The Help Sparknotes
Of the movies presented to us, I felt the most compelled to re-watch and write about The Help. I originally read the book a few years ago and then went rented the movie when it came out on DVD. I felt a strong connection to Skeeter, which is one of the main characters in the movie. The Help, really allowed people to take a step back and confront many racially charged issues, with a comical twist on the subject. This paper will give a brief summary of the main parts of the movie as well as discussion Ogbu’s minority classification and Schumann’s Acculturation Model of social dominance between African Americans and whites.
Summary
The Help was a movie based on best-selling author, Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 book with the same title. The story …show more content…
Social dominance is the first, which he defines as, “when a English Language Learner (ELL) group is politically, culturally, technically, or economically superior to the target language (TL) group, then it will tend not to learn the target language” (Chizzo, 2002, p. 2). In regards to The Help, the first group is not ELLs, they are however culturally different from the target group, which is the white people of the town. Socially the whites tend to dominant the African Americans and acts of violence and complete disregard run rampant throughout the movie. There is a separate part of town that the African Americans are said to live in, which is across the train tracks from the whites. The African Americans are constantly waiting hand and foot on the whites. This dominance is learned from both cultural groups at such a young age. The African American children are taught to be respectful, yet separate from the white children and the white children are taught to be waited on by the African Americans. Schumann believes there is a strong relationship between the language learner, which is the African American community and the target language group, which is the white community. He believes the more the second language group becomes a part of the target group, the quicker they will learn the language and become part of the target community (Chizzo,
Summary
The Help was a movie based on best-selling author, Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 book with the same title. The story …show more content…
Social dominance is the first, which he defines as, “when a English Language Learner (ELL) group is politically, culturally, technically, or economically superior to the target language (TL) group, then it will tend not to learn the target language” (Chizzo, 2002, p. 2). In regards to The Help, the first group is not ELLs, they are however culturally different from the target group, which is the white people of the town. Socially the whites tend to dominant the African Americans and acts of violence and complete disregard run rampant throughout the movie. There is a separate part of town that the African Americans are said to live in, which is across the train tracks from the whites. The African Americans are constantly waiting hand and foot on the whites. This dominance is learned from both cultural groups at such a young age. The African American children are taught to be respectful, yet separate from the white children and the white children are taught to be waited on by the African Americans. Schumann believes there is a strong relationship between the language learner, which is the African American community and the target language group, which is the white community. He believes the more the second language group becomes a part of the target group, the quicker they will learn the language and become part of the target community (Chizzo,