The Butler(2013)

Plot Summary

• This film tells the story of Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), a White House butler who served eight American presidents over three decades. The film traces the dramatic changes that swept American society during this time, from the civil rights movement to Vietnam and beyond, and how those changes affected this man's life and family.

Storyline

• Cecil Gaines was a sharecropper's son who grew up in the 1920s as a domestic servant for the white family who casually destroyed his. Eventually striking out on his own, Cecil becomes a hotel valet of such efficiency and discreteness in the 1950s that he becomes a butler in the White House itself. There, Cecil would serve numerous US Presidents over the decades as a passive witness of history with the American Civil Rights Movement gaining momentum even as his family has troubles of its own. As his wife, Gloria, struggles with her addictions and his defiant eldest son, Louis, strives for a just world, Cecil must decide whether he should take action in his own way. — Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com) Cecil Gaines, a black man married to Gloria Gaines, is determined that neither of his two sons, Louis and Charlie, will ever have to know what it's like to be the offspring of a cotton picker like he is, he having witnessed slave-like abuses afflicted on both his parents by their white land owner employers when he was a child. Despite the less than happy circumstances which led him and to which he had to endure on this path, Cecil, as an adult, has worked in commercial wait situations to the white man, largely in upscale establishments, he learning that he has to be two faced in his approach to work, often supporting racist statements made or untruthfully answering racially charged questions by employers or customers while being accommodating but somewhat invisible as a human being. In 1957, he is offered - much to his shock - and accepts a position as an under butler at the White House among the black domestic staff, after a White House administration staffer sees and is impressed with his demeanor and work at the Excelsior Hotel in Washington DC. This appointment begins an approximate thirty year employment at the White House, one that is not always smooth for Cecil either on a professional or personal level. On the professional side, the White House is sometimes just a microcosm of what is happening in the world, his employment setting where he has to be even more careful in what he says or does. On a personal level, he is often at odds with his family. Louis decides to head to the front lines of civil rights activism, often placing himself either in personal danger or in situations still considered criminal. And Gloria may not see Cecil's time at the White House as worth the neglect it causes for their home life. — Huggo In 2009, an elderly Cecil Gaines recounts his life story while waiting at the White House to meet the newly inaugurated president. In 1926, at the age of seven, Gaines is raised on a cotton plantation in Macon, Georgia. When the farm's owner rapes Cecil's mother, Cecil's father confronts him and is killed. Cecil is taken in by the estate's caretaker, who trains Cecil as a house servant. In 1937, at age eighteen, Cecil leaves the plantation. Desperately hungry, he breaks into a hotel pastry shop. The elderly master servant, Maynard, takes pity on Cecil and gives him a job. Cecil learns advanced serving and interpersonal skills from Maynard, who later recommends Cecil for a position in a Washington, D.C. hotel. While working there, Cecil meets and marries Gloria, and the couple has two sons: Louis and Charlie. In 1957, Cecil is hired by the White House during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. White House martyr d'hotel Freddie Fallows introduces Cecil to head butler Carter Wilson and co-worker James Holloway. Cecil witnesses Eisenhower's reluctance to use troops to enforce school desegregation, then his resolve to uphold the law by racially integrating Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.. A look into the life of a male who served as a butler in the White House to multiple presidents for many years. Through the countless events and issues that happened to the country as he does everything to keep his family safe as well from harm. — RECB3