Commentary On The Film The Help

Originally a book written by Kathryn Stockett, The Help, was transformed into a film in 2011, directed by Tate Taylor. Taking place in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, the perspective of (mainly) two middle-aged ‘negro’ maids (Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson) were recorded in hopes of setting truth free. Miss Eugenia (“Skeeter”) Phelan, hopeful to be a journalist, claimed that black lives were not as pleasant as portrayed, therefore she desired to reveal the truth behind their lives through a book of interviews. The film, The Help, while not going in depth is quite historically accurate through the depiction of social classes, racial segregation, the Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights Movement (dealing with racism, violence, and homicide).

“They say it’s like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime,” (Stockett, 437). The Help is an enlightening book in which Kathryn Stockett talks about the things others are scared to approach. This is a story about racism, segregation, risk, and violence, specifically between the help and their employers, in Jackson, Mississippi around the time of Martin Luther King Jr. This touching book was turned into a movie in order to reach an even larger number of people. From the protective relationships between the help and their employers, to the love between the white babies and the aids, to the abusive, cruel correspondence between the help and the white people in Jackson, this story covers it all. Although the written account of

The Help follows the lives of maids and their employers in Jackson, Mississippi. This novel, by Katherine Stockett, uses the differences between the white and black neighborhoods to represent differing ideas that are integral to and add to the meaning of the work.

The Help film portrays life during the 1950s of black maids life stories in Mississippi. They showcase the difficulties of racism and the uprise of the Civil Right Movement. An aspiring white female author wants to write from the maids’ perspective of taking care of the prominent white families. Even though the relationship of a black and white person is unspoken, friendships develop through the hardships of the 1960s.

The Help takes place during the 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi. This novel tells a story about the relationships between African-American maids and their white employers. During the 1960’s, not only in Mississippi but the greater part of the south, African-American women were the nannies and maids to white families for generations and dealt with racism in order to earn an income for their own families. The Help not only touches on a racist time era but a sexist one as well. In The 60’s women were to be mothers and housewives but some wanted

The Help (2011), based on Kathryn Stockett’s novel of the same name, follows the stories of Skeeter Phelan, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson in 1960s’ Mississippi. These women come together to write a book from the perspective of the “help”, a group of African American women who are mistreated by the white families they work for. I chose this movie for its strong female protagonist and the brave women who risked their lives by letting their voices be heard.

The Help is a movie set during the civil rights movement in the 1960s (Taylor, 2011). It captures the tension, which was boiling between the black and white residents in Jackson, MI. Skeeter Phelan is an aspiring author who decides to return home to Jackson after completing her degree. What Skeeter does not realize until she comes back home, is how conscious she has become to the discrimination in which she grew up. After coming to this realization, Skeeter decides to write a book capturing the stories from the maid’s point of view about the white families for which they work.

The movie “The Help” was based In the early 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi. During this period of time it was very segregated, very much so that whites did not want African Americans to have contact with them, but were expected to fully take care of their children from birth to adulthood. Most of the African American maids later developed a strong bond with the children that they looked after. They tried teaching the kids to see no color, just to later witness them grow up to be brainwashed by the world to think of African Americans as less than. Except for one southern girl named Skeeter Phelan, who saw the equality in everyone. And one day she decided to interview the maids to get their perspectives on life and to get their story out to the world. At first the maids were hesitant because it would be serious consequences if anyone knew who exactly spoke up, but Skeeter did whatever she could to make sure all the maids were anonymous and no one knew. She risked many hardships like losing her relationship with her boyfriend and also building tension with the women of the Junior League. Successfully the maids stories got out and it opened eyes little by little.

