America 's Social Climate : The Melting Pot

Movies and entertainment outlets speak volumes about the current state of a nation’s culture. Cinematic creations in the United States allow small voices to be heard and controversial issues to be addressed. However, a repetitive and monumental issue continues to be addressed, yet continues to persist in our 21st century culture, racial inequalities. Since the inception of the United States, black men and women alike have been disenfranchised at the hands of the “white man” in America. Instead of continuing the conversation today, the issue is continually silenced referencing the successes and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. Nonetheless, an unfortunate reality looms upon this great land; racially based systems and structures continue to exist in 2015 the in United States. This paper synthesizes three films focused on racial inequalities in different time periods. Separate but Equal (1991), Selma (2015), and Crash (2005) illustrate how influential the Civil War amendments are, while serving as an uncanny reminder of how the racial prejudices during the 20th century continue to exist in our great nation today. Needless to say our nation has made great strides, but still has a long way to go.

The Help puts most of its attention on the white heroine that possess limited rebellion to the racism that surrounds her (History and The Help). It focuses on the inner self wanting to improve through raising awareness and creating friendships rather than conquering the actual issue. In the process of this, the Civil Rights resistance and complexity of racial relations is downplayed to hit the target audience. This target audience is white women that view themselves as superior. Therefore, the author cannot speak too deeply about the realities of the issue. The film becomes unrealistic in its portrayal of the events and struggles of this time period (Travis).

Throughout The Help, Kathryn Stockett incorporated a variety of cultural themes that are as relevant today as they were fifty years ago when the story took place. The main themes that remain an issue throughout the book are racial discrimination and class limitations as well as restrictive gender roles. These issues help to add to the contemporary value of the book because even though it has been half a century, news headlines involving issues or breakthroughs regarding race and gender are still common, just like in The Help. Probably the biggest cultural significance comes from issues in the book regarding racial inequality. The book takes place in a highly segregated town where African Americans are discriminated against and looked down upon. In modern times, just the year before the publication of the book, in 2008, Barack Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States. This milestone was an incredible accomplishment for African Americans all over. Because all African Americans, men and women both, have been able to vote without any restrictions for over fifty years, the fact that the first African American president was elected as the 44th president was a bit surprising, solely due to the fact that this feat took the amount of time that it did. A breakthrough this monumental shows just how much progress is still yet to be made regarding race in the United States. Another cultural value in the book is the

African American’s role in this country has been long and has never been easy. During the early years of the United States, African Americans endure the hardship of slavery and had to deal with beatings, harsh working conditions and constant yelling from their racist white owners. Even after the abolishment of slavery, African Americans still endure another one hundred years of discrimination. A perfect way to examine a pivotal time in American History of African Americans and the racism they went through is seen in the movie “The Help”. The movie is set to take place “in Mississippi during the 1950s-1960s, Skeeter is a southern society girl who returns from college determined to become a writer, but turns her friends ' lives -- and a Mississippi town -- upside down when she decides to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent southern families.” (The Help) The movie was originally based on a book written by

The movie, The Help, is based on the book written by Kathryn Stockett. It was released in 2011 and directed by Tate Taylor (Taylor, 2017). The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960’s, and it is about the experiences black women had as maids for white families. These women decided to risk it all and tell their stories in an effort to show what is was really like for them (Taylor, 2011). The Help illustrates how these women fought racism and prejudice by becoming unified with one another. This paper will address how prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, and inequality affect the characters and their relationships in the story.

The novel, “The Help”, by Kathryn Stockett, focuses on the social issue of segregation in the United States, specifically in the south. Stockett demonstrates the issue of racial segregation between blacks and whites in the 1960’s by applying allusions, and point of view.

Throughout the 1900’s racial prejudice behaviours were adopted during the colonisation of white Europeans in counties deemed undiscovered. The play ‘No Sugar’ written by Jack Davis, published in 1986, encompasses the impacts of racial discrimination inflicted on the Indigenous Australians during the attempted assimilation into Western Society. Similarly Tate Taylor explored issues of racism in America in the film, ‘The Help’, released in 2011. Set in the 1960’s, ‘The Help’ showcases the racial discrimination in Jackson, Mississippi, focusing on the coloured women left with little choice other than to work as a maid in the homes of white families. Both texts present the same ideas being, minority groups, such as Aboriginals and African-Americans, are severely discriminated against in society simply due to their race; and marginalized groups begin a resistance movement within society towards equal rights. The two different texts present the same ideas through conventions such as dialogue, characterisation and colloquial language to highlight the two ideas.

