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Film review: “The Help,” a feel-good chick flick set in civil rights era

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By Valerie Boyd | Aug 11, 2011

Valerie Boyd is the author of “Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston” and the forthcoming “Spirits in the Dark: The Untold Story of Black Women in Hollywood.” She teaches journalism at the University of Georgia.

In early 2009, about a month into the Obama administration, the nation’s first African-American attorney general called the United States “a nation of cowards” on matters of race.

“This nation has still not come to grips with its racial past nor has it been willing to contemplate in a truly meaningful way the diverse future it is fated to have,” Eric Holder said. “To our detriment, this is typical of the way in which this nation deals with issues of race.”

“The Help” — the Oscar-nominated film adaptation of the best-selling novel by Atlanta author Kathryn Stockett — is a feel-good movie for a cowardly nation.

Despite its title, the film is not so much about the help — the black maids who kept many white Southern homes running before the civil rights movement gave them broader opportunities — as it is about the white women who employed and sometimes terrorized them.

The movie’s central character is a young white woman named Skeeter — a clear reference to Scout, Harper Lee’s earnest young heroine in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Skeeter (played by a sometimes-flat Emma Stone) has just returned to Jackson from four years at the University of Mississippi. Rather than finding herself a good ol’ boy to marry, as all her friends have done, Skeeter gets a job writing a column about cleaning for the local newspaper. But, being a privileged white Southerner, she knows nothing about cleaning, so she asks Aibileen, the maid of her friend Elizabeth, to help. Of course, Aibileen (played with flawless grace by Viola Davis) gets no credit for the assistance she provides. Though Aibileen is the one who is answering readers’ questions, Skeeter, who is simply taking dictation, gets the credit, the byline and the paycheck. No one questions this in the movie: not Aibileen, of course, not Skeeter and — disturbingly — not the filmmakers.

Meanwhile, Skeeter becomes a little bothered by the bigotry she notices among her friends, particularly Hilly (played by Bryce Dallas Howard), who vehemently objects to her maid, Minny (Octavia Spencer), using the toilet that she cleans because it’s the same toilet that the white folks use. But here’s the thing: Skeeter is only a little bothered by this kind of behavior in Hilly and others in her social circle. She’s not bothered enough to strenuously confront them about their racism or to end the friendships.

And why should she be? Remember, she has recently graduated from Ole Miss — still lily-white in the early 1960s, when the movie takes place — not NYU or someplace where she might have encountered more progressive racial attitudes or (gasp!) some actual black students. Eventually, though, Skeeter, who wants to become “a serious writer,” is moved by her ambition — not by any extraordinary love of black people — to write a book about the help, about what it’s like to be a black servant in a white home.

We get the sense that Skeeter sees a good story here because it’s never been told, but not that she wants to change race relations in the South. Sure, she’s upset that her maid, Constantine (Cicely Tyson), who has worked for her family for 29 years, is not there when she returns from college, and that her own mother (Allison Janney, in the most complex performance of any white actor in the film) is evasive about what happened. But Skeeter never questions the system itself. She is no civil rights pioneer; she just wants to write a good book.

Again she enlists Aibileen’s help: Skeeter wants to interview Aibileen, Minny and a dozen other maids so she can write her book from their perspective. Inexplicably, the maids consent to the interviews, the book is written, the black women are given voice, the white women of Jackson are scandalized, Skeeter gets a big editing job in New York, and everyone lives happily ever after. Oh, except that Aibileen is fired from her job, and all the other maids experience untold repercussions and humiliations — untold because the movie doesn’t tell them.

In fact, the film ends on a falsely uplifting note, with Aibileen claiming to feel liberated after being fired while Skeeter plans to go shopping with her mother for a new wardrobe before starting her big new job in New York. Aibileen is now an unemployed maid, Skeeter is moving forward in her life of white privilege — and the filmmakers expect viewers to feel good about this.

The problem is, many white viewers will.

Director and screenwriter Tate Taylor, a white Mississippian, presents his white characters in such stark, simplistic terms that white viewers will naturally identify with Skeeter, whom the director wants us to see as heroic, despite what more politically conscious viewers will see as her exploitation of Aibileen’s ideas and words. Those well-meaning white moviegoers also will find it easy to distance themselves from Hilly, a society girl whose racism is so cartoonish that it becomes laughable rather than alarming. No contemporary filmgoer will see herself in a walking stereotype like Hilly. Of course I’m not like that, white viewers will say.

We also can laugh at Hilly because the film presents her as a cranky bitch who’s mean to black people, yes, but pretty bossy and unkind to her white friends as well. She is just a mean girl, rather than a powerful bigot whose behavior is linked to, and grows out of, a centuries-old system of racial discrimination and brutality. There’s a chilling scene, for example, of Aibileen, Minny and others crowded in front of the radio in Minny’s shack listening to news reports of the murder of Mississippi civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who was gunned down in front of his children in 1963. But the movie never links his assassins’ behavior to the relatively benign, comedic behavior of Hilly and her ilk.

In fact, ”The Help’s” focus on women leaves white men blameless for any of Mississippi’s ills. White male bigots have been terrorizing black people in the South for generations; the most recent example is the revolting story of a mob of white teenagers caught on video beating and killing a black man for sport. This happened in, of all places, Jackson, Mississippi — in 2011, in the so-called “post-racial” era. Any casual student of American history knows that such incidents were commonplace throughout the South in the early 1960s.

But the movie relegates Jackson’s white men to the background, never linking any of its affable husbands to such menacing and well-documented behavior. We never see a white male character donning a Klansman’s robe, for example, or making unwanted sexual advances (or worse) toward a black maid. Scenes like that would have been too heavy for the film’s persistently sunny message, which is that black women and white women, even in 1963, can come together and form unlikely sisterhoods that will help them all, and that they can share a lot of laughter and good times in the process.

Early on in “The Help,” we hear the maids complain that they’ve spent decades raising little white girls who grow up to become racists, just like their mothers. But this doesn’t stop Aibileen from unambiguously loving the little white girl she’s paid to care for. The kind of ambiguity and complexity that a woman like Aibileen would have felt for that white child is too much for the filmmakers to handle, so they whitewash it, along with everything else in the movie.

The film’s most glaring flaw, however, is its very premise: that the black maids would trust Skeeter with their stories, and that she would have the ability, despite her privileged upbringing, to give them voice.

Even today, it is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for African-Americans to talk honestly with white people about race and racism — because, put simply, most white people can’t handle the truth. Therefore, it is utterly unbelievable that black maids in Mississippi in the early ‘60s would talk honestly about race to a white woman half their age whom they are still obliged to call “Miss Skeeter.” The filmmakers reveal nothing about Skeeter that would make her any more trustworthy than any of the other white women in the film. Her own mother fires the elderly Constantine after 29 years of service, just to impress some of her female peers. All the black women in the community know this. Why would they trust Skeeter to be any different from her mother? “The Help” is a fictional movie because it’s fiction; it never happened — and never would.

The filmmakers might argue that the maids need Skeeter to tell their story, that there’s no way they could write the book themselves. But the movie portrays Aibileen as a writer. She’s been writing her prayers and hopes and dreams in her journal long before Skeeter approaches her about a book. She even writes down her maid stories and reads them to Skeeter to copy. Rather than collaborate with this plagiarism, why doesn’t Aibileen just write the book herself? Or why doesn’t she ask for help from Rachel, Constantine’s educated, briefly seen daughter, or other young, educated black people who are referred to, but not fully seen, in the film?

Much of the movie takes place in 1963 — two years after Charlayne Hunter, the future journalist, had integrated the University of Georgia. Gwendolyn Brooks had won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry way back in 1950, Lorraine Hansberry had received wide acclaim for her 1959 play (and 1961 movie) “A Raisin in the Sun,” and Zora Neale Hurston had published seven books, mostly about black Southern life. Surely an aspiring writer such as Aibileen would have known of these people (she could have read about any of these achievements in The Atlanta Daily World, The Chicago Defender or Jet magazine) and understood that being a black woman writer was not impossible. But the filmmakers keep Aibileen ignorant of these facts, and they bank on their audience’s ignorance as well.

Like the novel on which it’s based, the movie adaptation of “The Help” will likely be a huge hit with white audiences. But for black viewers it is condescending and frequently insulting, despite admirable performances by Davis and Spencer, who bring a measure of complexity — actual flesh and blood — to the characters of Aibileen and Minny. It speaks volumes about the ongoing racial chasm in this country that a feel-good movie for white people will leave many black filmgoers feeling sad — and pessimistic that America can ever become anything more than “a nation of cowards.”


125 Comments

  1. veronica golos

    2

    Thank you. And thank you again. And, it seems, here we are, again.

    11 Aug

  2. Mocha

    4

    Yes, exactly. Shout this from the rooftops because you’ve hit the nail on the head where most people are still proclaiming “This is such a good book!” It makes me want to slam my head on the desk that they’re not even THINKING about the harmful images and ridiculous notions of white heroically saving blacks. Again.

    Such a tired old line of thinking.

    11 Aug

  3. Tina McElroy Ansa

    5

    Fine, honest, insightful review, Valerie. Even as the book’s two-dimensional black characters knew, we must speak truth regardless of the response. Proud of you for speaking truth…and very beautifully.

    11 Aug

  4. Jen

    6

    Wonderful review Valerie. I haven’t seen the film and am not sure I want to, but I did read the book in anticipation of it. Here’s my weigh in:

    http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/08/10/why-im-not-looking-forward-to-the-help/

    11 Aug

  5. Susannah

    7

    I think that this review brings up many extremely valid points, but I think it is a bit careless to say that the white viewing audience overall would be quick to condone the obvious discrimination which takes place in the movie and book. Myself, as a white audience member, was highly aware of the glossing over of continual injustices which occurred throughout the book (and I have no doubt, were made worse in film format). While I understand that a white audience might be more likely to ignore or (worse) be ignorant of the issues present in the story, it certainly should not be assumed that it is true of everyone.

