Why the Help?

        The movie The Help is based off of a best-selling book created in 2009 by Kathryn Stockett. The director, Tate Taylor helps depict the book's story of life in Jackson, Mississippi of the 1960s for African American maids and high-classed whites. I was introduced to the movie because my mom had read the book and bought the movie. I then was forced to watch and the first time I watched The Help I was shocked that the movie was presenting such a serious issue of racism. The learning aspect and interesting story helped me fall in love with the movie. Every time I watch the movie I learn something new because it teaches, without people realizing it, about life in the sixties. The movie The Help, created in 2011, tells a remarkable story that keep the audience engaged from start to finish by its implied humor, intriguing characters, and it looks at the civil rights movement from the sixties.




The Help cover featuring Aibileen, Minny, Skeeter and Hilly

Let Me Help Humor You

            Though The Help conveys a serious topic, the movie still possesses humor to relieve the audience. One of the most memorable moments from the movie The Help, is when Minny, the best house maid cook, gives Hilly, the elitist socialite, her famous chocolate pie. She gives her the pie to say she is sorry for displeasing her however, she has a sneaky plan of revenge. There was something in the pie that Minny wants to watch Hilly eat, but she was not planning on telling her what it was. However, in the scene she has to tell her and she makes a fool out of Hilly for eating not one, but two slices of her poop. The movie hides Minny's devious story until the middle of the movie and once few characters and the audience know, there is implied humor that ridicules Hilly through the end of the movie.

Minny taking her famous chocolate pie to Hilly's
 house seeking revenge.

          Also represented in the movie is the relationship between Celia and Minny. Celia is an outsider, but her chipper attitude and cluelessness helps the audience fall in love with her. Minny is a sassy African American housemaid, who is the best cook in Jackson and her lines help the audience laugh. In the movie, Hilly treats Celia as an outcast based off of selfish reasons, which causes the whole society not to like her. Celia lives in a typical country-side household and is not useful for her husband; but she does not let that stop her so she tries to hire a maid to help her cook and clean. However, the only maid to accept her job is Minny, because Hilly took away any other job opportunity for Minny after she fired her. Minny teaches her how to cook and to fit better in society, but also she becomes her only friend. The friendship between Minny and Celia creates amusing scenes to show that racism is not always present in the sixties.

Minny is teaching Celia how to cook fried chicken and she
 is shaking the batter onto the chicken.

              Humor is further present when Skeeter is trying to find love in her life. Growing up Skeeter was not like most girls who went to college to find a man, she pursues a degree and becomes a writer. When she is back home, her mom and her supposed friends try throughout the movie to get her in the dating field. Her mom wants her to find a man before she died and would try desperately to dress Skeeter up to be presentable for a man when Skeeter did not care. However, Skeeter did not believe she needs a man in her life and on her first date she is still not impressed when she meets Stuart. The movie emphasizes that she does not date much and that she is particular in what she wants in a man. So when things are not going smoothly on the date she begins to mock him and he retaliates. Since Skeeter is someone who likes to speak her mind, she never found love in the movie, but the force attempts to find her a husband creates humor for the audience.




Skeeter on her first date with Stuart and she is not impressed 

The Helpful Characters

          The main characters connect the audience to the film through their personal experiences. The first main character of the movie is Skeeter Phelan, who is an educated women that wants to make the world better and does not fit in her society. The movie starts out her life when she is coming home from college and decides to work for the Jackson Journal. She is well educated and unmarried unlike most girls and pursues her dreams of being a writer. Skeeter is friends with the high-society ladies such as Hilly, but soon pulls away from them when she does not uphold to there silly racist beliefs. She slowly becomes a social pariah because of her beliefs and develops an idea to help the African American community by writing a book called The Help. Skeeter releases the book even though it was illegal anonymously from the view point of the African American maids in white households. At the end of the movie Skeeter is greatly rewarded with new friends and opportunities, but also becomes closer with her mother who soon finds her courage with her daughter's help.

Skeeter Phelan

             Another main Character in the movie The Help is Aibileen Clark, who is a courageous and kind women who lives alone. Aibileen has been a house maid since she was a teen and currently in the movie she is working for the Leefolt family. One thing that the movie focusses on a lot is the relationship between Aibileen and Mae Mobley, who is the Leefolt's daughter. Aibileen teaches Mae Mobley so many things, but most of all she shows her love because she is the only one that takes care of her. She shows her this love as if Mae Mobley were her own child since, recently her own son had died at the age twenty-four. When Skeeter decides to write the book, The Help at first she does not want to be apart of it, but she then changes her mind. While thinking about her son and Mae Mobley she decides she wants to help get the word out about the cruelness in Jackson. Her bravery to help with the book in the end changes her to stand up more for herself and others as she then pursues a career as a writer.

