Review of The Secret Life of Bees (2008) by Chads. — 21 Oct 2008

The Boatwright sisters live in a pink house; the "home of the free", according to John Cougar Mellencamp's "Pink Houses", a song that encapsulates the promises made in the bylaws of the Emancipation Proclamation, which suggests that the "little pink houses" are made for "you and me".

The Boatwright sisters not only have property, they also own a thriving honey business. But this is 1964, a hundred some-odd years after Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, and still, the little pink houses for black folks were probably few and far between.

Lest not we forget, a diner could display Black Madonna Honey in their window display, but serving black madonnas was another story altogether. But unlike the middle-class "Negroes" in John Singleton's "Rosewood", this utopian life the Boatwright women lead, never comes under attack attack by an unruly white mob.

Rather, in "The Secret Life of Bees", it's a pre-teen girl, Lily Owens(Dakota Fanning), who brings disquietude to their lives, unwittingly, like a naive colonialist. When Lily roams around the Boatwright property, this precocious child, in a sense, discovers the woods, discovers the stream; she takes off her footwear and places her bare feet in the water.

This act, akin to making yourself at home, is also analogous to colonization. Back home, Lily had a map with a thumbtack pinned to this very spot. Joseph Conrad wrote(from the novel "Heart of Darkness"), "Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps.

I would look for hours...and lose myself in all the glories of exploration." Although the film expunges blame towards Lily from her role in a family tragedy, it's worthy of note that at the funeral, the filmmaker distances the girl from the black-garbed, black-skinned mourners, by dressing her in a white dress.

Prior to the gathering, Lily touches the heart of the black madonna, which saves her, but at the expense of her disparate housemate.