    11 Aug

  6. T. G. Hebert

    8

    Valerie’s observations are astute, informed and on point.

    11 Aug

  7. Cousin Kim

    9

    Val, bravo, bravo and bravo again! Thank you for writing such an amazing review!when will things ever change?

    11 Aug

  8. K.A.N.H

    10

    Thank you for this. It is spot on, and needed.

    11 Aug

  9. Anonymous

    11

    “Even today, it is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for African-Americans to talk honestly with white people about race and racism — because, put simply, most white people can’t handle the truth. Therefore, it is utterly unbelievable that black maids in Mississippi in the early ‘60s would talk honestly about race to a white woman half their age who they are still obliged to call “Miss Skeeter.”

    This right here is the meat of the review. No way Black women would have talked to a White woman in the 1960′s or 1970′s or now about race. No way a black female in 2011 is going to a White woman about race when the sista’s man is eying the White girl. I have an 80 year grandmother in Alabama and I doubt that she would ever bare her soul to a White woman in the 60′s. Was not going to happen.

    11 Aug

  10. Ali

    12

    I think it is so unfortunate that once again we the Black community have a problem with someone else telling our story ‘inaccurately’ but we don’t take the time to tell it ourselves. The book ‘The Help’ is a fictional novel more about the relationships between the women than the historical setting. Maybe it is ideal to have it be more accurate historically but that was clearly not the author’s aim and if one reada the book AND the author’s note that accompanied the story it would be obvious. This story was based how a little WHITE girl who lived in the south ADORED her black nanny and how SHE viewed life and what she thought the nannies went through. Of course Hollywood dumbs down the story but the cruelty and racism of that era were echoed in the novel AND so was the special relationship between nannies and the white children that they raised. Yes there is much much more that can be said about these relationships and the historical context in which this novel and movie took place but by and large that clearly wasn’t the authors aim. It is unfortunate that we so quickly attack another’s literary work just because it does not follow the train of thought we would like. Instead of being offended by one side of the story take the time to write and produce a movie that tells the other perspective….or maybe that would be taking too much accountablity on our part….

    11 Aug

  11. Onyx

    13

    My thanks for your article. I’ve been complaining about the issues within the novel for over a year, and from looking at a number of reviews, I see the problems were simply transferred to the film or abruptly cut. That you didn’t mention the black males who were so terribly demeaned in the book also speaks volumes.

    I’m very much afraid Hollywood will want to laud and award this film simply because it “exists.”
    http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com

    11 Aug

  12. Karen A. Johnson

    14

    I love this critique of the movie! The reviewer is speaking truth to power!

    11 Aug

  13. Courtney H.

    15

    I’m white, and thought I might enjoy seeing “The Help”, but I expected more of it than what you describe. I think I’ll pass on it now. I came of age in the sixties, and believed we would make real progress in racial relations within twenty or thirty years, but we still have a long way to go.

    11 Aug

  14. Dr. P

    16

    Valerie,

    Your review is stomach turning and disturbing on so many levels. I am officially boycotting this film.

    Thank you for your astute analysis and brilliance.

    11 Aug

  15. Farah

    17

    Thank you for this astute, insightful review. Thank you

    11 Aug

  16. shann palmer

    18

    I believe The Help will do for black people is what Forrest Gump did for retarded people.

    nuttin’

    11 Aug

  17. Karen E. Dabney

    19

    Well, I had no desire to read the book nor see the movie because I believed in my bones that it was going to help itself to fashion history so that the Middle Passage could be seen as a pleasure cruise. The fact that it could be due to the ability some have to ignore the truth or are ignorant about it would not make it palatable for me. And, yes, we should continue to tell our stories even if they don’t make it to the mainstream.
    Brilliant review.

    11 Aug

  18. Deirdre

    20

    I felt unsettled as I was walking out of the theater and your review has expressed my sentiments exactly. This is another Hollyweird treatment aimed at making white folk feel good about themselves.

    11 Aug

  19. Noriko Nakada (@writersgrind)

    21

    Wonderful take on how brave/cowardly we are all willing to be when confronting racial conflict.

    11 Aug

  20. Alison

    22

    I hadn’t heard of the book, nor the movie, until now. Looks like more “Brainwashing Through Revisionist History 101″. But I am glad to read anything by the brilliant Valerie Boyd, however brief.

    11 Aug

  21. M'Karyl Gaynor

    23

    There is a book written by Judith Rollins called “Between Women: Domestics and Their Employers”…and yes, the author of this scholarly work in an African American woman. It would be interesting to see how the voice of the women from her research for the book compares to those articulated in “The Help”…hmmm

    11 Aug

  22. Malcolm Bird

    24

    Thank you for the review! It brought to light some things I had not picked up on in the film.

    However, I had a slightly different interpretation of some aspects of the movie. For instance, at the end when Skeeter gets the job in NY and Aibileen gets fired, I thought the film was portraying that even though Skeeter thought she had done good, she ended up benefitting and left a mess for the Black maids.

    Also, you mention Skeeter was not a civil rights activist and wrote the stories of the maid for her own benefit. I feel like this made the movie more realistic… she is a real character and not some ‘white hero’. Skeeter came from privilege and had no reason to be any different than her other friends except for her own interest in becoming a journalist. She later has no problem plagiarizing the work of the maids and has no problem asking the maids to put themselves in great danger by telling her their stories. Meanwhile never speaking up for civil rights. Thus, she proves to be believably self-interested.

    Alas, after reading your post it seems like I might of read more between the lines than the director/author intended. I agree that the ‘bad’ characters were not relatable and one-dimensional. In the end, the value of the film comes from what audiences get from it. I fear you are right, that audiences will take this as a movie with a ‘feel-good’ ending and will miss the deeper problematic issues with Skeeter’s relationship with the maids.

    11 Aug

  23. Gwendoline Y. Fortune

    25

    As a black author of three novels with a different point of view, I want to MARCH in front of every multi-plex with a big sign:

    “Why can white writers get their stories about US published and filmed, and WE can’t?”

    11 Aug

  24. Anonymous

    26

    Nice review. Not so curious to see it anymore. Thanks

    11 Aug

  25. Anonymous

    27

    Oh, I don’t remember “The Help” being a non-fictional book. Hmm…

    11 Aug

  26. Red and white and black all over

    28

    I am shocked at the rants on this movie. I haven’t seen it but I read the book which I thought was amazing, and brave. I was thinking, wow it’s about time we went there….and started really looking at how things were. Reading the reviews I wondered if we’d read the same book, or if the producers mangled the book so badly.

    People complaining about “how things are” likely don’t have a clue as to how things were. NOT on the news or in movies, but in the homes, behind closed doors. Over simplifying relationships that were complex. These people saw each other every day. Think of people you see all day eery day, what do you know about each other?

    In the book we got to meet rich characters, strong black women finding a way to make it in an grossly suppressive society Their resilience and resourcefulness as well as their burdens, angers and sorrows all came through in the book. The resonant disconnect is booming here. Skeeter got Abilene to answer her questions for her column. In the book, Skeeter is well aware of the injustice and mentions it to Abilene. Skeeter would be glad to give her credit, but both Abilene and Skeeter know that there is no way that is going to happen. There was no way a black woman was going to have her name on anything in a news paper. Skeeter realizes this is unjust. She is waking up. This is a small town in the deep south, not a bustling metropolis.

    Good grief this is a story about a little girl growing up with and loving her nanny, loosing her, the only true love she has known. I think portraying the abject neglect with which white parents treated their children and the callous way they viewed the HELP is good. We need to see it, In real life there are characters like Hilly, you all know one. Over the top social climber, worried if her weave is perfect feels like a piece of shit inside but she’s got the outside polished just fine? There are over the top people in this world, there are people just like Hilly. To me the worst was Skeeter’s mother….that subtle hatefulness is worse than in your face, they’re sneakier.

    I loved the courage of the maids, they knew they couldn’t tell their story themselves. Skeeter wasn’t writing her story on a purely altruistic basis, she hoped it would be good enough to help her in her career, which, if you remember, even for white women back then…was not good. She came with the concept after RECOGNIZING the terror and pain. She saw it, she knew it was wrong. She also knew she was powerless to stop it by herself. The best she could do, was do her best, tell their stories and hope that one by one people start to listen. You’re wanting a movie about then to portray as things are now. I can’t even believe that someone suggested that Abilene was being cheated by Skeeter when it was not possible then for her to be published in the paper. Skeeter paid her, Skeeter felt guilty..she even wanted to quite but in the long run she needed the money and Abilene got some of it.

    The over the top white woman…caricature of helpless without a black woman sorta useless white thing…(oh there you go) and the relationship she developed with Minny was…wow. Very multilayered, all of the characters. I was anticipating the whole book what the TERRIBLE AWFUL could have been and about died laughing when it was revealed.

    I thought it was a wonderful coming of age book the very stirrings deep down there of equality, even if it was in a skinny motherless white girl.

    One thing I can state for sure. That racism goes both ways. I’ve read posts that are so racist against white people that if a white person had said it about a black person….Al Sharpton would already be marching. To suggest that a black woman won’t talk to a white woman is racist. That old black woman and that old white woman loved each other. The black woman did for the white lady because she could and because she loved her, and the old white woman did what she could for her friend because she loved her. They were living within the context of their day, however their relationship was born, it was born. That was then. Skeeter genuinely cared for all the women she was getting to know. and they didn’t care back, they didn’t trust. Who could blame them? Underneath the skin we’re the same.,,,physically.

    Otherwise, well, that all comes down to personal choice. Racism? Cry me a river. I’m Native American. People say to the Indian, it’s been 300 years, when you going to get over it. Our answer is, when you stop doing it. While black Americans were going to college, fighting for and gaining their civil rights, Native American children were still being forcibly taken from their families and put into residential schools. 50,000 NA children died or disappeared in Canada alone…in the 20th century. In some areas forcible removal did not stop until the 60s some as late as the 80s. Could we borrow Al please? (See hidden from history online) No matter how bad you have it, there is always….I think we need to stop wearing our hair shirts and pointing NO YOU at each other we need to start owning our own part in things, We can only blame the white man for so much.