In the Film “The Help” characters also encounter situations that want to be forgotten. During the 1960’s (The time frame which the film was set) people with light skin colour where seen to be in power. Black people were forced to follow under their rules, working for them and catering their every need. Human beings are seen to be equal now but the sets props and costumes created a feeling of historical authenticity. During the movie footage of newscasts from the television were shown from the era creating visual context for the viewer reflection on the time of the era.

The United States of America used to be known as the world’s largest melting pot. Meaning many different ethnicities and backgrounds coming and living with one another, and sharing each other’s culture. This can also be defined as assimilation. The United States of America has slowly drifted away from assimilation to isolating those who are different and diverse.

The film “The Help” (2011), is a story based on the daily lives of prominent white women and the relationships with their African-American housemaids in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s Civil Rights movement in America. A well-to-do white woman and central character in this film, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, aspires to be a journalist and decides to write and publish an exposé of the stories of the housemaids in Jackson to achieve this goal, however, only two maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson are willing to discuss their experiences with her. The other maid’s in Jackson resist telling Skeeter their stories, fearing the punishments they would endure if the authorities were to find out. In spite of this, after the malicious arrest of one of their befriended maids, all of the maids begin to share their experiences, which consist of racial hostility and being treated as intrinsically subservient to white people. The story Skeeter publishes entitled The Help, creates a disturbance among the white families in Jackson, by exposing the racism the maids are faced with, forcing the white families to reflect upon how they have treated their maids. The storyline represented in The Help exhibits examples of the primordial approach to race and ethnicity, as well as numerous sociological concepts including segregation, internalized oppression, and white privilege, which will be exemplified in this paper in order to uncover the race relations evident within this film.

The Help is an inspiring movie, centralized on themes of showing courage in the midst of adversity and racial desegregation. The selection of actors with specific attributes, lighting/camera angles, and music, allows the movie to entertain in detail, and highlight the prime issues of the 1960s. With the movie being directed with these specifities in mind, the author, Kathryn Stockett, is able to successfully relay her message in the screenplay.

There are several different Psychological themes throughout the movie “The Help”. In this paper I will be discussing 3 of which I feel are very important. My intentions throughout this paper is to make everyone aware of not only the Discrimination shown in the movie but also the way that Peer Pressure, and perspective ties into making this a powerful movie. Hopefully I can use this paper to make others aware of the hardship and oppression that not only African Americans went through but all African American Women especially. This movie shows how racism is not inherited but simply passed down from generation to generation.

Feminist theory is a term that embraces a wide variety of approaches to the questions of a women’s place and power in culture and society. Two of the important practices in feminist critique are raising awareness of the ways in which women are oppressed, demonized, or marginalized, and discovering motifs of female awakenings. The Help is a story about how black females “helped” white women become “progressive” in the 1960’s. In my opinion, “The Help” I must admit that it exposes some of our deepest racial, gender, and class wounds as individuals and social groups, and that the story behind the story is a call to respect our wounds and mutual wounding so that healing may have a chance to begin and bring social

A Tate Taylor film, The Help (2009) emphasizes the extreme, racially-charged stereotypes thus endorses racial thinking. Blacks in this film are represented broadly as common house maids, or domestic slaves, but specifically as oppressed, unhappy, impoverished, and products of hardship through the utilization of racist stereotypes and juxtaposition with the lives of affluent whites in the southern United States, a juxtaposition which immortalizes the racial gap between whites and blacks.

Society has changed and evolved throughout time. Perhaps one of the most significant changed in contemporary American society is the treatment towards African Americans. “The Help” a feature film directed by Tate Taylor is based on the non-fictional novel “The Help” written by author Kathryn Sockett. The feature film explores the life of African American maids of Jackson Mississippi, in the early 1960’s. The 1960’s displayed all African Americans to being left out of the “American dream” through neglect and racism. African Americans faced prejudice and discrimination in almost every aspect of their life, from jobs to housing and even their education. They were denied the right to sit at the same lunch counter or use the same public rest