The Help Movie Analysis

“The Help,” is an award-winning movie about a white woman, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, who is an aspiring writer. To show her talents and professionalism as a writer and also expose the unkind treatment toward the black people of her time, Eugenia decided to write a book from the viewpoint of some of the maids in the community. This movie is set in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Era. In the 1960s, Mississippi continued to be very segregated and the African Americans were kept under control by the “Jim Crow” Laws (Segregation In Mississippi in the 1960s). These laws enforced racial segregation in the Southern states. “The Help,” is historically inaccurate due to the downplaying of the violence toward the African Americans, the stereotyping
of the black women, and the dramatization of an unrealistically close relationship between a pair of wealthy white women and the black maid community. In the movie “The Help,” there was a significant lack of violence throughout the story line. In the 1960s, it was quite common to physically abuse African Americans and there were many instances where the maids committed wrongdoings that would have more commonly resulted in physical punishment, but were instead relatively lightly dismissed (Nichelle Smith). For example, Hilly’s maid, Yule Mae, was in need of seventy-five dollars to send her son to college, so she begged Hilly for a loan, but Hilly turned her down. One day when Yule Mae was cleaning behind the couch she found a valuable ring and, out of pure desperation, she stole it and took it to the pawn shop to sell it. When this came to the attention of Hilly and the police, Yule Mae was arrested without any kind of corporal punishment. Typically, an offence of that nature would have resulted in some type of physical harm. Another inaccurately portrayed incident occurred when Aibileen got into a heated argument with Hilly toward the end of the movie. Hilly falsely accused Aibileen of stealing some of her silver flatware, so Aibileen boldly approached Hilly in a threatening manner. Hilly stood still and did not lash out, verbally or physically. A more common reaction of that time period would have been to slap the servant in the face for her insolence, but the only reaction from Hilly was to turn away with teary eyes. It was also curious that there were no examples of sexual assault from the white husbands toward the maids. In “The Help” the black maid is represented as a Mammy—an allegorical stereotype of black women who were forced, either by slavery or segregation, to be a servant to the white families.
These women are portrayed as loyal servants who take care of the white families and their children (Harvard University Press). By the 1960s, the image of black women as Mammies had diminished, but the movie characterized all of the maids in this somewhat antiquated fashion. Elizabeth’s daughter, Mae Mobley, was almost completely raised by Aibileen and was far more emotionally attached to Aibileen than her mother. There was an extremely loving connection between Aibileen and Mae Mobley, as well as with other children that Aibileen cared for during her lifetime. These relationships were more typical in earlier decades rather than in the 1960s. Citing another example, Aibileen shared with Eugenia her perception that ever since she was a child she was destined to become a maid because that is what the women in her family had always done. Despite her longing for greater opportunities, she ultimately settled for something less than she
wanted. In the movie, there were two white female characters, Eugenia and Celia, who developed extremely close relationships with many black women in the community. While the affection shown among the women was a touching aspect of the plot, it is unlikely that such tenderness really existed in these types of relationships. It was surprising how Celia allowed herself to be vulnerable in the presence of her maid, Minny, and how much of her personal feelings that she shared. Celia treated Minny more like a friend than a servant by refusing to let Minny eat alone at lunch, trusting Minny with her personal medical issues, and accepting advice from Minny regarding some of the other white women in the community who scorned Celia. Ultimately in the end, after Minny had taught Celia how to cook, Celia prepared a special feast for Minny and invited Minny to dine with her and her husband. Eugenia had similarly heartfelt relationships with Minny, Aibileen, and many other maids that assisted her in writing her book. Eugenia was constantly putting herself at risk from a personal safety standpoint as well as in her personal relationships. Eugenia would sneak out at night to spend many hours in the homes of the black maids to capture their remarkable stories. In addition, she would talk very openly with the maids while they were working in their employers homes, whereas others would simply ignore their presence. These are examples of uncommon behavior for the southern white women of that time, especially in a community like Jackson, Mississippi. While some portions of the United States were beginning to more actively embrace the Civil Rights movement, that enthusiasm and openness had not yet become popular in the towns of Mississippi in the early 1960s (Lisa Cozzens). Opponents might argue that “The Help” was historically accurate in the way that the story portrayed Hilly and Elizabeth who believed that black people were inferior to them.
The elite women forced separation between themselves and their maids, not only because they thought that whites were more superior and intelligent, but also because they were convinced that blacks had different diseases that could infect them. In Hilly’s home she did not allow her maid to use the family’s bathroom and forced her to use an outside facility. She then convinced Elizabeth to build a separate bathroom in the garage of her own
home. In conclusion, while there may have been some scenarios in The Help that were feasible representations of life in Mississippi in the early 1960s, there were many other aspects of the plot that were likely not historically accurate. The discriminatory policies and physically harmful treatment of blacks that existed in Mississippi were more extreme than what was depicted in the film, and the common perception of the time that blacks were dangerous was not evident in the interactions among the movie’s characters. There were numerous cases where the black maids were made to seem like friends of two of the main white female characters instead of the inferior servants that they would have normally been perceived to be. There was also a pervasive theme of the black maids as mammies, something that had become a less prominent role for black women of the 1960s as compared to earlier decades. Overall, this movie presented a heartwarming and moving story, but was unsuccessful in portraying factual evidence.