Mean Old Bat Barbara Bush Cries At Civil Rights Movie, Suggesting Deep Empathy For Fictionalized Black People

Director Lee Daniels has a new movie coming out in a couple weeks, and in addition to the excellent news that it will have a considerably shorter title than his last one, we also learn from Politico today that it had the power to make Barbara Bush cry. After getting a fan email from the former First Lady telling him that she was a huge fan of Precious, Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire and Screened On Our Blu-Ray Player in Kennebunkport By That Nice Young Man What Was His Name Again? Daniels brought a copy of his new film, The Butler, to screen for the Bushes in Maine a few months ago. They liked it, he says. But he would say that, wouldn't he?

In an audience of about 600 people, Daniels said he sat next to Barbara Bush and former President George Bush as they saw the movie – and fielded some questions from them during the screening.

“And Barbara, she was crying,” Daniels said. “And George would say ‘is that Oprah? Honey, is that Oprah?’ and Mrs. Bush would say, ‘is that Oprah?’ Yes, Mrs. Bush, it’s Oprah. ‘It’s Oprah, honey. It’s Oprah.”

It would appear that Ms. Bush was moved to tears by the plot of the movie, although it is also possible that she was distraught at her own and the former president's apparent need for assistance in identifying the richest woman in entertainment. We are unable to confirm rumors that others at the screening tried to shush the Bushes for talking during the movie.

In a rare film appearance in which she portrays someone other than herself, Winfrey plays the wife of main character Eugene Gaines, a fictionalized version of Eugene Allen, a butler at the White House who served eight presidents from 1952 to 1986. Much of the film occurs during the Civil Rights movement, and includes "detailed recreations" of lynchings, lunch counter sit-ins, and atrocities committed by the KKK. Daniels said that that the Bushes were moved by the film:

“It was so powerful because they hung their heads – both of them hung their heads, he said. “And that was a gift for me knowing that they felt it. That they felt that they knew…that was a gift for me.”

Following her patronizing remarks about Katrina evacuees at the Houston Astrodome in 2005, it had been thought by some that Barbara Bush was heartless, so this movie is working out very well for her.

[ Politico ]