The Secret Life of Bees

Johana P. Martinez
Professor Nina Perez
WST 3015
April 14, 2010


The Secret Life of Bees

The movie that I chose is The Secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd, which is also a book with the same title. The movie is about how the main character, Lily is very unhappy because her dad doesn't pay attention to her and their relationship is not a healthy one. The abusive relationship is so strong that Lily believes her mother's death is her fault. T-Ray her father barely pays attention to her, he pretty much treat her like a servant and isn't really a good dad figure.It comes to the point that Lily cant take it anymore that she runs away, with her goes her friend Rosalyn, where they end up going to the Boatwright family, which hides a secret of her mother's past. While they are at the Boatwright's residency, August the oldest sister of three, show Lily how to handle the bees, and while doing this Lily becomes more in touch with nature and how the bees honey are processed and other stuff. While doing this though Lily has been fighting of these demons in her head that have tormented her, which are the death of her mum, and why her dad treats her so bad. During her stay at the Boatwright house, Lily getsto experience that warm home loving feeling fro these three ladies, even though one of the sisters who is played by Alicia Key, June at first doesnt like the idea of having strangers at her house, especially a white girl and her black friend. Many things happened in the house that play a role in how Lily matures and deals with her tormented past. The movie has little things that connect to ecofeminism and the feminism, for example in the beginning we see that Lily hides a box under an orchard tree that has her mothers belongings this can be connected with ecofeminism because of the dualism involved in it like her emotions are in that box, and materialistic stuff but underneath the earth, Lily is connected with nature and the thought of her mother with her.(Kirk & Okazawa-Rey 540). Another is the whole concept of the bee procedure, the way the Boatwright sisters handle the process of honey and the way they connect with nature by doing this, this is a procedure that helps them meditate and come one on one with nature(King, 560). There are stereotypes in this movie, first that black people are not educated or cultured, that they are all delinquents and poor, but in the movie they show a black women who can write Rosalyn, three black women that are cultured and not poor but well of, who are the Boatwright sisters, so clearly the author and director wanted to change that image or myths of black people. Also the stereotype that all white people hated black folks, and in the movie it did show those who were against black, but there were also those who were helping black people in that time era. Overall this movie depicts dualism by ecofeminism, because it has nature involved, with joy, sorrow, death, anger, forgiveness and many other things.

Work Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. Fifth Edition. Boston: McGraw Hill Higher Education, 2010.

King, Ynestra. The Ecofeminist Imperative. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. Fifth Edition. Boston: McGraw Hill Higher Education, 1983.