    OH and the thing about black men liking white women…that is incredibly racist. Why can’t people like who they like. Why are you reducing love and attraction down to skin color? I have a white friend who was dating a black man. Wasn’t her fault, he asked her out, she liked him, so they went out. They kept liking each other and they went out some more. One night they went to black night at a club. It did not go well. Black women attacked my friend. She didn’t know she was doing anything wrong. See there’s a story you all tell yourselves that isn’t true. You like the story it makes you feel good to hate, because whitey deserves it. There’s a lot of Indians married to black women. Am I supposed to go all hating on all of you? I figured if he found a woman he loved he should marry her.

    I kept thinking reading the comments, wow…these are as bad as the comments on the news report of the Milwaukee fair incident where a flash mob of hundreds of black kids went on a rampage outside the state fair beating half to death any white person they saw. It was horrible…yay whitey getting what he’s got coming….well hate propagates hate. You are putting out as much hate as any white people. In fact more. White people are mostly too scared of sounding racists, it’s the death knell for careers, ect. I’ve read more racist things written by black people that if a white person had written them there would be riots. None of the news media reported it but local. Even though it was the largest hate crime taken place so far in the U.S. they didn’t want to call it that. Everyone knows white people can’t experience racism and if they do, they deserve it. I like the article I read lately about things a black woman can’t do/get away with that a white woman could. Not being part of the equation (red), I wondered still why people can’t ever just stop. This idea that black people are this whole put down never gonna have a chance in a white man’s world….damn there’s an oreo in the white house….how’d that happen? OH yes white guilt? You have an answer for everything. I think people voted for him because they believed in his words. Turns out he’s no change…bushco part 2, but that has got nothing to do with his skin color.

    I call black people black. The term African American is a little odd. Most of you aren’t African. African means being from Africa….like YOU, being from Africa. When someone asks me where I’m from I don’t say the place of my gggrandfather, I say where I am from. You’re black. If you must wear a label, you can be a Black American. You can also be a white American you can call yourself anything you want, but to me, you’re black. I’m red. I saw a hysterical video on youtube where Nancy Grace is talking about a woman from Jamaica..and she called her African American and that lady flipped. She said she wasn’t African, and she wasn’t American. Well goodness what else was Nancy gonna call her? Saying BLACK isn’t PC. We gotta stop being so damn sensitive all the time. I gotta black friend who thinks everything that goes wrong is because of her skin. I think perhaps it might have been she was obese and no one wanted to hire her to do PR? She’s losing weight now. When are we going to lay down that burden and choose not to let the past color our future. Or, as Rodney King said “Can’t we all just get along?”

    “If the young are not initiated into the village, they will burn it down just to feel its warmth.” – African proverb

    11 Aug

  27. Anonymous

    29

    You might want to do some research on the impending lawsuit regarding this book. Obviously somebody thought it was a little too true. Also, making general assumptions about an entire region of people is way too easy to do. It’s predictable and popular but if you consider yourself a true journalist speak about people and things you have actually experienced while living in the south. Something tells me you’ve probably never set foot there. Must be nice to just sit back and judge based on what you’ve heard. How exactly are you the moral authority here?

    11 Aug

  28. JTB

    30

    Well done, Valerie

    As a person who has spent the last 40 years pursuing a career as a writer, I know that many African Americans have written, and have tried to sell stories, fiction and nonfiction, that incorporated some of the themes found in The Help. I know that in most cases editors were not interested in publishing those stories.

    New York bought the story they wanted told and Hollywood filmed the story they wanted seen! This won’t change until we publish our own and film our own–and support our own.

    11 Aug

  29. BeckyK

    32

    I’m going to say from the beginning that I’m White and I loved the film. Ms. Boyd, your review has given me a different perspective and I thank you for that, but I’m going to express a dissenting opinion.
    In no way did I see the Whites in a good light in this film. Most saw human beings of another race as simply disposable. Their view of their children wasn’t much better. Hilly was a vicious human being who’d lie and blackmail to get what she wanted. “Mean girl” was a kind description of her lack of character. It’s not just the cream who rise to the top of society, you know?
    I don’t know many viewers who walk away from a film and just think it’s done. Most I know fill in the stories with hopes and dreams of their own. So, the real conclusion of “The Help” may depend on whether you are a glass half-full or a glass half-empty kind of person.
    Aibileen didn’t have a job at the end of the film, but she certainly had Minny and her whole congregation behind her. I believe Aibileen went out and wrote her stories and hopefully became a much-loved author. Frankly, I wish she’d written childrens’ books. She’d have been a natural.
    In all fairness to Skeeter, she didn’t know any different way of life. Yeah, she moved to New York and lived a better life for her, but I believe she also remembered the strife of the women who’d helped her get there and ended up making contributions to civil rights. Remember, she did split the proceeds from the book with the maids even before she left.
    Mae Mobley, who would not have had any kind of hope without Aibileen, became a capable and confident young woman. And yeah, she gave credit to Aibileen and worked for the cause as well.
    Hilly had a nervous breakdown and lost her position with the League. She could never look at anything chocolate again without blithering and screaming and she never got rid of that mouth sore.
    Is really it unreal for a White and a Black woman to talk about race issues? I did with Black friends in HS in the 1970s. Okay, maybe it was because I was the “token handicapped kid” and the Black girls could relate to me, but we did talk.
    Yeah, I know the story is “lite” in relation to the real Black experience. On the other hand, have you ever heard the story about how to boil a frog? Just opening the minds of those White audiences a little bit might make a big difference.
    I’m going to leave you with one thought here. Yes, Black and White relations still need improvement. But how do you think about persons with disability? I am still angry that the staff of “In Living Color” thought it was okay to have a character called “HandyMan” on their show.

    11 Aug

  30. Kirk Byron Jones

    33

    The Help is not perfect, but the Historic Real Helpers ought be remembered and revered. Among their mighty lessons: the ability to offer their best to the worst, and keep moving onward and upward.

    11 Aug

  31. Cheyenne Jones

    34

    “Even today, it is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for African-Americans to talk honestly with white people about race and racism” – What a sad, false, and extraordinarily narrow-minded generaliztion. There are many people of varying races who have had deep, meaningful and honest conversations about race and racism in our country. If you don’t like the book and film, take it up with the author. Don’t deny everyone’s truth and make derogatory statements yourself.

    11 Aug

  32. nicole

    35

    Awesome review!!! I saw The Help at a screening back in June and remember leaving feeling conflicted. Davis, Spencer and Tyson are absolutely fabulous in this movie and I want to support them but I just don’t think I can. This movie had so much potential, but it really did gloss over the important racial issues that you highlight. But then again, its hollyweird, so I guess that is to be expected. I will say what bothered me the most was how happy white women were after the movie. I mean, they loved it, and for some reason felt compelled to tell me how much they loved it (even though I was a stranger, but I was a black woman so maybe they felt some new connection, I don’t know). But, I remember thinking what about the movie did they love. They (white women) come out of the movie as heroes and their “liberal” racial attitudes were not challenged at all. I agree, most white women who see this movie will probably identify with Skeeter, who is portrayed as some sort of hero where in reality she, and the author and possibly Hollyweird, just profited off of the experiences of black women. None of them are martyrs, and honestly, it offends me that they portray themselves as such.

    11 Aug

  33. Rachel

    36

    It’s a book, it’s a movie. People will love it, and not just whites..and people, like you, will hate it. NEXT.

    11 Aug

  34. M'Karyl Gaynor

    37

    Uh…at Anonymous…I met sistah Valerie while we were both living in the South…do not remember where she is from exactly…I am from IL…but yes, she is very familiar with the South as she teaches journalism at UGA…yep…xoxoxo…smooches.

    About the lawsuit…it was mentioned in a recent Essence magazine article…apparently, one of the women in the book/movie did not like how her character was portrayed on either front…she felt like she had been betrayed…so it will be interesting to see how this plays out…hmmm

    11 Aug

  35. ErinKCasey

    38

    I haven’t seen the movie yet, but am looking forward to it after having read the book. If you haven’t read it yet, I would recommend it since it answers some of the issues you raise with the film. I’m sure it’s not perfect, but I also feel certain it was written with good intentions… perhaps a step in the right direction? I hope so.

    11 Aug

  36. Catherine Fox

    39

    Some of you have wondered about the reviewer’s place of birth. Valerie Boyd was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. Her great-aunt Carrie Bell was a maid to a prominent white Atlanta family for 30 years.

    11 Aug

  37. Beth

    40

    I am someone that really enjoyed this book, and I am excited to see the movie. I am very curious to see how true to the book the filmmakers kept the movie. I never thought Skeeter was the heroine; I believed it was Aibileen (and Minny too!) They are the ones who took the biggest risk. I don’t believe that this movie will make me feel good, I know the book didn’t. I never viewed the ending as happy, just as an mediocre ending to a great read. The book made me (as a young white woman) feel shameful of the behavior of women like Hilly and Elizabeth. It also made me curious to learn more about life in the south in the 60′s. I have not personally been exposed to racism… but I know it still exists. I know it is still a huge problem in our society. I think if this book/movie does anything it will spark discussion. Which is never a bad thing. If black women have difficulty discussing racism with me then I encourage them to view me as a student wanting to learn… many young people today are being raised with open minds. We want to be educated. We want to understand. We want to show respect and gain respect.

