I have selected the movie, The Help as the topic of my assignment because I enjoyed reading the book and had a desire to see the movie. I also selected this topic because of its controversial reviews. Some people praised the movie, while others were highly displeased with the movie. The movie was criticized because people thought that too much credit was given to caucasian woman for improving race relations , one critic being Viola Davis ,who played one of the main characters , Aibileen. Mrs. Davis had issues with how the maids were depicted, she felt as though the maids that were portrayed in the movie voices were subdued (Desta, 2018).
The main characters in the movie, The Help included, two caucasian woman named Skeeter and Mrs. Hilly and two african american woman named Aibileen and Minny. The social aspect in this movie is shown by the different social structure among the Caucasian and African American actors ( Curry, 2016). The African Americans actors, such as Aibileen and Minny are amongst the lower class and are employed as maids. Yet the Caucasian actors are of the middle class and their titles include employer , as with Mrs. Hilly and writer, such as Skeeter.
The Help focuses on how Caucasian housewives justify the misuse and psychological mistreatment of their African American maids by persuading themselves that African Americans are inferior to Caucasians. Miss Hilly is one of the many housewives that display ethnocentrism. She do not experience any form of social injustice in the movie. Miss Hilly and most of the other housewives feel as though they are superior to African Americans. In the movie , Mrs. Hilly expresses her racist beliefs that African Americans are not clean and carry infectious disease that Caucasians do not carry. On a macro level , practically every Caucasian housewife in the movie partake in social practices that separates them from their African American maids and clearly display racism. They do this by not allowing their maids to touch them, sit with them, use the same bathroom as them ,share their food, etc.
On the other hand, Minny and Aibileen experienced a great deal of social inequality in the movie, some examples include their income , housing and education. Unlike Mrs Hilly and other caucasian actors in the movie who lived in large homes, had vehicles and were able to hire help, Minny and Aibileen situations are much different. They were apart of a social class that lived in smaller homes, walked or rode the bus for transportation and was unable to afford to hire domestic help. They were paid astonighly low amounts for the quality of work they performed, Aibileen explains in one scene how she makes a mere ninety five cents an hour, totalling a hundred and eighty two dollars every month.
The Help relates to social inequality in regards to classism. The Caucasian characters belonged to the middle and upper class, while the African American characters were among the working class. Although most of the Caucasian woman in the film decided to get married and have children, they all had the option to go to college because their parents could afford it. on the contrary, the same privileges were not obtainable for the African American characters (‘Social Justice Themes in ‘The Help”, 2013). For example, a maid in the movie named Yule Mae and her husband were not financially capable of sending both of their children to school, so she gambled pawning a ring found at her employers house to collect enough cash for her other child to go to school. Yule Mae was subsequently fired and locked up for stealing the ring. The main characters in the movie Mindy, Aibileen and Skeeter experienced another social inequality known as Sexism. It is defined as a system of advantages that serves to benefit men, subordinate woman, stigmatize woman distinguished qualities and practices, implement male dominance and control, and reinforces norms of manliness that are dehumanizing and damaging to men (‘Social Justice Themes in ‘The Help”, 2013).
Similar to all of the maids in this movie, Aibileen was expected to do all of the domestic duties at work and at her home, such duties included cooking , cleaning , and child care, which relates to Sexism. Although Aibileen very much disliked adhering to her duties as a maid, she loved being able to tend to the children. Once her employer found out that Aibileen was involved in the writing of a book were African American woman told their stories about being a maid , she was fired. Aibileen was able to overcome her social injustice by writing about it in the book entitled , The Help. It gave her a sense of freedom.
Minnys husband sexist ways were how Minny endured Sexium. Minny’s husband , Leroy was notably absent from the movie but was depicted as an angry man who regularly abused MInny. In one scene Minny and Aibileen were on the phone and Aibileen overheard Minny begging leroy to stop the abuse. Leroy obviously dominated and controlled the household because Leroy made the decision that their eldest child would drop out of school early and become a maid despite how Minny felt about the matter. Minny and her employer, Celica formed an unlikely friendship. Celica ultimately discovers a bruise Minny had above her eye and encouraged Minny to do something about the abuse. On her way to work one day, Minny met John, Celica’s husband, for the first time. He welcomed Minny with open arms and Celica cooked a feast for Minny based on dishes that Minny taught Celica how to prepare. This kind gesture from Celica gave Minny the strength she needed to leave her sexist husband.
Skeeter experiences sexism from Stewart the guy she was dating in the movie. Stewart was fine with Skeeter writing a column in the newspaper referred to as Miss Merna, but was upset upon learning of her involvement with writing the book The Help. He ended their relationship and insinuated that Skeeter had ruined their relationship by becoming involved in social injustice, which was not the a role of a woman. Skeeter was disappointed by the ending of the relationship but did not regret her involvement with the book. She goes on to obtain a job out of state as a journalist.
The Critical Race Theory involves the relationship between racism, race and power. (“ Digital Resources”) It is the view that race, rather than being organically grounded and natural, is socially developed and that race, as a socially constructed idea, works as a way to maintain the interests of the caucasian populace that built it. (Mallinson, 2009)
In the movie the help, housewife Hilly is adamant on passing a bill she refers to as the home help sanitation initiative. The bill will require all caucasian families residing in Mississippi to build outdoor bathrooms for their african american maids. This comes from Hilly believing that african americans carry diseases that can only be transmitted through toilet seats. This relates to The Critical Race theory because Hilly discusses with other housewives that the transmission of diseases are brought about by shared use of toilets with their maids (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008). This initiated a bill that would require African Americans to not utilize the same restrooms as Caucasians, which would benefit the Caucasian population.
