The Help

The Help tells the story of a young, white woman trying to write a novel to expose the reality that black women face in the south. Though the film highlights some important parts of the Civil Rights struggle, it downplays the extent of the issues. Though it perfectly portrays the terrorizing reign of whites over blacks, overall The Help is historically inaccurate by stereotyping characters, telling a good vibes only story, and making an unrealistic case to hit a target

The Oxford Dictionary defines caring as the work or practice of looking after, as well as, displaying kindness and concern for those who are unable to care for themselves, especially on account of age or illness. Meanwhile, Miller-Keane and OToole (2003) terms caring as an

The three girls working together begins to create the solution to the main conflict. The main conflict in this case is blacks are being treated in a way that is not fair. They are being treated as if they are disease carrying things. Skeeter wants to change that perspective on people. That’s why she wants to write a book on how black maids are treated in Mississippi. “I turn and hear Pascagoula’s knock on my door. That’s when the idea hit me. No. I couldn’t. That would be . . . crossing the line.” - (Page 104) This was foreshadowing what Skeeter would do next. It let the reader know what was going to happen. Minny and Aibileen are there to help Skeeter with her book. They are the interviews. At first, the book starts out with Aibileen doing a normal day of work. She notices the Skeeter isn’t like all the other ladies. She’s more polite. When Skeeter gets a job at the local newspaper she starts to go to Aibileen for help with the Miss Myrna articles. She is even willing to pay her to help her. “ ‘For your help,’ I say quietly, ‘ I’ve put away five dollars for every article. It’s up to thirty-five dollars now.’ ” (Page 126) This shows that Skeeter is quite

Again shown in chapter 12, Hilly and Elizabeth come to show their opinions on black people. “Hilly raises her voice about three octaves when talking to black people. Elizabeth smiles like she's talking to a child, although certainly not her own. I’m starting to notice things.” In this quote Skeeter notices that because of the racial prejudice in within the community, black people are also thought to be less intelligent than the white people. Skeeter only realized this by the way Hilly and Elizabeth talked to black people the same way they were as if they were talking to a little kid. While Skeeter kept writing the book and eventually published it, She was hoping that people would realize

Racism is a big part of this book. It shows the absurdity of what people thought back then, which is an important lesson. It is important for us to learn what people’s views used to be, and how important it is not to go back to that mindset.

At this period in her life, Anne was just beginning to expose herself to the issues surrounding race-relations and efforts by African American organizations to improve the status of southern blacks. After she heard of Emmett Till’s murder from a group of students, she began to discuss the NAACP and other topics with her teacher Mrs. Rice (who was fired by the school at the end of the year). This brief educational experience transformed Anne’s feelings toward southern whites from resentment to unbridled hatred. More importantly, it instilled in her a perception of the black community as weak and cowardly (for their refusal to confront white bigotry and violence). For Anne and many young African Americans who would eventually join the Civil Rights Movement (either through the NAACP, CORE, or SNCC), it was difficult to understand the submissiveness and resignation of the older generation of southern blacks (i.e., their parents and grandparents). This quotation in particular expresses two implicit questions that stick with Anne for the rest of the book: Why do older blacks not seem to care about their conditions? How can they stand idly by while their own people are being assaulted and

Racism was very prevalent in the south, especially in the time this book was created and in most places still exists to an extent. It comes in many ways it may not be as blatant as obvious as it used to be but it still exists. This book has some real good examples of such. The effects it can have on a person or group of people in general can be staggering. It can emotionally damage you or depending on what people are doing physical damage you.

