YMMV / The Butler

• Anvilicious: Racism, especially institutionalized racism that forces minorities into denying who they are for the sake of having a job and a paycheck, is bad.
• Award Snub: Many were surprised when Oprah Winfrey missed out on a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the entire film for most major awards.
• Awesome Music: Composed by Rodrigo Leão.
• Complete Monster: Thomas Westfall is an ill-tempered young cotton plantation owner who uses his workers like slaves. Deciding to rape the mother of Cecil Gaines—implied to do so regularly with attractive female workers—Thomas then shoots Cecil's father dead for protesting, demanding his other farmhands carry on lest he kill them as well.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Some reviewers call Louis a far more compelling character than his father, with his complex and unpredictable character arc. Oprah, too, for reminding people of her talents for acting in a more complicated role than the "supportive wife".
• Funny Moments:
  • Cecil's first night in a jail cell.
  • Some of the Mood Whiplash when it goes from sad to funny instead of the other way around, particularly Charlie's awkward attempts at pacifying the tense atmosphere his family is in after Cecil's disowning Louis and ordering him out of his house. Also his hitting on Louis' girlfriend before that.
  • In the end, when a retired Cecil goes to the White House to meet Barack Obama, the country's first African-American president. While waiting, he is greeted by a black butler who offers to guide him to the Oval Office. Cecil tells him off, remarking that if anyone would know the way there, it's him.
• Heartwarming Moments: Cecil reconciling with his son at an anti-apartheid protest after quitting his job.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: David Oyelowo would later be cast as Martin Luther King Jr in Selma.
  • Saw Gerrera is the father of Agent Kallus!
• Moral Event Horizon: Thomas Westfall's above actions.
• Narm: The endless parade of wacky stunt casting just gets laughable after a while.
  • Cecil listing the exact amount of pills JFK takes a day for his back problem. It feels like he's reciting a fact from a historical textbook rather than having a conversation with the President.
• Narm Charm: Some of the stunt casting worked well enough, with perhaps James Marsden's JFK being the most notable example.
• Nightmare Fuel: The KKK sequence. The sit-in at the diner wins points because it's such a mundane, everyday setting that turns ugly, then vicious.
  • Jackie Kennedy crying while still covered in her husband's blood.
  • The sight of the hung up bodies of African American Men in the rain
  • Cecil's Mother's screams are this, with everybody else too helpless to stop the rape...then Cecil's father is shot in front of him.
• Questionable Casting: A lot of the historical figures, especially the Presidents, seem to be based largely on who the crew wanted to work with that week.
  • Also a case of Irony as She Is Cast. Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan, especially if one is familiar with Fonda's political views (and just as amusing, the real Nancy Reagan approved of her performance).
  • As far as the Presidents were concerned, many were particularly bemused by the casting of John Cusack as Richard Nixon.
• She Really Can Act: For generations used to seeing her as a talk show host, it could surprise many to see how great of an actress Oprah Winfrey can be (to say nothing of knowing that she was an Oscar Nominated Actress even before her show debuted).
• Tear Jerker: So, so many, though some also double as a Heartwarming Moment.
  • Kennedy's tie.
• The Woobie: Cecil himself, who becomes an orphan in the worst way, lives most of his life in a racist environment, loses both of his sons (one fatally), and then his wife.
  • Also Gloria, who suffers some of the exact same losses her husband does.
  • Louis, who gets arrested over a dozen times for a cause he believes in, suffers at the hands of racists, gets disowned by his own father, loses his brother, and falls out with his girlfriend.

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