    11 Aug

  38. BBSugaw

    41

    Valerie,
    Your assessment of The Help is where I also settle down on this film phenomenon. I find it interesting that so many African American Southern women are enamored by this film, and seem to ignore or have intentionally forgotten what happed in the 1960’s and is still happening now.
    In addition, I also find it very interesting so many Southern whites want to sit down and talk about this film with African Americans. White skin privilege seems to have erased any feelings of guilt or complicacy in the angst of generations of African Americans from the time the first Africans were brought to these shores and now, as historically we have moved from chattel slavery, to Jim Crow, to the “new” Jim Crows (i.e. incarceration, substandard education, negative media imagery, etc.)
    Read between the lines and view this film remembering the historical context. We cannot, and must not live in the past, but do not forget our collective history which has yet to be significantly racially equalized or stabilized.

    11 Aug

  39. Saida M Latigue

    42

    Part of me is crying – - I think for all those black women who didn’t get an opportunity to express their voice & for those who still don’t feel they are really listened to today. Again, thank you.

    11 Aug

  40. Chris

    43

    It’s very easy to look back from today’s perspective and say, “They should have done…” Aibileen could have written her own stories? How, exactly? She was a poor, black maid in The South in the 60′s. What publisher would she have access to–and how would she find them? People were being shot just for talking about racial issues. A moment brought home when Aibileen is asked to get off the bus and then runs home, fearful she’ll be shot.

    This isn’t Schinder’s List… it’s not trying to be. In fact, I think it’s less of a black/white story as it is about empowering women. Skeeter is mocked for not wanting to marry. The white women in town do nothing but play bridge and neglect their children. The poor women are beaten by their husbands and have no will to go out on their own. At the end, Skeeter heads to NY alone (doesn’t need a man), Minny leaves her abusive husband, and Aibileen is confident that she can be more than a maid, as a writer.

    11 Aug

  41. jess

    44

    @Beth – You can find information about race, race relations, and history at your local library. Librarians are super helpful in finding what you need.

    11 Aug

  42. Trice

    45

    Valerie: You are being ridiculous, and your jealousy is showing!!! If you read the book, you would see that the movie is a great reflection of the book!

    Nobody said it was IMPOSSIBLE for Abileen to write, but at the time…that was not what she had in mind. It was Skeeter’s idea, and they all worked together to get it done. It was never supposed to be the grand idea to have them stop being maids and do something different. Skeeter wanted to be a writer, and she did what she had to do to make it happen. That’s the ultimate in WOMEN EMPOWERMENT! Gotta love it!!!

    11 Aug

  43. nikki

    46

    I’m sorry a story is just that a story. Every story is not meant to change the lives and mindset of a nation, it is meant to simply tell a story. If the woman were black writing this story would we still be acting in such a fashion. Zora Neale Hurston was criticized often by her peers because she wasn’t always writing about “the struggle” and I could have sworn she was a black woman who wrote a novel called Seraph on the Suwanee. So if we are not children, we should not write children books, if I’m not a man, I shouldn’t write stories from a male’s perspective right? Blacks also criticized Hattie McDaniel, Stepin Fetchit, etc. and the films they were in. her book opened up dialogue about was was going on bac then, everyone wasn’t out there marching, and who are we to say they were wrong for not doing so

    11 Aug

  44. RadioRaheem

    47

    @ RW&B All Over..Close your Face.

    A couple of things..
    - Not All Black people (or women specifically) care if brothers date outside of there race, please don’t put us all in one box.
    -Not All Black people just up and said one day “we want to be called African-American”, again, please don’t put us all in one box
    -Don’t go comparing racial incidents..because RACISM IS RACISM, it shouldn’t happen to anyone REGARDLESS of the color of their skin.
    You said “No matter how bad you have it, there is always….I think we need to stop wearing our hair shirts and pointing NO YOU at each other we need to start owning our own part in things, We can only blame the white man for so much”
    Ahem..not to say that we shouldn’t be responsible for our actions (and this is EVERYBODY, red, brown, yellow or white) but I seriously seriously doubt that those individuals who injustices have been done to should look in the mirror and say “it must be my fault.” That’s the most ignorant thing I’ve heard.

    Now ON TO the real reason were all here..The Help. My mother read the book and wanted me to but I couldn’t bring myself to read it. To indulge my mother, I did see the movie and came out feeling as you described. Very weary and concerned that this still happens to this day across multiple racial lines and we still have so far to go. I thoroughly enjoyed the acting but this is one of the reasons why it’s so difficult to see flicks like this (I wouldn’t go to see A Time to Kill with her as well). We just have so much work to do. Very thoughtful review, I will share it with my mother.

    11 Aug

  45. Hodeho Dehodum

    48

    This review could only have been written by a non-white who didn’t live in this era. The reactions she so vociferously rails against were accurate for the time period being portrayed. The plight of the black maid wasn’t even on the radar scope of the white employer or their children. That is what was so insidious about that time. It didn’t bother most people, white or black. It just was. The story/movie portrays that. As a youngster I never questioned or thought about what it was like for my mother’s black maid (in a northern city). I don’t think my mother did either. It just was. That is, until 1968. Eyes were opened by fire. Consciousness was aroused by rage. It’s hard to understand the mass acceptance of injustice unless you lived it. It doesn’t make sense and it’s hard to intellectualize from any angle- but it just was.

    11 Aug

  46. Suebob

    49

    This review exemplifies why it is important for white people to listen to black people. Because I never would have considered many of these arguments, and they really ring true, especially the maids not trusting Skeeter with their stories. Why would they? Thanks for educating me.

    11 Aug

  47. Phyllis

    50

    A friend sent this to me a couple hours ago: An Open Statement to the Fans of “The Help” issued by the Association of Black Women Historians:
    http://www.abwh.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2%3Aopen-statement-the-help&catid=1%3Alatest-news
    I’m suggesting that we all print up some copies and hand them out to people as they exit the movie theater.

    11 Aug

  48. Melinda

    51

    Wow…
    So many assumptions, negative generalizations, wounded emotions, broken spirits and closed-minded thinking. The book is better, more detailed and solid than the movie, as always. It is not a documentary. No one can speak for what anyone would/wouldn’t have done.

    Let people make their own judgement call instead of making an irresponsibly uninformed opinion to be blindly adopted. Sure, there are some people who are not ready or interested in racial progress but, by the sound of it, I’d be hard-pressed to believe that you aren’t one of them. The book and movie have started a dialogue that wasn’t going on prior. If you think either was lacking write a better book and make a better movie. Live and let live and don’t knock it ’til you try it!

    11 Aug

  49. YB

    52

    I loved the book and I am not ashamed to admit it. The book was fiction, and to think that we can accurately account for the entire black southern domestic experience in one novel is rediculous. The book, which was a good read, had more to do with the dynamics of female relationships and the impact of social circles than the inaccurate portrayal of black maids in the 60′s. The same influence Hilly had over her social circle was the exact same influence Abileen had. That’s why the maids began to talk. If my grandma was alive she would laugh at all of this, because she would say that no one white person in the 50′s or 60′s could have made her shut up and not speak the truth…. she reminds me of Minny. She was the best maid around and she knew it.

    If you live in the south and you have a home built from 1930-1960 it is very possible you may have quarters or what we affectionally call “garage apartments”. The reality is those rooms were never meant as guest quarters, and I thank this book for reminding me of that. So now when I look out of my bedroom window and I see that tiny room on the side of garage and I am reminded of where we use to sleep and where you used to be.

    Abileen, Minny and Skeeter found a way to stick it to Hilly, and for that reason alone I enjoyed the book and can’t wait to see the movie.

    11 Aug

  50. IntownWriter

    53

    I’ve found the review and the subsequent comments enlightening. So I thought it might be interesting to some to add a few thoughts of my own.

    As a privileged white child growing up in a small rural southwest Georgia town in the late ’50s/early ’60s, my friends and I were all raised by African American women, NOT our mothers. There was no ambiguity in my love for the women who cared for and raised me. I recognized every African American woman in the film, not because of stereotypes, but because these were the women I knew growing up, some writ more large than others, but people I knew just the same. And, on my grandfather’s farm, I knew their children as well; they were my playmates, even after we went off to separate schools.

    I’m really not responding to all the points of Valerie’s review directly; clearly, with my background, I don’t know the whole story of these or other African American women’s lives. But I do want to make a couple of points:
    1) No white Southern woman would ever confront someone – especially one of her own circle and class – directly about something as sensitive and volitale as race. Skeeter comes close a couple of times, but her strategy to tell the stories is her OWN self-preservation as much as anything. My own mother often made very passive-aggressive remarks at social gatherings that ultimately got us labeled as n-lovers, which was fine with us, or me at least. I know her even oblique references to racial issues cost my father a great deal of business for our cotton warehouse. But neither he nor Mother, nor their children, would ever back down. And much of that loyalty to principle came because of their and our respect for the women who were raising us and the men who worked our fields and in our warehouses.
    2) I do believe that Skeeter loved Constantine and Constantine loved her – yes, it can and does happen. For example, I loved and still love the late Viola Brown, and Viola loved me. I know this for a fact. She, more than almost anyone I knew, shaped my world view, and her own little remarks about unkind behavior, comments, beliefs and principles helped open my eyes to a whole ‘nother world at a very young age, long before others in my circle.
    3) A logistical note: until the dogs and fire-hoses of Birmingham started showing up on Huntley & Brinkley and Walter Cronkite, a lot of white Southerners had little idea about what was going on. In our house, we got LIFE, TIME, the Atlanta Journal, and other national publications, so we WERE aware – plus MLK came to Albany, which was a huge deal for us small town liberals, even though his efforts there weren’t as impactful as we’d hoped – but some many of my friends’ families had no idea what I was talking about when I brought up these issues.
    So that’s my take on the reality of the book and the film… an admittedly white-raised-liberal-Southern-woman-of-a-certain-age take, but mine nonetheless.
    I’d be interested to know what everyone thinks of “A Long Walk Home,” which did address the powerful and malevolent racism of Southern men, and also saw a white woman and a black woman working together to fight it…
    Cheers to everyone. Marcia

    11 Aug

  51. Ace 1

    54

    Ok. I disagree with several points.

