The Help - Tate Taylor

The Help by Kathryn Stockett gave everyone insight to the life of an African American woman in the early 1960s. The Help criticized racial inequality, and gives society an insider's view of segregation and fear of the status quo in their own race. Throughout the 1960s many African American woman worked in housekeeping. The novel follows the lives of three maids who are have a book wrote from their point of view. The story follows them as they go through the struggles of life and how stressful writing the book is on them because of time period and how dangerous it was to be seen with a person of the different race if you weren't working for them. Being seen with a person of the different race could get you labeled or worse thrown in jail for an integration violation.

Racism and its effects in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960 is accurately portrayed in The Help. Some examples seen are that the help can not touch the whites; they can not use the same bathrooms, plates, or silverware; they can not ride in the same car as whites; they can not eat together. These depictions show the debasement of the African American people just before the Civil Rights Movement and the beginning reactions of the work for equality. Watching this movie and seeing the undignified treatment towards the help opened my eyes to the greater effects of words. Of course this is not my first exposure to racism and its negative effects, but one can only learn so much about racism in a textbook.

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

That these “bathroom needs to be inherent already is positively one case of separation”, however clear racism is indicated when Miss Lefold understands that Mobley is being taken to Aibileens bathroom to prepare her to not utilize her nappies any more. The racism today and back then, racism today is more obvious against black people groups. We confront segregation in an everyday schedule, particularly the ladies who are the servants of today and get abused and mistreated frequently, however the standard media appear not to

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.

“‘Don’t you ever wish you could change things?”’ (10). In Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960’s, woman ahead of her time, Miss Skeeter, proposes an idea to write a book about the lives of colored maids in Jackson. Aibileen and Minny, two maids, are among the first ones to agree to help Skeeter, despite the potential danger to themselves. In The Help, Kathryn Stockett creates an engaging and immersive world that explores racism and social injustice by using well-developed writing, the ideal amount of imagery, and strong characters.

The book “The Help”, written by Kathryn Stockett, is a book that takes place in Jackson, Mississippi, around the 1960's, when the blacks were segregated from the whites. The story is mainly about a black woman Aibileen whose main job is to take care of children as well as to handle household duties. Along the way they meet a woman Skeeter's whose lifelong dream is to become a writer however the only job she can find, is with the Jackson Journal writing a housekeeping advice column which she knows very little about. To succeed in the job, Skeeter turns to her friend's maid, Aibileen, for answers and help to write the column.

Mrs. Harrison believes that black people have to earn the white people’s respect, trust, freedoms and equality. Mrs. Harrison says to Bob, “You mustn’t think in terms of trying to get even with them, you must accept whatever they do for you and try to prove yourself worthy to be entrusted with more” (52). She states that if black people work hard enough, the white people will reward them. She also wants the black community to wait for the white people to “give” them something better, to accept what the white people “do for them.” She compares the idea of black and white people equality to communism. She tells Bob that he needs to make himself worthy of respect. “You know yourself, Bob, a lot of our people are just not worthy, they just don’t deserve anymore than they’re getting” (52). These comments illustrate how class has a great influence on Mrs. Harrison’s point of view on race. Without having to work and being rich, she is ignorant of the racial discrimination that a day to day skilled worker of Bob’s color has to go through. Like her daughter Alice, Mrs. Harrison has been given special treatment by the white people for her lighter skin, and her social and economic class.

Kathryn Stockett takes a daring step in writing this amazing novel - The Help. In Sockets’ novel, which takes places in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 60s, a time in which race was a problem in society. African Americans had a much harder lifestyle than any other race, some of their job opportunities were labor in the fields, for men and for women house work was their highest opening. Having a little work opportunity in this novel Stockett takes two African Americans as her main characters. Kathryn, a white women, with no experience in house work writes this magnificent novel of equal rights for African Americans.

Civil Rights literature has been in hiding from the millions of readers in the world. Kathryn Stockett’s book, The Help, widely opens the doors to the worldwide readers to the experiences of those separated by the thin line drawn between blacks and whites in the 1960s. Kathryn makes her experiences of the character’s, making their stories as compelling as her own.

Discrimination has shown up tremendously in this movie, but one of the few incidents that stood out the most to me was when the women decided to give separate bathrooms to the maids because they carried too many “diseases” that would harm others if anyone made contact with. This was very ridiculous because the bathrooms were placed outside and some were even miles away from the house, so if it was a storm the maids would have to

Yet another stereotype attributed to blacks is that they are unclean and diseased. Historically, this stereotype is rooted partly in their African ancestry and partly in their living conditions.This is represented in the film when Elizabeth Leefolt and Hilly Holbrook, white employers, work to pass the “Home Health Sanitation Initiative”, a bill that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help. As aforementioned, Hilly is concerned that the supposed “diseases” that the blacks carry as a result of their race will infect whites thus threatening their health and safety. Laws like the one Hilly wants passed, which is shown endorsed by the Surgeon General, legalize discriminatory practices and reinforce racist opinions.

The movie The Help by Tate Taylor on the importance of the 1960’s society. In Taylor’s work he often portrays the struggle and difficulties of black women. The pain and frustration that those women who were oppressed by the white society, are contributed in the movie. The Help, a movie about race and class relation in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960’s. Has profound the historical importance because the impact it had on Africa American women during that time period. The movie is noteworthy for its aesthetic scene in the film. Lastly it has moral significance because it portrays the racism going on during that time period.