The Significance of Helen Lyle
Keywords: Gentrification, Invasive Other, Privilege, Myth/Mythos, Racism, Social-Economic Issues, Stereotypes, Urban Legend
Urban legends have been told generation after generation, as a form of folklore, with cautionary tales of horror for those who listen to them. They tend to be rooted in some sort of relatability or have a connection with a person a friend knows. The Forbidden and Candyman (1992) are tales of the same urban legend of a man who has a hook in place of his hand. However, in the film, Candyman is given a fleshed-out backstory and transports the story’s setting from Liverpool to the Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago. These changes affect the story entirely, creating a narrative around an underprivileged black community, while saving Helen Lyle’s backstory relatively intact.
“The Forbidden” by Clive Barker
There is a significance to keeping Helen largely the same character in both stories. In both The Forbidden and Candyman she is a graduate student doing research for her thesis about “Graffiti: the semiotics of urban despair.” Initially in The Forbidden, her research begins with an interest in the graffiti of Spector Street, taking various photographs of graffiti sprayed on the ways and buildings. She then comes across a local resident, Anne-Marie, who tells her about the urban legend of “Candyman” and several murders that have recently occurred in the area. This leads to Helen diving further into the story of Candyman, asking her partner and friends about the believability of the tale. Throughout her time at Spector Street and interviewing other residents, we begin to see a bit of resistance when it comes to her trying to gain more information about the urban legend. This may be in part due to the lack of trust from the residents seeing a more privileged person being more concerned with finding out if they legend is true with the purpose of furthering her research, as opposed to genuinely caring about the residents and the struggles they face.
In the film, Helen’s character already starts off with a vested interest in urban legends, doing research for her thesis with her friend Bernice. Her research begins with a chance encounter with two black women who are janitors at her college, as they tell her about recent murders happening in the Cabrini-Green housing project nearby, caused by “Candyman.” This leads Helen and Bernice to travel there, dressing “conservatively” but still very well-dressed. Their outfits alone cause concern and a lack of empathy for the residents of Cabrini-Green, not fully grasping the disparity in their social-economic classes. Bernice even goes as far as saying they look like cops, which may add to the distrust these residents have upon meeting the two women.
Helen and Bernice meet Anne-Marie and Anthony for the first time.
This is made most apparent when they first encounter Anne-Marie, a single mother who questions Helen and Bernice’s motives asking “What you gonna study? That we bad? We steal? We gangbang? We all on drugs, right? We ain’t all like them assholes downstairs y’know? I just wanna raise my child good” and that “the white folks that come around here aint too handshakin’ with us y’know?” There is an obvious distrust on Anne-Marie’s part as she sees two stylish women, one being white, taking pictures and asking questions about Cabrini-Green. She has preconceived ideas about outsiders who visit Cabrini-Green due to her past experiences. Anne-Marie provides an insight to the struggles the residents face on a daily basis. Not everyone there reflects the stereotypes of the projects and because of things like systematic racism, they are unable to escape their current reality no matter how hard they work or try to leave. Even though the distrust between the characters is similar to that in The Forbidden, changing the residents to black characters offers a much more poignant insight to underprivileged communities, juxtaposed with Helen and Bernice’s upper-class fashion and demeanor. This is further exemplified because of the next scene where Helen and her friends are having dinner at a fancy restaurant, a stark contrast to the appearance of Cabrini-Green.
From the perspective of the Cabrini-Green residents, Helen can also be seen as an invasive other due to her aggressive approach to her research, which ultimately leads her to becoming the next Candyman. To the residents, even though he is seen as a boogeyman, he is their boogeyman. His mythos is essentially a protector for Cabrini-Green that is often overlooked and has been othered by the rest of the city. This also plays into the themes of gentrification that is presented in the film. Helen’s condo was the original housing project of the neighborhood, forcing those who could not afford it to find housing in what would later be called, Cabrini-Green, instead. Even though Candyman presents what most people know as gentrification of city areas, it is also reiterated when Helen is killed and returns as the new Candyman at the end of the film. Helen essentially takes a black man’s job after the original Candyman is killed, representing the gentrification of a black community’s myth being replaced by an upper-class, privileged Caucasian woman.
Helen is resurrected as the new “Candyman,” becoming an urban legend of her own.
Although the story of Candyman is focused on a wronged African American character that haunts the Cabrini-Green housing projects, it is also very much the story of Helen and what she represents as a much more privileged white woman who does not fully understand the social-economic issues at play. She is entirely focused on her research and does not truly comprehend what the residents of Cabrini-Green must deal with on a daily basis. To her, this is simply thesis she has to write about for her doctorate. She can wear elegant clothes, go home to her nice apartment, and eat at expensive restaurants at the end of the day. Helen can leave the things she experiences in Cabrini-Green whenever she wants. To the residents, this is their everyday struggle to survive. They cannot escape the horrors of their circumstance. For them, their hope lies within the stories of Candyman.