    A. Aibleen didn’t get credit for giving housekeeping tips. Of course not! this is the early 1960′s. Do you really think a black maid in Mississippi would get credit for giving advice. The author is being very true to form with that one.

    B. You said “Inexplicably, the maids consent to the interviews”. Did you see the part where Medgar Evans was killed? I did. Plus I read the book where so many other racial fires were burning (the woman’s son being beaten blind for using a white bathroom). There explanation for doing the interviews was totally clear.

    C. Is it really unbelievable that a black maid would trust a white woman in the 1960′s? So black women didn’t have any instinct or intelligence to be able to see the good in someone inspite of their race. That’s embarrassing.

    D. She left white men out of it. Well, HELLO, it’s a movie from the women’s perspective. Do we always have to bring men up in the conversation?

    E. Why didn’t Aibleen write that book herself? Who knows. You got it right on that one. Plenty of black women were published as far back as the 1930′s. Maybe she didn’t know better. Or perhaps she was just too bogged down in her work and raising her son who died and overwhelmed with grief to care about publishing her own story.

    F. How could Aibleen love and care for the white racists? Because she’s clearly a Christian woman who takes the Bible seriously and turns the other cheek. She’s strong enough to overcome that. I don’t know if I have that much strength in my body but it was nice to see that as example of what I should be.

    I wish I could laud your post Ms. Boyd but clearly I cannot based on the weak examples you’ve put in this. Please stop tearing down movies that employ black actresses that DON’T look like Halle Berry and Beyonce and give some support.

    11 Aug

  52. Anonymous

    55

    “Art and literature and storytelling are at the epicenter of all that an individual or a nation intends to be. And someone more profound than most said that a nation which does not tell its own stories cannot be said to be a nation at all.” Elizabeth Cook Lynn, “Life and Death in the Mainstream of American Indian Biography” (93). Cook-Lynn might also have said, a people which CANNOT tell its own stories because of these kinds of racist ventriloquisms, cannot be said to be a people at all. If this review is hard for you to read, ask yourself why. Being uncomfortable is stage one of waking up.

    11 Aug

  53. kt

    56

    @melinda and some other folk: i really ask that you don’t use words like “uninformed” and “ignorant” about something professor boyd has said. it’s very clear, both in this review as well as by her impressive writing record, that she has been researching these ideas and communities for decades. “uninformed” would be the last adjective i would use. i only point that out because it is such an awful but unfortunately common occurrence for well-credentialed and established black women writers/scholars/artists to be casually cut down and somehow couched as “ignorant.” please, let’s respect professor boyd’s track record. if you disagree, by all means, do so. but just because her review is so well-crafted, and it is difficult to find holes in her argument, let’s not resort to saying things that are just not factually correct.

    i thank professor boyd for the clarity of this post. from the first time i saw a review for this film, i had my suspicions and they have been confirmed. i am neither black nor white, and i am interested in seeing more thoughtful, complex and empowering portrayals of both races in regards to racial justice, history, and social change. obviously, this film (nor the novel) cannot deliver.

    11 Aug

  54. Anonymous

    57

    “A story is just a story” and “it’s just fiction, what’s the fuss?” remind me of something I read once about Native Americans being romanticized and stereotyped in literature and film. Someone in a college classroom asked, “So what’s wrong with a little fantasy?” This is the response: “…WHOSE fantasy is what’s wrong with ‘a little fantasy’; fantasy backed by power is no fantasy – it’s reality. I had not yet read Robin Morgan’s celebrated aphorism ‘pornography is the theory and rape the practice,’ so I couldn’t argue that Pocahontas is the theory and colonization is the practice. I knew that the distinguishing feature of a fantasy is that the fantisizer is the one in control, that fantasizing is an act of power. But I couldn’t say that ‘fantasy,’ for me, an Indian woman, could not be applied to an Indian person or culture by a white-owned and run film production company without causing me visceral damage.” (quote by Deborah Miranda)

    11 Aug

  55. Anonymous

    58

    I recommend reading the book if you feel this way. I haven’t watched the film yet, but the book addresses some of the nuances you feel have not justly been addressed by the film. It goes into far more detail and distances itself from cariacatures. It also doesn’t aim to be a ‘feel-good’ piece of work.

    11 Aug

  56. Kirra

    59

    Bless you for this.

    11 Aug

  57. andrena

    60

    Not going to read the book, nor watch the movie. Tired of folks always trying to “write our story”.

    11 Aug

  58. Shonda

    61

    This is what I had to say when I read the book for a radio program: http://hearsay.org/post/Thursday-July-22.aspx Listening to the women and men who called in made me realize that their mother-love as children for their black maids obscured that outhouse in plain sight. Growing up, we know sometimes it is easier to not question what is in front of you if you do not want to suffer the consequences of a hard truth and, for many whites, release an unearned privilege. Honestly, I haven’t had the…urge to see the movie yet. Valerie, you hit so many excellent points in your review. I come from a family of “domestic workers,” Black Indian women who experienced every bit of the hot embarrassment, debasement and nonchalant treatment of the characters in the book. Yet there was also a since of loyalty to those “good white folks” they would say.

    11 Aug

  59. Tula Keti-Koti

    62

    So eloquently stated that I have nothing to say. NOTHING! Thanks.

    11 Aug

  60. Carolyn

    63

    I am white, so admittedly there are limits to my understanding. However, I don’t think anyone should discount the deep shame that the white women I saw the movie with felt afterwards. Shame, and horror at some of what we witnessed, knowing that the truth was probably much, much worse. We were a very subdued group afterwards. Perhaps we were a tiny minority, and most white audiences will feel good afterwards and not question things in the movie, but I couldn’t look any of the black women who were in the audience in the eye afterwards. I didn’t feel good afterward.

    11 Aug

  61. Therese

    64

    @IntownWriter

    I do believe that Skeeter loved Constantine and Constantine loved her – yes, it can and does happen. For example, I loved and still love the late Viola Brown, and Viola loved me. I know this for a fact. She, more than almost anyone I knew, shaped my world view, and her own little remarks about unkind behavior, comments, beliefs and principles helped open my eyes to a whole ‘nother world at a very young age, long before others in my circle.

    The woman who raised you as hired by your parents may have held some affection for you, but caring for you was her job. If you had to care for another person’s child, you would likely also come to feel affectionate toward them, if only because it makes the job easier and keeps you employed. But make no mistake: It was still a job, and you were not her child, but a charge.

    11 Aug

  62. IntownWriter

    65

    @Therese: How on earth can you make that judgement? You weren’t there, nor did or do you know either person involved.

    Just because someone is paid to care for a child doesn’t mean she and the child can’t come to love each other with their whole hearts. Maybe it’s rare, but in the case of my dearest Viola Brown and me, it was totally and completely true.

    Frankly, I resent your assumption that because Mrs. Brown was paid to care for me, she was unable to love me, and I was unable to love her. I’m not trying to bring back the lies and stereotypes of the “happy slaves” who loved and were beloved by their masters. That’s total crap. It’s also true that I was not her child, nor did I claim to be in my previous post. I’m simply stating the truth of MY life: Viola Brown and I loved each other dearly. And if it was true for me and my African American care-giver, why can’t it be true for others? What’s more, haven;t you ever loved a child just because you loved that child? For no reason, no paycheck, no blood ties, but because love just began and grew?

    Maybe if you open your heart and your mind as Viola and I did, you might learn that love can sprout, grow and endure with someone totally different from yourself. I still feel that love for her, and she’s been lost to me for over 30 years.

    11 Aug

  63. Kudzaishe

    66

    I am willing to bet that most of the adversarial comments here, especially the “claiming that white women don’t feel shame / couldn’t be trusted is racist!” comments, are from white women.

    11 Aug

  64. Nick

    67

    OMG ITS CALLED HISTORICAL FICTION. READ THE BOOK AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FILM DIDN’T DO.

    11 Aug

  65. Melanie

    68

    Well, her panties certainly are in a (presumably black) bunch! The problem with reviews of this type is that they are written from a 2011 perspective. Yes we are now outraged at the thought of these woman being so trusting and loving to their oppressors, but the women of the period in question may not have felt that way. Look black people, let’s face it, if we were all morally outraged and moved to action, slavery and it’s kissing cousin Jim Crow would not have lasted as long as it did. (Put down the rocks!) Yes we were outraged and damaged, but we were also trying to survive and many more of us would not have survived if we fought every day of our lives or held hatred in our hearts every day of our lives. Even when our liberators came knocking, they had to do quite a bit of talking to get a critical mass of us on board. Why? because we were trying to survive and did have time for revolution. Do you think Nat Turner said, “Come on, let’s go,” and everyone went?

    Also, it’s hard for a woman not to love a child. Even knowing that the child will probably one day grow up to boss you around or put stripes on your back, as a child he or she is innocent and lovable. And a shrewd woman might realize that if you love a child he or she might grow up to put fewer stripes on your back later in life.

    Okay, I haven’t seen the movie, but I intend to, after which my opinion may change. But this is not a review of the movie, but a review of the review and at this point my overwelming feeling is that this reviewer is upset that the story that was told is not the story she wanted to hear.

    11 Aug

  66. Dwriternme

    69

    I agree with Ace1 and Chris. It’s a book and a film. Is it suppose to capsulize the entire civil rights era and every viewpoint? Stockett wrote what she knew and felt, and it has obviously paid off. I’m sure the success of the book, especially as a first time writer, was unexpected for Stockett. I don’t understand why only blacks can write black stories. So does that mean only men can write stories for men? Was the civil rights a black issue or a human issue? How would blacks feel if they were told they could only write about black people? There would be outrage. It’s like saying non-Jews cannot write about the Halocaust. You can’t have it both ways. If Stockett was black, the film and book would likely receive high praise from the black community. Stop looking at the color of her skin when passing judgement and judge based on merit.