The 2011 movie, The Help, based on the Kathryn Stockett novel by the same name, is centered around the inequalities that the black maids, and race in general, faced throughout the 1960s. From a sociological standpoint, the movie contains many concepts pertaining to race and ethnicity and helps others to better understand the differences between majority and minority groups. The Help is focused upon race, a socially defined category of people who share inherited physical characteristics and whom others see as being a distinct group, and the racism that the black maids faced throughout the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. Although the black maids are good people, they still face racism, an ideology or set of beliefs about the superiority of one

Despite good intentions, the film still tells a small, sentimental story that glosses over the hard facts of the Civil Rights era. For Blount, the Help’s overarching “Hollywood narrative” is kinship, the ultimate bond formed between a white woman and a group of black women, a theme that eclipses the real issues of racism. The film does not tell the story of far-reaching social change—but rather the story of the less significant, anecdotal tolerance of a few individuals. “You don’t get enough of a sense of African-Americans as actors on a political stage,” he says. The sit-ins, the marches, the bus boycotts are all left out. Blount points out that the intended heroine is Skeeter, not the maids.

The Help is a drama set in Jackson, Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. The film focuses on the development of Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a young, aspiring Anglo American author trying to find her way in the world of writing. After becoming closer acquainted with Aibileen, an African-American maid employed by her peer Elizabeth Leefolt, Skeeter becomes more aware of the racist attitudes that white Americans in her community have towards ‘black’ Americans. After successfully interviewing Minny, Aibileen 's best friend and fellow maid, Skeeter interviews the maids of multiple households and collects their stories and experiences of their lives. This leads Skeeter on a risky path towards bringing awareness to black

The film, “The Help ”, is set in Jackson, Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement. It follows the activities of the African American maids, The Help, working for white people. Meanwhile, a white socialite and recent graduate of Ole Miss, Skeeter, is aspiring to write a book to illustrate their lives as The Help behind her friend’s backs. She interviews Aibileen and Minny who later joins the project. The film starts during an interview with Skeeter and Aibileen. Skeeter just got a job at a newspaper company to write responses for a weekly column and asks for Aibileen’s help. Aibileen is the maid of Elizabeth and cares for her daughter. Later, Skeeter finds out that her mother fired her childhood maid, Constantine, who raised her. This causes her to want to write a book and she calls a publishing company to approve her idea. Meanwhile, Minny gets fired by Hilly for using the guest bathroom instead of her outhouse during a rain storm. Minny then works for the wife of Hilly’s ex-boyfriend, Celia. The two become friends. After, Minny joins Skeeter’s book project. Hilly’s new maid gets arrested for pawning a ring and Medgar gets assassinated. Because of these events, more maids come out with their stories. In a strange but funny turn of events, Minny serves Hilly with a chocolate cake made out of her poop. Later,

According to the movie The help, I understand that the African American in the past where being abused from white people and where insulted and treated as animals. They used men as cookers and farmers. And women where used as nannies. Also they splurge the nannies between each other. However, white people doesn’t treat African American in a good way. When they was treated from white people one of the friend of the white people tried to solve this dilemma which is to make justice between white and African Americans. She brought a two girls from the white and two from the Africans to know the story of them life. From what she heard from the both sides she was writing the two situations to send it to a women that can communicate with the government to make justice between these people. The woman that was trying to make justice found that the white people doesn’t agree with her because the white people want them as slaves. After this situation the lady wanted justice so she wrote a book to make people conscious about this serious problem and this book was called “The help”. And the earnings from this book is being given to these African Americans.

Hello, I am Brooke McGregor and today I am going to be discussing the movie “The Help” through a gender and psychoanalytical and psychological critical lens. The help is a 2011 American period drama film directed and written by Tate Taylor. The film recounts the story of a young white woman and apprising author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In an attempt to become a legitimate journalist and writer, the main character Skeeter (antagonist) writes a book from the point of view of the maids know as "the help” exposing the racism they are faced with as they work for white families.

For my film/documentary analysis paper, I chose the movie The Help. This movie was actually originally a book written by Kathryn Stockett, but then in 2011, a screenplay was written and directed by Tate Taylor. I selected this film because it directly relates to some of the topics we talk about in class. Some of them being segregation and discrimination. In society today, segregation and discrimination play a huge role in how minorities are perceived. I wanted to find a film that showed the effect they play from both the minority’s point of view and the majority’s, and that’s how I decided to watch The Help.