How
do you take a potentially highly emotionally charged, painful and divisive
civil rights issue and make it into a pleasant, poignant unifying and uplifting
story? By laying on the Southern charm, of course, and throwing in more than a
dash of real, honest humor. "The Help" is a delicious
peppery stew of home-cooked, 1960s Southern-style racism that serves up a
soulful dish of what ails us and what heals us. (Sharkey, 2011) Laughter, which
is ladled thick as gravy, proves to be the secret ingredient, turning what
should be a feel-bad movie about those troubled times into a heart-warming
surprise. Brilliantly translating the
bestselling novel by Kathryn Stockett to the big screen, The Help tells a
historical story about women, a story that will make you laugh, and probably
cry, and it will likely leave you a better person for having seen it.
Set
in the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, The Help follows young college graduate Eugenia
"Skeeter" Phelan, who just returned home with a degree from the
University Of Mississippi, dreams of being a writer, and while she immediately
lands a job writing a cleaning column, she soon after decides to secretly pen a
book exposing what life is like from the point of view of the help, the black women
who cook, clean and raise white children, only to have those children grow up to
neglect them and become their bosses.
Viola
Davis stars as Aibileen, Skeeter’s best friend’s (Elizabeth) housekeeper, who
is the first to open up and tell her side of the story, to the dismay of her
friends in the tight-knit black community. She is motivated by a desire to
remember her late son who was killed in an automobile accident. (Francois,
2011) He was left to die in front of the black hospital with little or no
regard to his health. He died shortly afterwards.
Aibileen is a maid. It is her nine-to-five daily job. She does all the cooking, she cleans, she goes to the grocery story, and most important, she takes care of Elizabeth's daughter Mae Mobley. She repeats over and over to Mae Mobley a little phrase “You is kind, you is smart, and you is important.” This phrase she has repeated year after year to the children under her care, hoping that one day they will remember those words and treat others with the respect they deserve.
The next maid to agree to tell her story is Minny. Minny is Aibileens best friend and confidant. Aibileen and Minny have been cleaning white houses and polishing the silver, and cooking meals and tending children and smiling, always smiling, even as they pretend not to hear the insults, to remind you that this is at least partly about backbreaking labor. (Murray, 2011) Working for Miss Hilly Holbrook, the town's queen bee, Minny is the best cook in the county. Miss Hilly's manipulative ways finally become too much for Minny, though, and Minny does a "terrible, awful deed" to get back at her by baking a special “pie.” Minny waltzed right up to Hilly’s house and said she was sorry. Hilly sat at the table and ate two whole slices of Minny’s “pie.” Hilly was cantankerous and began shouting orders at Minny. Minny politely informs Hilly that she had been eating Minny’s feces! Hilly was so embarrassed and repulsed she never got Minny in trouble because she didn’t want others to know what she had eaten. After that, Minny goes to work for Celia Foote, a nice, pretty young lady who is considered white trash by Hilly and her friends.
One night it’s after hours, and Aibileen, is going home. Suddenly the bus stops, and a white man orders the black passengers off, explaining that a black man has been shot. In a pool of dreadful night, Aibileen and a young man trade goodbyes and rush off. And then this sturdy, frightened woman starts running as if her life were in danger, because it’s Mississippi, and it is.
When she gets to safety, Aibileen learns that the man who has been shot is Medgar Evers, His wife and three young children, who were trained to lie on the floor in case of gunfire, found him in their home. Medgar was the civil rights activist who was gunned down in Jackson, Miss., on June 12, 1963, Evers died shortly afterward. Hours before, President John F. Kennedy, spurred on by different national events, including the demonstrations in Birmingham led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and had delivered his landmark speech about civil rights. He said we were facing a “moral crisis as a country and a people” and soon introduced legislation that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Francois, 2011)(Murray, 2011)
As racial tensions rise and tragedy strikes in the town, more maids find the courage to come forward anonymously. Despite the possibility of a terrible backlash, the women tell all for a book that has the potential to turn their Mississippi town completely upside down.
The Help is appalling, entertaining, touching and perhaps even a bit healing, as we read and listen, and watch the stories unfold. But what reminds me that I live in a free country where all men are created equal is looking back to the Civil War all those years ago. The Civil War was fought not only to release those unjustly bound by slavery, but also to help keep our country free, and whole.
