The Irony Behind The Secret Life of Bees
By LMReviews on Oct 14, 2008 in Multicultural Contributors, Multicultural Media
On the surface, Sue Monk Kidd’s 2002 New York Times best seller The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, a young teen-aged Caucasian girl learning the lessons of love and family in the Civil Rights era of South Carolina 1964. Adapted to the screen and ready for a mid-October 2008 release, the preponderance of African American supporting characters enduring the treachery of the South during the Civil Rights era would lead those unfamiliar with the story to believe it’s another “We Shall Overcome” redemption saga.
As Director and Screenwriter Gina Prince-Bythewood put it when Ella Curry, Literary Publicist and CEO of EDC Creations asked about the book’s appeal for a movie adaptation, the director said, “It starts with the story. I wanted to tell this story…I knew that the story and the themes were universal.”
Indeed the themes of family, community, respect, and spiritual awakening in The Secret Life of Bees applies to everyone.
While these concepts have been covered in many literary works, the origin of this story is like no other. Rarely is the era of Civil Rights explored from the perspective of a Caucasian teenager, Lily Owens played by Sam I Am star Dakota Fanning, who is an outward African American sympathizer. So outward are Lily’s connections to the African American southern community that she leaves her abusive father after the death of her mother and discovers her life’s lessons amid her African American nanny played by Dream Girls Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson, and the bee-farming African American Boatwright sisters who board them. The story belongs to the Boatwright sisters as much as it belongs to Lily as they survive that turbulent time together. Prince-Bythewood continues, “…to bring the Boatwright sisters to life, like we just don’t see women like that and I wanted to be the one to be able to do that. I felt it was a gift.”
The real irony comes in the fact that these interracial relationships and the damage of racism that is felt across color lines were not solely drawn up from the depths of the author’s imagination. When Sue Monk Kidd was asked how she came up with the story’s perspective, she replied, “I was pulling from both imagination and memory. I grew up in a small town in Georgia so I came of age in the ’60s…It was a time I think when it was just very volatile and very vivid and I remember it deeply.” While Lily’s plight is not autobiographical to Monk Kidd’s experience, the emotion, the symbolism as well as certain occurrences like bees making honey in the walls of her childhood bedroom is true to her memory.
The Secret Life of Bees shakes up the perspectives that surround the Civil Rights Era demonstrating the dangers and injustices that existed for many daring to blur the color line in search of self-acceptance and belonging.
