The movie’s unique perspective lays the groundwork for a multicultural environment not common in the 1960’s south or in Hollywood today. When Ella Curry, Literary Publicist and CEO of EDC Creations asked Jennifer Hudson about the impact she hoped the movie would have on society she replied, “Well, I hope it opens up more doors…It opened up doors for women and African Americans in general because…the majority of the times in Hollywood all of us are fighting for the same roles. But now we’re to share a film together…and it has a great message.”

The significance of a multicultural cast made bringing the Secret Life of Bees to the big screen more important for Director Gina Prince-Bythewood. When Curry asked about Bythewood’s inspiration for making the movie she had this to say, “…on a personal level, sometimes it sounds cheesy, but the way I was raised and brought up, I had an El Salvadoran mother and a white father, I was adopted, [with] a brother who’s black, two sisters who are white and our differences were celebrated. Despite the fact of the differences, that was no reason for us not to love each other.”

In terms of the past, even some of the youngest cast members began to understand the courage depicted in the characters that refused to let society dictate what makes a friendship or a family. When Fanning was asked about her interracial crush with Tristan Wilds in the movie she said, “For example, me and Tristan’s relationship, if me and Tristan were to walk down the street together [now] it would be not a problem, and [back] then of course [we'd] almost be killed for that.”

It was revelations such as those that made Jennifer Hudson look at current everyday life differently. When Curry asked about the messages the movie would provide to the world, Hudson said “In doing my research, I had went to the dentist and in sitting there with my assistant, I saw a little white boy and a little black girl reading a book together. I almost started crying. I got chills. Before then, I would have thought nothing of it. People overlook that. It made me appreciate that, that much more in developing my character.”

The Secret Life of Bees’ broad multicultural cast represents men and women–young, old, black and white; each having his or her own journey to travel yet doing it in tandem arriving at their own personal conclusions together is a power theme for a movie to depict.
 

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About Laura Major:  Laura Major is a multicultural fiction author and freelance writer residing in the greater Phoenix area of Arizona. Her first novel, Mismatched was published by Amira Press in February of 2008. Laura also manages a multicultural website, Sable Lit Reviews.com, one of the few of its kind providing commentary on the multicultural impact of current events as well as multicultural book reviews.

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                           Meet Ella D. Curry

 

 

Listen to the live interview with Dakota Fanning

Listen to the live interview with Jennifer Hudson

Listen to the live interview with Tristian Wild

Listen to the live interview with Nate Parker