    11 Aug

  67. Emma Missouri

    70

    As a 64 year old white woman–who was cared for in my childhood by African-American women in Kansas City, MO–I am sickened by the movie. Thanks for this really articulate review of this revisionist, naive movie.

    11 Aug

  68. WhiteGirlFromCompton

    71

    Rats, I managed to avoid the book, but this review is too compelling… now I have to see the movie. If not, I’ll be unable to voice my opinion, pour le bien ou le mal. Excellent review, excellent writing, thank you.

    11 Aug

  69. Maryn McK.

    72

    Valerie – So thoughtful, so graceful, so historically informed, and so elegantly ferocious. I would have expected nothing less from you but am still grateful to read it. Thank you.

    11 Aug

  70. Meghan

    73

    This article is so well written that I will be ordering your books very soon.

    11 Aug

  71. Karen

    74

    I can’t believe the people who actually think that this movie is a “positive” thing. Specifically, Ali (commenter #11), you should read “The Warmth Of Other Suns” to get a sense of the lives that blacks lived in the South until 40 years ago. 40.

    I want to also say that fine, this is a movie and it is fictionalized. Fine.

    But it isn’t as though anyone has made any efforts to truthfully depict and portray the civil rights movement (in its complexities!) in Hollywood. From the white people who joined the freedom rides, to the people who brought their children, their families, and their picnic baskets to LYNCHINGS, took photographs of themselves next to the dead bodies and then sent those postcards through the U.S. postal service to other white people.

    That is the society that we are living in and with and since we’ve never had a blunt, real conversation about those murders and those people who still live in communities, we can’t go anywhere.

    Rather than have that conversation, we have this whitewash of the experience. So we never learn our history…we ignore it.

    Can you imagine if the first and only depiction of the Holocaust was about how Germans were really down with helping jews? There were Germans who did that stuff, of course, but the fact is the vast majority did not. And the latter conversation is the one that we see, even WITHIN the context of Schindler’s List.

    Valerie, thank you very much for writing this review. I am sad about it. I am sad about the waste of Viola Davis’ talent. I am sad that this country doesn’t understand how we are perpetuating damage.

    11 Aug

  72. Michael Guglielmo

    75

    Hello:

    I have asked myself the question what is a white person, what is a black person, a red person, a yellow person, etc…and I keep coming up with no answer. The white, black, red, yellow, etc…in a person is nothing more than an appearance, an outer layer. For years I have looked and focused on people and labeled them by their appearance, not realizing and seeing their true selves. The Divine Light above the human being, entering through the top of the body and anchoring in the head and Heart. Now I can feel my oneness with others and all creation; the ever expanding Harmony of Love, Wisdom, and Power now and forever sustained. Let us usher in this new era of Peace & Harmony and recognize each others as sisters and brothers. Like that, communicate that Love to the flowers, plants, birds, insects, animals, … The Earth is a sensitive woman, touch Her and let Her know you care about Her. She will help heal and guide us to All in One & One in All.

    11 Aug

  73. Mae Gentry

    76

    Val,
    You’ve done a sterling analysis and brilliant writing job, as usual. I’ve had no desire to read the book “The Help,” despite its best-seller status, and even less desire to see the movie. Your review, along with Melissa Harris Perry’s like-minded commentary for MSNBC, just affirms my position. Thanks for seeing the movie so we don’t have to.

    11 Aug

  74. jlove

    77

    Everyone has there own opinion about this movie and the Book but that’s all it is (a movie and a book) To get all riled up about someone’s fictional depiction about a true part of our past is rediculous. First of all you can’t possibly speak for all white people so your statement is as dumb as when people say all black people eat fried chicken. If you want to make a statement about racism and the times then deal with that but to trash a movie because it is a reminder of a part of our history doesn’t make since – but it is your opinion. As an African American I get tired of hearing this kind of rhetoric because truth be told we have done more damage to our own race than white people ever will..check out some of the shows on BET and you know what I mean…Check out a Music Video and you’ll know what I mean. Art is made to start conversations and if the book and the movie are getting this much conversation than it is fair to say it has done it’s job.

    11 Aug

  75. Jessica

    78

    Well, obviously the book/movie makes people think so it can’t be all that bad, maybe sprinkle a few laughs here and there. they say that laughter IS the best medicine….take a breath and focus on what’s wrong in the world TODAY and what we as thinking human beings can do about it NOW.

    11 Aug

  76. Jim Steele

    79

    I agree with Ms Boyd, the Aibileen character should have just pulled herself up by her bootstraps and become a best-selling author, by gosh!

    See the movie and make your own decisions…

    11 Aug

  77. alan b

    80

    Why does Valerie expect this story to cover every single aspect of race relations in depth, and why does she expect the characters to be complete race heroes or foes??? And why all the assumptions about white people? Valerie’s expectations are unrealistic and her perceptions are blurred. I grew up in Jackson during the 60′s and today, in Jackson, Mississippi, black folk and white folks DO talk about race and our history here – the dialogue is alive and there is an incredible progressive movement in Jackson – blacks, whites, every color – that is determined to move this State forward…
    The Jackson Free Press ( http://www.jacksonfreepress.com ) is the progressive voice here – peruse their site and forums and see for yourself how we are all working together to face our past and create our new future… As a matter of fact, people of all colors are coming together for a vigil this Sunday night to honor James Craig Anderson, who was allegedly murdered recently by a group of white Rankin County teens because he was black. Rest assured there will be a huge white turnout, as we absolutely denounce this vicious hate crime and will not accept sins of the past to be a part of Mississippi’s present. Contrary to Valerie’s beliefs, many white folks in this State understand more than one may think.

    it is most unfortunate that Valerie chooses to generalize, stereotype, and have such unrealistic expectations about this work of fiction.

    11 Aug

  78. Catherine

    81

    Valerie-

    THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS BEAUTIFULLY ARTICULATED REVIEW of THE HELP. I have been deeply disturbed by The Help since I read it a few years ago. I am a white student (just graduated from college) and I am from the South, and I have been absolutely appalled at the real live white people reactions to the book. I have heard people say things like “it was soo interesting to hear how black people spoke back then” and “skeeter was such a hero” and “that’s the best BEACH READ i’ve read all summer.” As if The Help were comparable to Jodi Piccoult. As if racial violence is something that we, as white people, can now enjoy with our margaritas. As if it’s all been made better, because we, as white people, would have acted just like Skeeter back in the day, as if we act like her now. As if most of us are even concerned with racial politics at all.
    I wrote my English thesis in college about Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson, and included an addendum about Kathryn Stockett’s The Help and how depressing it is to me that this is THE book that white people are going to use to think our current racial situation. And hell, we’ll feel good about ourselves in the process!

    Thank you thank you Valerie! I appreciate the way you articulate the blatant, blatant problems with the movie and, even more disturbingly, the problems and implications of its its widespread popularity.

    11 Aug

  79. Sue

    82

    Valerie, THANKYOU! I was curious about the book and the movie, and a little hesitant to read or watch either because of the premise of a white woman “helping” the black women express themselves. Zora Neale Hurston is my heroine as is Maya Angelou and I, too, wondered as you pointed out, why Abileen didn’t write her own book. After your honest and straightforward review I will not watch the movie or read the book, because I don’t need to “feel good” about being white. I live and work with Native Americans who don’t “need” me to “help” them become themselves. I just “need” to get out of the way. You have made my day today, thanks again.

    11 Aug

  80. Terry

    84

    First off: your comment that no black woman in the 1960s would talk about race to a white woman is utterly false. I know from personal experience that your generalization is untrue and, in a sense, is racist toward what you commonly refer to as “white people,” as if we were a monolith with no differences among us. Presumably you did not meet, or you ignore, white people in South who risked their lives, and laid them down, in the war against racism. Second, if this film is so racist and offensive, then why did so many black actors accept their roles in it after reading the script. If all that you say is true, then the black actors in the film are, in a sense, collaborators in advancing the point of view that you are railing against. In addition, the film nor you discuss in any context the anti-Asian, homophobic, and anti-Semitic attitudes held by blacks in this country in the past and in the present. I find your review as dishonest as the film itself. As Pauline Kael once said, it’s do damned easy to be judgmental without being enlightening. Your comments on the actors’ performances are nothing but cliches, and you have nothing say about film as an art form on any level at all. If the film is inept, then so is your sociological brand of pseudo-film criticism.

    11 Aug

  81. Di

    85

    Thank you Ms. Boyd for your thoughtful review. I agree with your key points. Yet, I know that there are black women (including myself) who feel compelled to see the film. I think it is because there are few films today that allow African American women to be shown to some degree in their beauty and strength. I am sure the black actresses in this film are outstanding and I want ton see them in their glory even if somewhat tempered by the context of this film which you so eloquently conveyed.
    I have not made up my mine yet.
    I feel heartened that many, including white women, have open their minds and hearts to Ms. Boyd’s perspective with respect even when they do not fully agree.
    As for Terry, Red, White, and Black all over, and some of the other commenters, you have only proved Ms. Boyd’s point. You have made it clear that any black woman who disagrees with your interpretation of our existence and experience is not to be respected with an acknowledgement of a different viewpoint. Instead, you vilify Ms. Boyd? I do not know how, I as a black woman could even begin to discuss race and our experience honestly with you.

    11 Aug

  82. Ozma

    86

    I can’t argue with Valerie – I am sure you are right. And I rarely go to movies and don’t watch TV much, but love to read, so can only speak about the book.

    In the book, Skeeter’s literary adviser tells her to write about things that make her uncomfortable, especially if no one else wants to talk about them. So, Skeeter does.

    (One can make the case that Skeeter had a spiritual adviser in the form of the editor who told her what to look for. I expect that this might have been the only form of intervention that Skeeter would have understood.)

    The Help can also be seen as the story of a white woman growing up in the early 60′s and trying to figure out what is going on. From that perspective, it’s my story too. I may be naive, but here goes.

    As a child I was moved from place to place until the disconnects were so apparent that I had to open my eyes.

