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Sociological Analysis Of The Help

Decent Essays

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 …show more content…

Minority groups are less likely to receive an adequate education that majority groups are. In general, minority groups are more likely to lack health insurance, have a lower life expectancy, hold the low skilled labor jobs jobs, and live in poverty. When the black maids return home every evening, we can see how they live in rundown, poverty stricken towns and how they are paid very low amounts for their work. We can see social reproduction, the tendency of social classes to remain relatively stable as social class status is passed down from one generation to the next, as Minny forces her daughter to drop out of school and become a maid. Minny’s family lives in a closed caste system, with no opportunity to move from one class to another. Along with this, the blacks also receive very little criminal justice. When Hilly’s maid is caught stealing her ring, the police officer treats her very poorly and tries to harm her during her arrest. After watching The Help, a sociologist would view the story through the theoretical perspective of the conflict theory. The conflict theory states that inequalities are present in our definitions of deviance and that rules and punishments are applied unequally; those at the bottom are more likely to be criminalized than those at the top (those with money and/or power). We can see how Minny is seen as a deviant and fired …show more content…

Feminism is the belief in the social, political, economic equality of the sexes, but we can see the lack of it in the 1960s. When Skeeter receives a job working for the newspaper, she is assigned the cleaning advice column because it is assumed that because she is a woman, she will know how to clean. Skeeter breaks the norms, a social behavior that is typical or expected, by getting a job in the first place. Along with this, she portrays deviance, behavior, trait or belief that separates from societal group norms, when she pranks Hilly by putting the wrong initiative in the newspaper and also when she writes the book in order to help the black women. Skeeter is also pressured to find a husband because it is believed that women are incapable of providing for themselves and need a man. Along with feminism, we can see gender work, viewing types of jobs as “men’s work” and “women’s work.” Every maid in the movie is a woman because men are expected to do laborious jobs while women are expected to cook, clean and take care of

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