#as a mother has a hired nanny to watch/teach kids in her absence | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thehelpfilm · 6 years

Text

A Critical Film Review of “The Help”

An entertaining and somewhat light-hearted take on the harsh realities of racism in 1960’s Mississippi, “The Help” is a deeply moving, poignant, and hopeful story about how courage and working together can create change. It serves as a reminder of how compassion, strength, empathy, and honesty have helped in making the world a less horrific place to live in.

The film is based on Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling novel “The Help” which tells the story of African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi, during the early 1960s.

Synopsis

youtube

Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (played by Emma Stone) a young white woman who is an aspiring journalist starts by writing for a cleaning advice column “Miss Myrna” –– having no idea about how to clean, Skeeter enlists Aibileen (played by Viola Davis) to help her. Due to these series of events, they form a strong bond that later inspires Skeeter to write a book on the perspective of “The Help” –– that exposes the racism they are faced with as they work for white families.

Not only is this task illegal, it goes against all of her friends, her family, and her boyfriend as they all live quite happily with segregation in society. As time goes on, more maids get involved and have a great deal to say about their lives raising white children and serving their mothers.

Awards and Acclaim

Touchstone Pictures released The Help worldwide, with a general theatrical release in North America on August 10, 2011. The film was a critical and commercial success, receiving positive reviews and grossing $216 million in worldwide box office. The Help received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress for Davis, and Best Supporting Actress for both Chastain and Spencer, with the latter winning the award. The film also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

The Directing and Filming

The film is a historical period drama set in Mississippi. The setting looked realistic and it looks as if the movie was straight out from the 1960s. The costumes, the hair, even the television and other background props really encapsulated the time period. It was visually stunning. The transitions were on point. It was an immersive experience that really took you to the 60’s and I can’t see any flaws when it comes to the filming of the scenes.

Each frame meant something. Every scene was necessary in telling the story. An example would be the scene wherein Skeeter and Constantine, her family maid who happened to just disappear, were having a conversation about the school dance and how no boy has asked her yet. They were talking beneath a huge willow tree.

In this scene, Constantine and Skeeter feel safe under the shade. It shows how they are free to have a conversation there because they are hidden under the tree and no one else could judge them. This scene also shows how Constantine was more of like a mother to her than her actual mother which is a common theme in this movie.

The maids seem to know far more than the mothers of the white children they take care of. They motivated the kids and made them feel important.

The Characters

“You is Kind, You is Smart, You is Important” a significant line in the film said by Nanny Aibileen Clack. She says this to Moe Mobley, the child of Elizabeth, her boss. The character is seen to be taking care of the child even better than her actual mother.

The white women are seen as snarky and oppressive to their maids, but not all of them. Some have good stories and treat them well like in the case of Celia Foote –– who has never once hired a maid before. Minny becomes her maid and helps her in cleaning and cooking for Celia’s husband Johnny.

Celia is seen as an outcast because she comes from a trailer park community. People who come from that and suddenly get into the suburban lifestyle because they married a guy whose lifestyle is white, rich, elite often get shunned because they are seen as “white trash”.

This is seen when the ladies pretend to hide and turn off the music when Celia knocks at their door carrying a pie that Minny made.

I especially enjoyed the dynamic between Minny and Celia. It was sweet and serious at times. It showed that not all white people are bad, some were allies and good hearted people just like Skeeter and Celia.

The acting was believable and convincing. None of the characters seemed flat to me, everyone had character development, some stayed the same like Hilly Holbrook but as an antagonist, she did her job of being hated and despised.

Skeeter’s mom was another character I thoroughly enjoyed. Her journey throughout the film really made a good character story arc. At first we find out she has cancer and she wants Skeeter to get married and find a husband quick. Forcing her to go on dates and getting excited when Stuart came looking for Skeeter.

But she ignores Skeeter whenever she asks about what happened to their maid Constantine. She’s unsupportive of what Skeeter is writing about at first, turn off the television when the black servants and Skeeter were watching national news about the Civil Rights movement telling her to not inspire them or give them any ideas.

She has a change of heart in the end and reveals what happened to Constantine and ultimately becomes a supportive mother even defending Skeeter from Hilly who barges in their house threatening to ruin Skeeter’s life.

I enjoyed the strong female characters and the dynamic between all of them. The dialogue was also very well-written and humorous despite the fact that they are talking about racism, they still have some good comedy in there.

The Historical Context and Message Behind the Film

The stories that the Black maids told Skeeter for her novel revealed that the Jackson society at that time was very racist. The maids were unappreciated by their white employers as well as disrespected in the manner in which they were treated. The wages that they were paid were deplorable when compared to the work that was assigned to them. They were the ones that raised their white employers’ children without the input of the parents. This was despite the fact that the Blacks were considered dirty, lazy, disease–ridden and having less intelligence that the average white person.

Unfortunately, the film falls short of a credible presentation, as the reality of the situation is not tackled with any degree of seriousness. One of the most jarring elements is the absence of any reference to the mass struggles that shattered the Jim Crow structure –– which was the the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life.

There were several area within the movie that describe how life was really like in Jackson was like.

There is a scene in the movie where Aibileen was in the bathroom, built specifically for her because Hilly says that black people are disease-ridden and should have separate bathrooms. In several scenes of the movie, the mothers tell their child to not go to those “dirty” bathrooms used by maids or else they will get sick.

The segregation of bathrooms was so real that in the first scenes of the movie we see Hilly putting pencil marks on the toilet paper in the bathroom to make sure that Minny wasn’t using her toilet.

The maids travel on buses that are for black people only or are at the back of a bus with the white people at the front.

This is similar to the situation back then where everything was separated. Similar to an apartheid in South Africa. Wherein, blacks could not attend the same schools and churches as the white people.

“They killed him” –– Aibileen tells the story of how her son died and explained that the white bosses loaded him up in the back of a pickup after being ran over. They dropped him off in front of the colored hospital, honked the horn, and drove away.

Also, a scene where Yule Mae gets arrested in a violent way and the white folks just watch and act as if nothing happened.

The movie shows some issues of discrimination and segregation but in my opinion it was a bit sugarcoated. Sure it can teach people about how life was like back then for African American but it does not show how bad it really was. It was violent, abusive, oppressive and frankly it was not funny. It could have done more but truth be told, the message was there and it did a great job of portraying it even if it was kind of stereotypical and whitewashed.

Whitewashing in a sense that Skeeter is seen as the hero and the brave one. Well she was brave but is it really appropriate that we are applauding this courageous, fictional white gIrl?

Truth be told it is fiction and it is meant to entertain but millions of people saw this film and might believe this to be real and an accurate representation of who were the real heroes of those times. It was a combination of black people who fought for their rights alongside white allies.

It’s not a perfect film, of course one movie cannot represent the vile actualities of the racism experienced by Black people during that time. In fact, this movie could have done more but chose to play it safe. Given the theme of the movie which is Racism during the 60’s, it’s a heavy topic that carries a lot of historical weight around it.

It could have been a more hard-hitting drama that would have made viewers bawl their eyes out after the film but like I said, it is a heavy topic to deal with. The writers and directors chose to make it light-hearted and easy to take in. It is told in an accessible and pleasurable way that almost anyone of all ages can watch and enjoy the film.

Do I recommend everyone to watch it? Yes. Do I think people should just stop at this film and use it as their basis for historical context on racism in the 60s? No.

Did I enjoy it? Yes, very much so.

#the help #movie review #skeeter #viola davis #the help movie

16 notes · View notes