‘The Help’ review

During the 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi, white families dominated the town. Although white people seemed to be the only residents, ‘the help’ were a major factor also. The white families took advantage of the help by ordering them around and treating them with absolutely no respect. That is, until Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan, came back to town. Skeeter came back and discovered that her white friends were being completely disrespectful toward the maids and talked about them while they were within earshot. Skeeter is disgusted by her friends’ attitudes and decides to begin writing about ‘The Help’ and what each maid’s story is.

In the film ‘The Help’, the African-American maids are treated like animals compared to everyone else. One example of this is that the maids aren’t allowed to use the indoor bathrooms, even if it is storming outside or is extremely hot. Also, several different people order the maids to do several things at one time. Racism is a huge factor in this movie, and many others, no doubt. It is one of the many problems in life that everyone can relate to, either one has been around racism or has seen it on TV, in movies, etc. This has been seen in movies such as ‘Remember the Titans,’ ‘Radio,’ and ‘Hairspray.’ In all of these movies, black people have been looked down upon and degraded; yet in the end, all problems have been resolved due to a courageous character that acted against what others were saying.

In ‘The Help,’ Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan is more focused on her career of journalism than finding a husband which made her mother disappointed. Skeeter’s first job is at the town newspaper as a cleaning advice columnist. She starts talking to the maids in the first place because she knows nothing about cleaning and how to get rid of stains from clothes, etc. So, Skeeter asks her friend if she could talk to her maid, Aibileen for a while to help her with her advice column. But after some time, Skeeter becomes more interested in the story of the maids’ lives than the actual advice they can give her. She soon talks Aibileen into giving her an interview about Aibileen herself, instead of cleaning advice. This is the beginning of the long and arduous phase of collecting maid stories to complete a book Skeeter wants to finish for an editor of another paper. Racism is shown in the movie in many areas. One example is that the maids have to have bathrooms outside because ‘they might have disease.’ Also, they get told to do several things at one time by more than one person and are expected to do them. They are treated like dirt and receive no respect from most of the white people.

To get revenge on Hilly Holbrook for firing her, Minny Jackson, a former maid, gives Hilly an ‘apology pie.’ However, it ends up Minny’s waste is the ‘special ingredient’ in this pie. African-Americans don’t enjoy the company of rude, ignorant, disrespectful whites in the movie. Racism is everywhere. In the end, Skeeter finds herself with all but one of the stories she wants: Her own. Therefore, she resorts to her mother to find out what happened to the woman who raised her: Constantine. Her mother tries telling her, again, that Constantine abruptly moved away to Chicago to live with her family. Skeeter knows better, she urges her mother to tell her the complete truth and finds that her mother wanted to impress the other ladies who were at her house. The start to this was Constantine’s daughter, Rachel’s, surprise arrival. After Rachel’s entrance, Constantine eventually gets fired and sent away. This only happened because Mrs. Phelan wanted to impress the white people by putting down a black person. She claimed that there was no way to avoid it. Racism caused Phelan to lose one of the most important people in her and Skeeter’s life. Racism is the most prominent factor in this movie. It is shown by the disrespect they receive, the bathrooms they have to use which are outside, and the amount of work they are expected to get done. But it is not just white’s discriminating the maids, the maids also get a little satisfaction of their own every once in a while, whether it be in the form of a pie or flushing a toilet and slamming the lid for good measure. The end result of this movie is the maids finally get to have an advantage over their ‘owners’ and tell all the stories they have, no matter how embarrassing. ‘The Help’ finishes with the fact that Skeeter’s book ‘The Help,’ sold an extreme amount of copies, even though it was written anonymously and all the names of the maids were changed. So after all, everyone got the fair amount of criticism and storytelling of the other race.