Aibileen and Mae Mobley

Aibileen standing up for herself

         The last intriguing character I picked was Minny Jackson, who is a funny and hardworking women with several kids, and has a husband who beats her often. In the beginning of the movie she is working for Hilly and after Minny is fired her husband finds out and beats her for not having a job. Minny then starts looking for a job and cannot get one so she is forced to make her oldest daughter quit school and become a young housemaid. She then gets a job from Celia and they later become good friends because of there struggles and fun. Minny's humor is present when she is with Celia and Aibileen, but also when she says funny phrases such as when she tells herself "no sass-mouthing" before she goes to work. Minny also helps Skeeter with her book since she is close friends with Aibileen and persuades other maids to join too. At the end of the movie Minny becomes stronger through her friends support and then leaves her husband to protect her and her kids.

Minny Jackson

The Help in the Sixties

          The story presents the racism prevalent in the sixties to help the audience understand both perspectives of the white and blacks. In the movie The Help they emphasize strict separation between whites and blacks because it was during the Jim Crow Laws where they are "separate but equal". In the movie Hilly does not want African Americans to use her toilet because she believes they have diseases they could spread only by toilet. Hilly then starts a bill she calls The Home Help Sanitation Initiative where it requires for families of Mississippi to build outdoor bathrooms for their black employees. The movie also emphasizes the difference between the black and white neighborhoods and ways of travel. The black people neighborhood houses are small and close and they travel by walking or by bus; while the white neighborhood houses are huge with have lots of land and they travel by car.The strict separation shows why the whites and blacks were never treated the same because they never used the same things, whites always had something better.

Minny trying to use the inside restroom because their is a horrible

 storm outside however she  gets caught and fired.

       
             In the movie The Help, the relationship between the whites and blacks is prevalent to help us understand how each side felt about each others' rights. Throughout the movie blacks and whites are "separate but equal" and during the sixties time period things were starting to change for some people. The relationship between Hilly to her maids was always cruel because she never saw them as equal just like so many people in Mississippi still saw whites better than blacks. The relationship between Minny and Celia or Skeeter and Aibileen was respectful and they gained each others trust. Some people were like this in the sixties however, it was hard for them to be different than society. Many famous activists today during that time period started to fight for their rights such as Medgar Evers, who made an appearance in the movie on the Phelan's TV and later on the radio they heard about his murder. The movie ends with the question of will life ever change because of the book, The Help that Skeeter wrote. However, the audience knows that because of the activists and people that wrote about similar things like The Help, society did change.

Medgar Evens on TV

             In the movie, The Help and also in the sixties whites would have parties while the maids would work non-stop and gets paid less. Throughout the movie and especially during that time period blacks and whites were still not treated equal when it came to jobs. The movie represents "The Help" or maids to help the audience understand one of the main jobs black women had at that time. For their job they had to clean the whole house daily, cook for the household and also most times take care of the kids. The Help did this Monday through Saturday and the people they worked for really did not have much to do except go to a party and worry about their social status. Even with all the maids hard work they are still paid less than whites mainly because that is the only type of job they can get. The movie presents this for our understanding of life in the sixties well, so the audience will have more sympathy for the African Americans.


Mrs. Leefolt hosting a party

I Would Suggest You Need Some Help

           "You is kind, you is smart, you is important." This is a remarkable quote that is repeated throughout the movie to reinforce the movie's importance of teaching individuals that there is hope through kindness. The Help shows people that they can be kind, be smart and that they are important no matter who they are or what race they are. A movie critic named Mike Scott writes for the New Orleans Times, he states "The Help isn't intended to be so much a movie about the ugliness of the era than an optimistic tale of what can spring from that kind of ugliness, about the ability of people to love one another even when they're surrounded by hatred. And on that level, The Help succeeds wonderfully, a warm and sweet song of hope." I agree with this statement because the movie shows that there is hope in the racist society to be different and change. I would recommend this film to anyone over the age twelve because it gives people understanding of what life was like in the sixties for whites and blacks through seriousness and humor.

Works Cited

 

The Help. Dir. Tate Taylor. Perf. Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard and Octavia Spencer. Touchstone Home Entertainment, 2012. DVD.

 Scott, Mike. "'The Help' Review: Fantastic Characters, Great Cast Help Book Make Jump to Big Screen." The Times-Picayune. NOLA.com, 09 Aug. 2011. Web. 06 Nov. 2015.