Lessons from The Butler

Recently, we watched Lee Daniels' The Butler.

This was one of those movies I knew I could not watch in a theater, so I had planned to watch it at home. It was worth the wait. Forest Whitaker was the lead playing Cecil Gaines. At a young age in the cottonfields of Mississippi (1926), he watched his mother pulled into a shed by the farm owner, a Caucasian guy. Cecil's father objected after screams were heard from the shed and was shot for his insolence. The elderly white landowner took Cecil into the house to train him as a house worker (not even for the purposes of this blog will I use the horrible word I heard so much growing up). He was told that when he was in a room, it should feel empty.  After a few years, he left. He wound up working in a bar/restaurant who taught him to see what the customers want and provide it. Never be political. Never have an opinion. He then moved to a hotel in DC. Eventually, he was recruited for the White House during Eisenhower's term. He served through the Reagan term.

Throughout the movie, we also see the personal interactions with friends and family - his wife (played by Oprah Winfrey) who drank to cope, his oldest son who was a civil rights activist and often in and out of jail, and his youngest son who died in the Vietnam war.

So what lessons can we learn from the Butler?

Let's start with the premise of servants not existing - the room should feel empty. Many workers are unobtrusive. In fact, it does not even need to be a worker - people can be unobtrusive. Eventually, others forget or do not even notice they are there. It is an incredibly effective way to gain information. "Don't mind me...no one here....just discuss your deepest secrets." Can you imagine what this man learned serving the presidents, their wives, kids, the other politicians?  wow.

Some people perfect the art of listening and watching. Cecil learned to identify what the customers want and provide it before they themselves knew they wanted it. Discerning based on person, activity, mood, etc.

Gaines had issues with his wife who sometimes asked just for some little tidbit of inside information, like ho many shoes Jackie Kennedy had. Gaines would not tell her. However, it came out that one of the other butlers did tell his wife small things. Gaines seemed to have an issue with that sharing, but there was no evidence that these "breaches" were reported. And later in the movie, he did tell his wife that Mrs. Kennedy had about 125 pairs of shoes.

One thing Gaines learned from the bar.restaurant was to have two faces: one you showed when at work and one for your personal life. As a butler, he was expected to show no emotion, preference, or opinion. Two faces. He came face-to-face with that effect, if you'll forgive both the pun and the redundancy, when he was a guest at a state dinner at the Reagan's behest. He was served by his co-workers and saw the face directed towards him. He did not like facing the reality of who he was and/or what others saw him as. He was forced to hide himself in order to work. Rather than a public face and a private face, he had a private face for work and a real face for private.

Gaines took pride in his work. From the shoes he polished to the people he served and protected. And he was humble as a person, proud of his work, and willing to stand up for the right thing. He made mistakes and learned from them.

So there were some lessons to learn in The Butler. Perhaps some of the greatest events of our history occurred or were made in the presence of some very discrete individuals, who might not have even been noticed or even considered persons with equal rights.

Interesting movie. Interesting times. Interesting.