    I’m nearly 70. My parents were from Texas. My dad was an Army officer so we moved every few years – I was plunked down in many different cultures – but, for three years in the early 60′s, we lived in Mississippi. And during these years I was in college in Texas.

    In hindsight there was no way I could have avoided absolutely freaking out. The church and school had always said one thing: we are all equal. So did the Army (which of course provided other disconnects, such as killing people.) There were black-skinned families, not a great many, among the Army families; and we children all learned early on that prejudice was not acceptable and in fact would get our dads in trouble, since in the Army, equality was the rule.

    And yet Texas wasn’t that way at all. Mississippi was a nightmare. And yet I loved my family dearly although they didn’t seem to see things the way I did.

    Like Skeeter I could be seen as slow. I’d been raised to see everyone as equal so it was confusing to be confronted with something entirely different. How could a church even exist in this situation? It seemed to be all lies.

    You might be thinking: stupid naive white kid. But we all have to start somewhere. I was fortunate in being forced to see the disconnects, even though it was a long time before I saw what I could do. But when I did, it affected my whole life.

    Only a few short years ago I would have been raging against The Help. At nearly 70, I have learned, though that in the end, I really do have to forgive. I have just had to stop seeing others as The Enemy. It’s just more efficient that way. It’s too exhausting otherwise. And I learn this over and over.

    I have complete respect for what you are doing. I don’t want to take anyone’s story away from or tell it for them. But I believe that my story is also part of the weave, because I was there and it affected everything else I have done since. Perhaps it’s not yet the right time to add my story – perhaps I can’t tell it in my lifetime. But it’s clear that we can’t, any of us, tell our stories and leave everyone else out. My story may be just a footnote, hardly important, but like everyone else’s, it belongs to history. And that’s why I relate to Skeeter, who was no heroine but was a person who was offered a small role in changing things. But I could be wrong.

    11 Aug

  83. CAROLYN BARNES

    87

    Once again, I have recommitted my to choose for myself if I would go to see a movie and/or read a book. I STRONGLY disagree with this critique. Yes there were areas that were not discussed (ie the role of men in the community, Why the women finally decided to trust Skeeter, and tell their stories, Why Abileen does not get credit for her input to the news column.{really, Jackson, MS, early 60s- OK}, etc.) If all of this and more were explained in the movie it would so lengthy no one could produce it. The book does cover a lot of these areas and the book also goes into more detail in certain areas. FURTHERMORE, some things were changed from the book to the screen. READ THE BOOK. She asked how the maids could love these children whose mothers treated them so badly. A child is a child. Along with cleaning, running the house etc, they usually spent more time with these babies/children than their parents did. And the love of a child sees no color. There was also a question as to why Skeeter was trusted by the maids- not fully developed on screen, read the book. There are cliques today that “run “ the community. If you are not a part of the so called “In Crowd—the elected or perceived “ you really have no say. I have seen it in communities, college campuses, and even the military. Sad but true. So yes it does exist. This was only a snapshot of one community. Sometimes you have to look back to see where you need to go or to see how far you have (or have not) come. To ignore the past or try to rewrite it means sure doom. Was it pretty? No. Was it factual? Bits and pieces. But then this was a fictional account. Bottom line—I think both the book and screen adaption was great! Form your own opinion.

    11 Aug

  84. betty

    88

    I did not like the book and will not see the movie.

    Thank you for your review. It should be required reading in order to buy the book or a movie ticket.

    11 Aug

  85. stacy

    89

    Amazing review and I agreed with most of it. However I think that the idea that blacks and whites can’t talk about race in 2011 is laughable. I talk to my white female co-workers and friends honestly about race constantly. Race, slavery, reconstruction, lynchings, Obama, interracial relationships, etc. We can’t just continue to paint ourselves in a corner and see them as “the bad guys”. This seems absolutely ludicrous to be saying but there are incredibly progressive and insightful white folks out there. Injustice is injustice and I have known many white folks to be able to see that. I am no white apologist but the idea of saying people are all the same because of the color of their skin is exactly what has caused us black folks so much despair in this country. I’m not about to continue that brutal ritual.

    11 Aug

  86. Lvtoread

    90

    Great review. I put the book down after a few pages as the dialogue told me about all I needed to know about the author’s limitations. The maids’ speech is written in an over-exaggerated, inauthentic rendering of African American dialect, while the speech of the white characters is written in Standard English, reflecting no regional dialect whatsoever. No Southern dialect. In Mississippi?

    On her blog, writer Bernestine Singely has a very moving post in which she recalls her experience receiving a phone call from the child whom her late mother had cared for :
    http://www.beforebarack.com/2011/07/28/sniffing-dirty-laundry-a-true-story-from-%e2%80%9cthe-help%e2%80%99s%e2%80%9d-daughter/

    11 Aug

  87. Honey Betancourt

    91

    This article is the second article I have read highlighting the kind of movies that are greenlit for production in Hollywood and the offense they cause and the damage they wreak. If you think about black filmmakers who have been given Hollywood support, ie: money, publicity and critical acclaim, to creatively give voices to the African American experience through drama, rarely are these films thought to have made an important contribution to mainstream cinema and that is because they are devoid of a white narrative in which white people can identify their presence UNLESS, the director is White or Jewish ie: “The Color Purple” or the lead actor/actress is white ie: “The Blind Side” Even when the black filmmakers of the 80′s and 90′s, Lee and Singleton, finally gave a voice to issues that plagued Black America: “Boyz n the Hood, Menace to Society, Do the Right Thing” these were also movies that White people were comfortable seeing because it fulfilled their fears of a black planet but these films are not the Hollywood Blockbusters because they speak to a specific audience and cannot speak to a mainstream audience, much less a global one. And as much as I have issues with the lack of any sort of stylistic approach that seems to plague Tyler Perry’s movies or the appreciation that his personal agenda gets interwoven in the plots surrounding black folk, the sad fact boils down to the reality that the white people who pay to see his movies are living proof that comedy has always served a better genre to view the shucking and the jiving of black folk. A very sad case that supports Kola Boof in her article “The HELP is not my kind of movie” is one of the best independent movies I have ever seen in my life and it happens to have been made by one of the very few independent black filmmakers around. Charles Burnett and his “Killer of Sheep” that was released in 1981 was thought to not be understood by the “mainstream critics” who deemed it unworthy because they do not know how to make sense of AA narratives or images UNLESS they are presented in the images that white people made of them. This also comes full circle to the point that the author makes in that these images are so recycled that they become the only marketable and/or comfortable images that can be accepted in a mainstream movie and this is just only part of the problem. On a GLOBAL scale, these are the only images that other country’s cinematic audiences get to see of AAs because the Hollywood machine deems these images as appropriate. This is why if a movie has more than two black actors in it, it will not make any money overseas and most of Hollywood makes their money in the International Markets. I have even seen black actors removed from the publicity posters overseas because that will make people think that the movie is a “Black” movie and they could care less about the AA narrative unless it is whitewashed through a director or actor they “trust.” Then you wonder why people, Americans and foreigners always point to the diversity in films when they mention all of these films that have black actors cast in them. They are not looking at the picture with a critical eye because if they were, they would see that these actors serve as creative foil to the white actors. In a lot of ways black people are like the literary flat character–the one who does not change, is not complex and serves as a comparison to the round character-who has the complex, striking personality and who changes through conflict. Cinematic drama is not a genre in which AAs have been successful because our drama is not thought to be interesting enough unless a white actor is our round character. Theater has always been a much fairer playing field for black drama but then again, theater is always for smarter people whose audience does not have to have things explained to them. It’s the dummies who go to see these movies that I worry about.

    11 Aug

  88. Linda

    92

    I am white and I have to say that I didn’t view anyone white in the book as a savior of any kind. In fact, I was angry that Skeeter just left. It’s really insulting to be lumped time and time again with people who refuse to see there is more to any story than just black or white. It’s insulting that people think that whites are not intelligent enough to understand that we will never know or understand what the black community has endured. Stop lumping white people in one group of ignorance. It’s offensive.

    The way I viewed the book was the heroes in the book were the maids. Skeeter was only the vehicle to get the book to be published. I can’t imagine that a publishing house would have taken on the book of a maid in the south. More importantly, maybe the book (and the movie) should be viewed as a way to get people to learn more about the time. Anyone with any sense of critical thinking will use this to research and learn more about that period and will question things. No one should take anything on its word because you will never get a view of the big picture.

    11 Aug

  89. kristy

    93

    The problem with this review is that it criticizes one woman’s interesting attempt to show us a slice of life in Jackson MS in the 1960s, and totally ignores the horrific portrayals of African-American life currently in vogue by African-Americans themselves – the very popular director Tyler Perry and all his mess. Is THAT realistic? God forbid white folks complain about that, or someone would be pointing out that he has a right to make money. And what’s this bs about not addressing race? Look at this interesting discussion that book and movie have evoked. The time for petty grand-standing is past. The African-American community needs to stop bitching and step up to the plate. Write! Direct! Produce! Put pen or camera in hand, get out and tell the stories on your own. Can’t get a publisher – then self-publish. Can’t get anyone to distribute your film? Put it on Youtube. For people who are supposed to be so creative, what’s the hold-up? Quite yer bitchin and DO SOMETHING.

    11 Aug

  90. RJA

    94

    Actually, I would have to disagree with the idea “The Help” was a feel-good movie for white people. I’m black (and a journalist), and it was more of a feel good movie for me. Several friends and I saw the movie this weekend. I went in wondering if it would show how some good white person comes in and saves the poor black person again. Yes, Skeeter does bring up the idea of the book, but the maids ultimately save themselves by telling their stories. They could have told their stories alone, but didn’t for whatever reasons, mainly fear. Ultimately it was not Skeeter who got them to share their stories. it was their own determination. Was the movie perfect? No. It left a lot of questions at the end. However, no white person should have been able to leave out the movie without feeling the slightest bit of white guilt. There are only a few redeeming white characters in the whole movie, and they definitely don’t do enough to counteract the wrong done by the others. As a black woman I left with a sense of pride that my sisters, despite the consequences, had the courage to share the truth.

