ABSTRACT
The film The Secret Life of Bees (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2008), adapted from Sue Monk Kidd’s best-selling novel of the same title, was written and directed by an African-American director and writer, Gina Prince-Bythewood, whose first successful feature film was Love and Basketball (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2000). The Secret Life of Bees has been reviewed either as “a sticky sweet,” 1 “manipulative quagmire of competing sentiments that literally sucks you in,” 2 or, on the contrary, as a “heart warming parable of hope and love,” which we could appreciate if we trust our emotions more than “all the mighty weight of Film Theory.” 3 In response to this polarized reception in popular media, which focuses primarily on emotions, this chapter approaches the film through the feminist theories of kinship and racist violence. Through its consoling emotional appeal, the film presents to the mainstream public an alternative, non-heterosexual vision of kinship, which can withstand the destructive effects of racism.