Reading the content in this book made me get a picture of what it was like to be a colored person in this time. My eyes were opened to the meaning of the word “nigga”. Nigga is such a derogatory term, yet now-a-days it is used by people so much. Kids in this generation use it as a term of endearment when they see their friends, or they say it when they are shocked by something. Frankly, I don’t believe they know how serious it really is. The fact that white people could look at a person and see less than a human being when they did nothing wrong distresses me. They (white people) treated them as if they were property and below them. Even though we don’t have racism to this extent

Caring- the process of looking after the needs and wellbeing of another person due to their age, illness or disability

Throughout the novel it is apparent that everyday instances of racism occur, causing people of color to feel outcasted. There are two very obvious occasions where this happened. In the first instance two African American woman are in a workspace of primarily all white co-workers. When a woman they worked with got these two names mixed up, it was stated that she had a “fifty-fifty chance of getting it right” insinuating that these two women are the only black ones working here. Later, the woman who had the mix-up with the names wrote an apology note; however, in the note she stated it was “our mistake” and seemingly put part of the blame on the to women. This is a primary example of how African Americans can be thrown against a white background making them seem different than everyone else.

Mrs.Skeeter’s story could be a strong supporting plot to the journey of the two black maids, Aibileen and Minny, but instead her story is the main focus of the movie. This simple fact makes the film seem to almost downplay the racist attitudes towards black people in the 1960s. The movie could've gone down a much more horrific and revealing plotline if they had made Aibileen or Minny the main character. If the director had gone down this path the movie could have communicated a much deeper message and would have allowed the watchers to be revealed to some first hand accounts of racism. Although the movie does tell some stories of the two black maids quite well with some of their perspective shown, throughout the entire movie there seemed to be a “sugar coating” over everything. It was as if the producers wanted to “protect” their audience from how far the racist attitudes went and the horrific fallout from those attitudes. Also, parts of the movie seemed almost irrelevant to the main message and goals of the protagonists. Take for example the sub-plot of Skeeter finding a man. Despite it doing a good job of incorporating a secondary plot, this entire section could have been removed for something that better related to the theme of the movie. They could've put in more about the pasts of either Aibileen or Minny to further communicate how society viewed down upon black people and saw them as little better than rodents. Within the movie, the fact that Skeeter is the main character at all almost seems to take away from the other two protagonists, Aibileen and Minny. A lot of the time in the movie the heavier parts are broken up by the lighter more bright plot line of Skeeter. An example of this within the movie is when a black person is shot by a member of the KKK, and Aibileen has to run back to Minny's house and compose herself with Minny. This entire scene is extremely tense and is wonderful at

Skeeter is a young educated privileged daughter of a cotton plantation owner. The fact that skeeter participates through many different changes as the story progresses and realizes that it is her own choice to choose what to believe in, and shows that she remains a dynamic character (2009:63). Skeeter decides to cross dangerous lines and start writing a book that contains the real stories of the black maids in Jackson (2009:102) as a result of that skeeter became more and more distanced from her white friends , and closer to the black people remains her as a round character because of her developed personality and multiplied traits, beside from that skeeter decides to go against all the people and go her on way. On the other hand Alan Ward is a FBI agent who is a

The Help occurs during the segregation period during the year of 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi. The main character is Aibileen Clark, a 50-year-old African American maid spending most of her life raising white children ever since her teenage years. She works for Elizabeth Leefolt, a wealthy housewife, who is the best friend of the antagonist, Hilly Holbrook. Elizabeth has a child named Mae Mobley whom Aibileen is very close to. Aibileen’s best friend is Minny Jackson; she is a maid who works for Hilly Holbrook and her mother Missy Walters for nearly a decade. Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a young, white American woman, seeks a successful writing career after graduating from the University of Mississippi and returns to home, soon to find out her long-time maid, Constantine, supposedly quit working for her family; this was a great mystery for Skeeter because Constantine did not write to Skeeter explaining why she left. Skeeter found out Hilly Holbrook, Elizabeth Leefolt and their friends believe blacks “carry various diseases to the white people”. Hilly drafted a disease

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 Oxford Dictionary defines caring as the work or practice of looking after, as well as, displaying kindness and concern for those who are unable to care for themselves, especially on account of age or illness. Meanwhile, Avant and Walker (2011) terms caring as an interpersonal process which requires an emotional commitment coupled with willingness to fulfill combined responsibilities and to be trustworthy enough to act on behalf of a person. In essence, it helps in developing great interpersonal relationship between the nurses and the patients in the healthcare centers in a systematic scientific manner.