The Help

(photo: wikipedia)

'The Help' signifies the racial extremity among white and black people in the 1960's. This film focuses on the situation of how black maids are treated by their white bosses. They are maids but their job includes being nannies as well. 

The Plot
Eugenia "Skeeter"  Phelan (Emma Stone), is a single woman and an aspiring writer who just came back from graduating in New York. She had the time to see her friends but unlike her, they're all married and have kids. She told them the great news that she got a job at Jackson Journals. Her column takes care of the "homemaker hints". Since she knows nothing about house chores, she asked for Aibileen's help, a maid to her good friend Elizabeth. From that party and get together, Skeeter started to feel uncomfortable of her friends' attitudes. They seem to have grown from the society's trend who loved their black nannies as a baby and grew up treating them unlikely just like what their parents did. As for Skeeter, this is absurd. She loved her nanny Constantine so much who raised her from the time of her birth.  While at New York, she learned that Constantine left. Her mother's explanation were lies for her that she was eager to know what really happened.

Aibileen Clark, a black maid who has raised 16 white children was encouraged by Skeeter to share her stories with her. Seeing her being treated badly with issues regards to bathroom use, Skeeter had the heart to finally voice out what the maids are feeling in this racial times. And that is by writing this book entitled, The Help.

This book can only be published with stories from at least 20 black maids. At first, Skeeter had a hard time encouraging maids to testify and share their stories with her since she is white. But because of Aibileen and her bravery to push forward on doing this, not only for herself and maids like her, but for her son who died from too much work from the whites, this has enabled Minny, (Octavia Spencer, who won the Best Supporting Actress in the Oscar Academy Awards) to help out. Minny's outspokenness has built a reputation for being a difficult worker but regains forgiveness from her phenomenal cooking skills. She was fired lots of times and the recent was with Hilly Holbrook, a friend of Skeeter, who is a prima donna-feeling housewife and an extremely racist woman. 

Hilly, as racist as she was, proposed a bill to the government to pass the law of "Home Help Sanitation Initiative". This bill enables white people to provide their black maids their own toilet and bathroom for their own safety because Hilly believes that blacks carry diseases that might harm the whites. This is the very reason why Minny was fired for using Hilly's private toilet. Minny got back at her by bringing Hilly a chocolate pie. Hilly already ate 2 slices of it when she asked Minny what special ingredient did she use that it tastes so good. Well, Minny intentionally blurted out the truth of putting her feces in it! Hilly puked in anger and disgust.

Meanwhile, other black maids were also suffering from this domestic discrimination. For instance, Hilly's new maid was accused brutally of stealing since she wasn't approved of her request to loan from them for her son's tuition in college. This was all on the news and black maids just got the courage from that very incident to cooperate with Skeeter on writing her book. They gathered one night in Aibileen's house and were interviewed. There were more than 20 of them! Skeeter was really surprised and happy. 

Not long after, the book was finally approved and published. Everybody in town got their own copies. Hilly Holbrook read purchased one copy as it was popular in town just to read the 'pie-with-feces' incident that made her totally freaked out. She was furious about getting back not only to black women maids but also to Skeeter. She tried bashing Skeeter in their house but was confronted by Skeeters mother. Because Hilly couldn't push for suing Skeeter and the maids of "libel" (because the author and the names were all anonymous), she went back at Aibileen instead by encouraging her boss to fire her. Once again, for lies and false accusations she just made up! Aibileen for the first time fought back with painful words at Hilly. She said goodbye to the baby she loved and had loved her back and left. That was the last white baby she had ever taken cared of. THE END.

Oh, before I forget, Skeeter learned that her nanny Constantine died after leaving them. She believed that her mother broke her heart for firing her unintentionally to save face from her extreme racist women visitors. But was remorseful of having done so and it was too late already to get her back. 

Conclusion

I've loved this movie so much that I felt for the maids and was very proud of Skeeter for what she has done. I'm truly glad that this movie ended just how I expected it to. As I've read from Wikipedia, this movie may be very controversial and may have stirred up anger among the blacks and whites, as they put it.. but this film got lots of positive reviews from all over the world. It has also opened my mind to how racial discrimination looks like since I don't feel any discrimination going on, although there are in this country I know, but not this extreme. With full heart, I pray that this racial discrimination be wiped out in the face of the earth. May love and respect reign in the hearts of everyone instead. 

All in all, I rate THE HELP 9 out of 10! Kudos to the director, Tate Taylor and its producers!!!

The Help Teaser/Trailer