Departures from the facts of Allen's life
Regarding historical accuracy, Eliana Dockterman wrote in Time: "Allen was born on a Virginia plantation in 1919, not in Georgia.... In the movie, Cecil Gaines grows up on a cotton field in Macon, where his family comes into conflict with the white farmers for whom they work. What befalls his parents on the cotton field was added for dramatic effect.... Though tension between father and son over civil rights issues fuels most of the drama in the film, ［Eugene Allen's son］ Charles Allen was not the radical political activist that Gaines's son is in the movie."［54］
Particular criticism has been directed at the film's accuracy in portraying President Ronald Reagan. While actor Alan Rickman's performance generated positive reviews, the screenwriters of the film have been criticized for depicting Reagan as indifferent to civil rights and his reluctance to associate with the White House's black employees during his presidency. According to Michael Reagan, the former president's son, "The real story of the White House butler doesn't imply racism at all. It's simply Hollywood liberals wanting to believe something about my father that was never there."［55］［56］［57］ Paul Kengor, one of President Reagan's biographers, also attacked the film, saying, "I've talked to many White House staff, cooks, housekeepers, doctors, and Secret Service over the years. They are universal in their love of Ronald Reagan." In regard to the president's initial opposition to sanctions against apartheid in South Africa, Kengor said, “Ronald Reagan was appalled by apartheid, but also wanted to ensure that if the apartheid regime collapsed in South Africa that it wasn't replaced by a Marxist-totalitarian regime allied with Moscow and Cuba that would take the South African people down the same road as Ethiopia, Mozambique, and, yes, Cuba. In the immediate years before Reagan became president, 11 countries from the Third World, from Asia to Africa to Latin America, went Communist. It was devastating. If the film refuses to deal with this issue with the necessary balance, it shouldn't deal with it at all."［58］
Political commentator Ben Shapiro wrote: "There is no question that the film itself is full of historical inaccuracies. The Butler has virtually nothing in common with its source material, the life of White House butler Gene Allen, except for the fact that the main character of the film and Allen were both black butlers in the White House. The film's title character, Cecil Gaines, sees his father murdered and his mother raped by a white landowner; that never happened to Allen. The movie's title character has two children, one who goes to the Vietnam War, the other who becomes a Civil Rights pioneer; Allen actually had only one son."［59］
Eugene Allen--Public reputation
Allen came to public attention when a 2008 article about him and his wife, entitled "A Butler Well Served by This Election", was published in The Washington Post shortly after the 2008 presidential election. It placed Allen's life in the context of changing race relations and the personalities of the presidents he'd served. It ended with the story of how the couple intended to vote for Obama together but Helene died just before the election,
They talked about praying to help Barack Obama get to the White House. They’d go vote together. She’d lean on her cane with one hand, and on him with the other, while walking down to the precinct. And she’d get supper going afterward...On Monday Helene had a doctor’s appointment. Gene woke and nudged her once, then again. He shuffled around to her side of the bed. He nudged Helene again. He was all alone. “I woke up and my wife didn’t,” he said later.
The story had an immediate impact. Columbia Pictures bought the film rights to Allen's life story, and he was invited to the new president's inauguration, where he commented, "That's the man...Whew, I'm telling you, it's something to see. Seeing him standing there, it's been worth it all."
Allen and other workers who served presidents were featured in a 32-minute documentary, Workers at the White House, directed by Marjorie Hunt and released on a 2009 DVD, White House Workers: Traditions and Memories by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.［8］
Allen's life was the inspiration for the 2013 film The Butler.［2］ Danny Strong's screenplay was inspired by the 2008 Washington Post article.［9］［10］ The film departs from the facts of Allen's life. The central character, "Cecil Gaines", is only loosely based on the real Allen.
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