The 2011 The Help, an adaptation of a 2009 book of the same name, was one of the most acclaimed movies of the film season. It was nominated for many industry awards, including Academy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards. The Help is based off the relationship of a white female journalist and two black maids in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s. Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is the main protagonist. As a “home help” columnist for the Jackson Journal, she interviews Aibileen Clark (the second protagonist) for some remedial advice. Ms. Clark worked for Ms. Leefolt, who had a daughter Mae Maubly whom she adored. These interviews eventually evolve into journals about Aibileen’s life as a maid for white households. Although Aibileen is reluctant to tell her story (due to the danger), the death of Medger Evers and a sermon by her church minister convinced her to “do the right thing”. Ms. Clark manages to convince her good friend Minny Jackson into telling her story. Ms. Jackson was a maid for Mrs. Walters, an elderly woman and her daughter, Hilly Holbrook. Ms. Holbrook, the town’s racist gossip, advocated for separate bathrooms for house help because of “different diseases”. This belief lead to Minny’s firing after refusing to walk through a tornado to an outhouse to use the bathroom. Phelan grew disenfranchised with Holbrook’s racist attitudes, in part to her affection for her house help—Constantine Bates. She then got into contact with Harper & Row Publishing, which agreed to look at Phelan’s writings. Due to her superb work, she gets the stories published—just as the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing. Although Phelan doesn’t want to leave home for New York City, her once disappointed mother (who wanted her daughter to find a man to marry) as well as her now friend Aibileen, urge to go and make the most of the opportunity. Aibileen herself is inspired by Phelan to become a writer after falsely being accused of stealing silverware.
The movie takes place during one of the most turbulent times in our nation’s history: The 1960’s. In those days, it was very hard for African-Americans, and the movie is somewhat of an exception to the general rule. Eugenia Phelan was a white journalist who was infatuated with her own maid as a child. That love led her to try to do “good”: write and publish stories about the horrors of Southern racism. Eugenia wasn’t the only white character who was “nice and easy” on blacks. Celia Foote, Minny’s new employer, treated her with respect and was thankful for her work as her employee. Charlotte Phelan, Skeeter’s mother, regretted firing Constantine and made it up Skeeter by urging her to accept her new job in New York City. Every major white female character, except for Ms. Holbrook wasn’t portrayed as racist, which was very interesting. Many social aspects of the era where mentioned in the movie, such as Charlotte’s desire for her daughter to find a husband and have kids; the White Citizens’ Council that Hilly received approval from; and colloquialisms by Aibileen and Minny.
The Help depicts history accurately for the most part. Mentions of real-life events such as Medgar Evars/John Kennedy assassinations were placed in the movie. Crisco, which was used by Minny and Foote, was described as an “all-in-one” solvent—which rang true in those days. Racial discrimination was widespread and the most ludicrous reasons where used to atone for the hatred. In one scene Yule Maye, the woman who replaced Minny as Ms. Holbrook’s help, asked Ms. Holbrook for a loan of $75 to pay for her sons’ tuition. Holbrook used God and charity as a reason why she couldn’t give her worker, who offered to work for free, the money needed. Racism was and always will be a foolish sense of pride predicated on nothing evidential, but that remark by Hilly understated the sheer small-mindedness of a racist. Most Southerners believed that blacks were being benefited by their prejudice. The outhouse bathrooms that Hilly wanted placed in every household in the city was seen as a benefit to society at large (the “different” diseases would be contained) but in reality, the outside bathrooms showed little regard for the men and women who kept up the home inside and out.
The context of the film is very insightful. Aibileen, while being interviewed by Eugenia, tearfully recants the tragic death of her then 24 year old son, illustrated the depressing part of life as the towel to the white man. Aibileen loved the babies, the white kids that she worked for. She made a ritual with Mae Mobley. It went like: “You is kind, you is smart, you is important”. Those scenes provided clarity that it wasn’t “whiteness” that frustrated her. It was her humiliation and suffering she endured under her white employers.