Discrimination In The Movie The Help

The movie, “The Help” directed by Tate Taylor tells the untold tales of the black women’s service towards white women in the early 1960’s (Jackson, Mississippi). Skeeter, a young, aspiring writer, obtains a job “writing for the Jackson Journal”. Full of fresh ideas and ambition, she submits her first piece of writing on “The Help”.

The opening scene directs the audience’s attention at Aibileen, a black female that works for Mrs Leefolt. This scene starts with heart-wrenching stories of her personal experience as the maid of a white household. Aibileen tells Skeeter that she knew she was destined to be one “because her mama was one and her grandmamma was a house slave”. Aibileen also shows us inside her life when revealing that she’d “done
The fact that white and black citizens had different bathrooms. White families built rickety sheds with a small bathroom in exchange for a black maid’s ‘help’. This was all the result of discrimination about black people carrying diseases. Today, our society still has a habit of judging people on first impression racially, by the clothes they wear and/or by the things they do. We don’t always willingly acquaint a person for their personality -- we tend to judge someone from the outside, following various positive/negative stereotypes.“The Help” showcases an extreme example of discrimination, which is still a relevant problem as the most common slurs of today’s society happen to be racism and homophobia. We are so exposed to the use of homophobic/racist remarks that sometimes we don’t see how terrible and false these accusations are. “The Help” taught me the consequences
In the 60’s the African American people were considered “lower-class”. Today, calling people rude names and joking about something related another’s skin colour is very common. We still tend to be racist here and there but we have gotten better through time. Students in particular continue to bully others racially. For example, people on campus sometimes refer to other pupils as ‘dodgy’ because of their ethnicity, stuck-up because they’re white or stupid because they are black etc. The movie, “The Help”, showed me more about this type of bullying. I learned to be more sensitive of another’s feelings and to not insensitively joke about someone or stereotype them because of their colour. “Joking around” may still offend somebody deep down even if they do not show it