It has been said that when America ceases to be great, it’s because America has ceased to be good. Prejudice of any kind should never be an issue in a free country. From another standpoint, I have seen prejudice in my lifetime. The very same people that were in captivity and segregation in the movie The Help have forgotten that they are free to make their own choices now, and have not stopped living in the past. While the past should be remembered, it should never be consistently relived. Hatred goes both ways. It’s not just whites vs. blacks. Having been the recipient of black vs. white because of something people did years ago that had the same color skin, did not make me guilty by association, and yet I was still punished.
The lesson to be learned from this movie is to forget, and to forgive. Move on, be better, and hope to instill in those around you something of value.
Aibileen is a maid. It is her nine-to-five daily job. She does all the cooking, she cleans, she goes to the grocery story, and most important, she takes care of Elizabeth's daughter Mae Mobley. She repeats over and over to Mae Mobley a little phrase “You is kind, you is smart, and you is important.” This phrase she has repeated year after year to the children under her care, hoping that one day they will remember those words and treat others with the respect they deserve.
The next maid to agree to tell her story is Minny. Minny is Aibileens best friend and confidant. Aibileen and Minny have been cleaning white houses and polishing the silver, and cooking meals and tending children and smiling, always smiling, even as they pretend not to hear the insults, to remind you that this is at least partly about backbreaking labor. (Murray, 2011) Working for Miss Hilly Holbrook, the town's queen bee, Minny is the best cook in the county. Miss Hilly's manipulative ways finally become too much for Minny, though, and Minny does a "terrible, awful deed" to get back at her by baking a special “pie.” Minny waltzed right up to Hilly’s house and said she was sorry. Hilly sat at the table and ate two whole slices of Minny’s “pie.” Hilly was cantankerous and began shouting orders at Minny. Minny politely informs Hilly that she had been eating Minny’s feces! Hilly was so embarrassed and repulsed she never got Minny in trouble because she didn’t want others to know what she had eaten. After that, Minny goes to work for Celia Foote, a nice, pretty young lady who is considered white trash by Hilly and her friends.
One night it’s after hours, and Aibileen, is going home. Suddenly the bus stops, and a white man orders the black passengers off, explaining that a black man has been shot. In a pool of dreadful night, Aibileen and a young man trade goodbyes and rush off. And then this sturdy, frightened woman starts running as if her life were in danger, because it’s Mississippi, and it is.
When she gets to safety, Aibileen learns that the man who has been shot is Medgar Evers, His wife and three young children, who were trained to lie on the floor in case of gunfire, found him in their home. Medgar was the civil rights activist who was gunned down in Jackson, Miss., on June 12, 1963, Evers died shortly afterward. Hours before, President John F. Kennedy, spurred on by different national events, including the demonstrations in Birmingham led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and had delivered his landmark speech about civil rights. He said we were facing a “moral crisis as a country and a people” and soon introduced legislation that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Francois, 2011)(Murray, 2011)
As racial tensions rise and tragedy strikes in the town, more maids find the courage to come forward anonymously. Despite the possibility of a terrible backlash, the women tell all for a book that has the potential to turn their Mississippi town completely upside down.
The Help is appalling, entertaining, touching and perhaps even a bit healing, as we read and listen, and watch the stories unfold. But what reminds me that I live in a free country where all men are created equal is looking back to the Civil War all those years ago. The Civil War was fought not only to release those unjustly bound by slavery, but also to help keep our country free, and whole.
It has been said that when America ceases to be great, it’s because America has ceased to be good. Prejudice of any kind should never be an issue in a free country. From another standpoint, I have seen prejudice in my lifetime. The very same people that were in captivity and segregation in the movie The Help have forgotten that they are free to make their own choices now, and have not stopped living in the past. While the past should be remembered, it should never be consistently relived. Hatred goes both ways. It’s not just whites vs. blacks. Having been the recipient of black vs. white because of something people did years ago that had the same color skin, did not make me guilty by association, and yet I was still punished.
The lesson to be learned from this movie is to forget, and to forgive. Move on, be better, and hope to instill in those around you something of value.
No comments:
Post a Comment