Sunday, August 28, 2011

"The Help"


In the prelude, Abileen stoically tells an unseen interviewer that her grandmother was a house slave and her mother was a house maid. She, herself, has raised 17 white children. A naive voice asks if she ever thought of being something else. Her answer is the blank stare of resignation passed on from generations of subservience.

The movie proper starts with recent college grad Skitter (a wide eyed Emma Stone) being interviewed for her first newspaper job. Skitter is hired to write a housekeeping and cooking column – a subject she knows nothing about. No matter. While at a bridge club meeting, she asks her friend permission to interview her maid. Ironically, the maid, Abileen, is the only one she knows who keeps house. It becomes clear that her friend sees Abigail as her property when she catches Skitter affirming Abileen's contribution to the household. She tells Skitter that Abileen will be unable to continue working on the project.

Upset by her friend's mistreatment of Abileen and the unexplained absence of the beloved maid who raised her, Skitter is inspired to write a book on the maids' perspective of working for a white family. Her editor warns that she will never be able to get any maids willing to risk their jobs or their lives to talk to her. It is dangerous. It is 1960, the dawn of the civil rights movement. Jim Crow laws make it illegal to even print civil rights material. Tensions mount as a black activist is killed. The fear is palpable as black passengers are thrown off the bus near the murder sight and Abileen flees for her life past race riots.

This movie is about the shared delusion that blacks and whites in the South were separate. In 1960s Jaskson, Mississippi, Jim Crow laws and bridge club etiquette rule their lives. The laws were designed to separate the whites from the blacks, but black women had always worked very close to white families - preparing their food, cleaning their bathrooms, and changing their babies' diapers. For generations, the black “maids” raised the white children. Skitter explains to her publisher, “We are raised by our black maids. They love us and we love them, but they can't use the same bathroom.”

The setting is the domestic world of kitchens, nurseries and bathrooms which gives ample opportunities for kitchen (and bathroom) humor. On the whole, writer/director Tate Taylar does a good job balancing comedy and drama. The 146 minutes flies by with some laughs, tears, and dramatic tension. But sometimes the comedy goes a bit over the top. Hilly starts a petition initiating a law to have separate bathrooms for the help - even though her feisty maid, Minny, is the envy of the bridge club for her great cooking. This gives new meaning to the phrase, “Don't crap where you eat.”

There are multiple storylines. Care is given in showing the intertwining lives of the blacks and the whites. The writer seems to be saying both races are enslaved by the cultural restrictions of the time. Even Skitter's mother couldn't stand up to the bigots in her social club. She admits to Skitter, "Sometimes courage skips a generation." But it's the performances of Viola Davis as Abileen and Oscar winner Octavia Spencer as Minny that holds it all together. Davis adds gravity to every scene she is in. In Abileen's carriage we see the weight of generations of suppression as well as the personal risk she is taking with her involvement in the taboo book. Minny is different. After working for segregationist bridge club president Hilly, Minny has had enough. She is a fire cracker ready to explode. These women are survivors. But they have risen above that. They have stood up to their fears. They are heroes in their own civil rights protest and free women. I can't say so much for Hilly and her bridge club.

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal
www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Official site: http://thehelpmovie.com/us/

7 comments:

John Going Gently said...

cracking film blog
love hat you like
IN A BETTER WORLD

dpodoll said...

Have been wanting to see this film. Great insight!

Reel Inspiration said...

Thanks for your comment, Ms. Podoll!

Soni Cido said...

Hi Jana~I went to this movie on Thursday... (before I read your review).

You got it right on all points! I especially like your insight on this: "The writer seems to be saying both races are enslaved by the cultural restrictions of the time."

During the entire movie I kept thinking,
1) If the roles were reversed and white people were slaves in Africa, it would be the same
2)Minnie bosses Skeeter and makes her do as she says proving that she had the same bossy elements within herself
3)Separate bathrooms are not a direct hit to black servants, I have a friend who owns a house in the east and "the help" had separate stairs, bathrooms and sinks...they were IRISH servants, and they were not allowed to even be seen (the help in this story were allowed a step up...they actually got to breath the same air as the employers).

All in all, I loved the movie. I loved seeing the dogs exposed and the VICTORY won.

Soni

Anonymous said...

I loved the book. I haven't seen the movie yet because I'm afraid they'll make it into a "bad white folks/good black folks" thing. The author nailed the South in 60's (and 70's). The snooty/hateful women did(do?) exist. They tended (tend?) to be hateful to anybody they think is "less than" them. If you were raised right no matter what your social status you were not "ugly" to anybody especially to those less fortunate than yourself. If you did you mama AND both your grandmama's would switch your legs.

Vickie A

Charlotte Marie's Voice said...

Haven't seen the movie, but I did read the book. I don't have to see the movie to take exception to the comment that, the help was "loved" by their employers. They were not. Had they been "loved" by their employers, the bigger issue would have been their treatment on the streets of Jackson, Mississippi. They would have insisted that their upstanding husbands NOT participate in the lynchings and mob attacks on Jackson's black citizens. The Jackson, Mississippi of the turbulent 1960's could not solve the racial problem with thwarting a plan to require the help to have separate facilities in personal homes. No, that was a REAL struggle that was being determined in the streets and at lunch counters - but the people who had the most to lose, those whose lives not just way of life was on the line. And that is something that could not and was not settled with a pink toilet or a disgusting pie...no matter how creative Stockett's thoughts may be.

Lorna and Jana said...

Thanks everyone for commenting!

Charlotte, thanks for sharing your insights on Jackson, Mississippi. You bring up a good question on the movie's accuracy about southerners treatment of their maids. This is a tricky problem. This story is fictional, but people tend to believe what they see on the screen. There have been some responses that the film is "revisionist history." Perhaps it it just the writers' experience with their help??? They did grow up in Jackson, Mississippi. When I saw, "The Help", it got a warm response from the audience. They actually applauded. Perhaps it's the way they wish it had been.