    11 Aug

  91. carissa ann

    95

    This review screams so loud for Hollywood to take an armed stand against Black American film stereotype, that it has tossed away any value of subtlety. Ms. Valerie Boyd has glossed over the subtle depth in every character of the film and in history. The Help woman are born into a structure neither designed or requested by themselves, but are women still attempting to live within the confines that they are repeatedly forced to acknowledge. Much like woman, whom all over the world are born into misogyny, taking up roles daily, feeling the weight of that structure that we live within, yet can never fulfill. So much of misogyny is outside of us, yet women still attempt to function and survive within it. Still human-we love, still we nurture our ambitions, still we break to find new meaning and waiting for a moment to have it realized in our lives work. To change an belief, role, value that has been assigned to us because what we are both with and into-through action, work or life style.
    As a woman of the border, feeling complete empathy towards both of my families and yet having continuous “other” status from both, I feel that I look for what is omnipresent in all human experience. I say this to acknowledge that perhaps every film I have seen has a glistening whitewash on it. (As a previous reference was made to AA images and narrative is not present Hollywood film) So, perhaps I feel connection simply because it familiar and yet again stereotypical… But, I always thought that a stereotype stops when humans are depicted as such; As whole as possible, leaving the questions that life always has as they are inevitably – unanswered. An answer is usually the end of the story-death.
    Skeeter is a white female coming out a childhood of naivety. It is that transition of someone who is transitory and unfit in the roles place onto her. She is in danger of being cast to almost “other” status- the focus she has on her dreams and her brains; and resulting lack of effort to secure her womb as her dominate creative organ is most unbecoming. Stubbornly and somewhat stumbling , she is coming into her own. Though, not by pounding her friends with ideas in discussion or lack of appearance in their lives, but through her craft and work. Ultimately, her work effects her relationships by creating new ones/destroying her old ones. How is this un-truth? All artist, writers, journalists , film makers come into a knowing, a drive, at some point, sometimes after much time has past since the work started. Some theories even suggest that the unconscious (or un-realized) motives drive the person to the work, and through the process the work a value is fully integrated into one’s being- ie. a rejection of the racist caste. In the beginning Abbie says she had lost her desire to live with the loss of her son, an educated future. But in her recovery she became less patient and in the end is living for herself, regardless of consequence…to say Skeeter had disregard for the maids future and left the maids to pay the consequences of her work, suggests that the characters, who Ms. Boyd claimed where flesh (-and I interpret her to mean wholly human), would look to Skeeter for protection; suggesting that some how Skeeter – had greater control or responsibility in the system she was attempting navigate, question, survive in and change to the best of her ability.

    11 Aug

  92. Terry

    96

    Di, you say that no black woman could ever discuss her experience with a white person like me. That statement is, in and of itself, racist. As a 30+ year member of the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, etc., I think I have some understanding of bigotry and violence. As a gay man, my people were put into the ovens by the Nazis under Paragraph 175 of the Nazi Constitution, and continue to struggle for our civil and human rights, especially in Africa and the Caribbean, where black LGBTs are routinely hacked to death by their black heterosexual brothers and sisters. Ready to have a conversation about that? The headline for this “review” is racist itself. What if this publication had titled a review, a Feel-good Movie for Black People. Talk about exclusion. Talk about culturally stereotyping all members of a group-monolith as exactly the same. You devalue the work done by whites across the South to bring an end to discrimination at risk to their lives. You can still recognize the homes they lived in– it’s the houses with flood-lights around them to keep the white families safe from white racists who opposed desegregation. As for your experience as a black woman, why, may I ask, are not black women in this country in the streets over the mass rapes and genocide in Darfur and Congo? I have only seen white American actors going there to report on the genocide. Does this not include your experience as a black female? The LGBT community fights for our people in Russia, Lithuania, the Caribbean, Africa, Australia, and on and on. Why is there no similar response among black American females to save your counterparts in Darfur or Congo. Last, as for the writing of this so-called “film review,”if the “author” wants to learn how to write serious sociological film criticism, I recommend, among others, Robert Warshow or James Agee, the latter of whom wrote extensively about black experience in the US long before any of us were born. This review isn’t film criticism. It reads like a mediocre high school book report. The writer has no understanding of film art and has no aesthetic point of view except cultural stereotyping of white Americans. The review diminishes this site as a source of serious film criticism. As for you Di, I sense you could not understand anybody’ experience except your own, and I feel sorry for you for that.

    11 Aug

  93. carissa ann

    97

    Further, It negates Aibileen’s intelligence. Reliance on Skeeter somehow infers that Aibileen cannot see or understand how her actions has put her life and lively hood in danger. Responsibility is on everyone in the structure to actively, everyday change it….

    11 Aug

  94. Sara

    98

    This was the stupidest “review” I have ever read. It just gave every detail of the plot. The book explains why the house maids had enough courage to tell their story. It was the 1960s, Skeeter was doing a lot back then in the south. Obviously, the author of this review did not read the book. The author of this review is an idiot.

    11 Aug

  95. Alan Headbloom

    99

    Maybe this is the 2011 sequel to The Blind Side.

    11 Aug

  96. Rose Scott

    100

    I enjoyed the book. It brought back fond memories of my maid, To this day, I can still feel her gentle touch as she would wash my hands. I would get them dirty, just so she would wash them again. I would like to ask the reviewer how old she is. Did she live in the 50′s and 60′s? Also, do you really think a southern woman, much less a black woman, during that time would read the Chicago or Atlanta papers? I cried and laughed during the book and I had not planned on seeing the movie, as I didn’t want Hollywood to ruin the book for me.

    11 Aug

  97. Lvtoread

    101

    Rose Scott:

    Actually it would have been highly likely that a southern black woman would have read The Chicago Defender. http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/news_bios/defender.html

    “‘my maid?’” Wow.

    11 Aug

  98. Rick Wilson

    102

    Clear as a bell Valerie! Thank you for piercing the fog of perpetual white denial with the truth! Will we EVER have a real racial conversation in this country? God I hope so!!!!!

    11 Aug

  99. Carule

    103

    I just saw the movie last night with my daughter and I left feeling that somebody needed to do a really thoughtful review. I recalled a discussion by bell hooks of the book version when she raised some of these objections. But the movie will have major impact as many people have not read the book although I know one Miami book club read it for entertainment and as part of their keeping current about contemporary events, so not critically. So I am grateful that this thoughtful and historically contextualized review has been done by some one who has studied and written about related subjects. I felt that the movie retained a very dated quality almost with a slavery-like ethos even though it was the 1960′s in terms of what is captured as black women’s undying love for white children and the families even when the door was closed in their faces.

    11 Aug

  100. LaurieC

    104

    One good thing about the book and movie…looks like it’s stirred up a lot of talk. Hopefully those who feel the story told in “The Help” (again book is much better than movie) here is inacurate and triet will produce a book or movie that tells the truth! We we white folk can take the truth! Does the racsim in this story embarresas us and makes us ashamed of our “race” – you bet it does!. Like all races though.. all whites not alike. What I did get from this story? Did this movie make me feel good? Yes and for one reason only – the characters of Abileen and Minny were smart, loving women who did they had to do to survive those ugly, ugly times. Survivors make me feel good!

    11 Aug

  101. Elizabeth

    105

    I have not seen the film yet, but I read the book and really enjoyed it. Does that mean it was a “feel-good” experience for me, a white thirty-something woman? Not even close! I thought it was good because it spelled out very clearly how unfair everything was, especially at the very end when Skeeter went away to her new job and left the maids to fend for themselves in the new climate that had been created. There is no way that I came away from reading this book with a feeling of wanting to champion the actions of ANY of the white women, Skeeter included. I felt that, above anyone else, this was Aibileen’s story–no question.

    Two things: 1) I’m sorry that the movie didn’t make it clear to this reviewer that Skeeter shared her earnings with Aibileen, because I thought that was really an important point. I highly encourage this reviewer (and many of these posters) to read the book in order to fill in the blanks that the movie did not.

    2) I think it’s absurd to complain about this story lacking any finger-pointing in the direction of the white men. First of all, this is a book about the WOMEN. Second of all, I felt that the men were mentioned just enough (albeit in the book–I can’t speak for the film) to remind us that they were around and involved. Third, it’s not exactly a secret what actions racist white men have taken over the decades; history class, films and books are full of that stuff. The much-lesser-known actions of southern white women is a topic that I believe needed to be raised, and I am thankful to Ms. Stockett for doing just that. Honestly, having grown up in the North, I had absolutely no idea how common it was for southern families to have black maids in the 60s. . .until reading this book.

    Ultimately, this book really made me think, and I’m sure the movie will do the same for many others. But let me say again–I assure you that this was NOT a feel-good story for me, and I have a very hard time imagining that the majority of film-goers would feel the opposite.

    11 Aug

  102. Belinda

    106

    Valerie, I don’t mean to offend, but some of your comments seem simplistic.

    Your comment: Skeeter is only a little bothered by this kind of behavior in Hilly and others in her social circle. She’s not bothered enough to strenuously confront them about their racism or to end the friendships.

    I didn’t get that she was a “little” bothered at all given her energetic focus on exposing how the black maids really felt about their employment. Did you not get that some of Skeeter’s actions were clearly confronting Hilly about her racism. Did you really think she’d up and end her friendships immediately with her only circle of friends?

    Who are the film’s affable white husbands? I only count one –

    Your comment: Eventually, though, Skeeter, who wants to become “a serious writer,” is moved by her ambition — not by any extraordinary love of black people — to write a book about the help, about what it’s like to be a black servant in a white home.
    We get the sense that Skeeter sees a good story here because it’s never been told, but not that she wants to change race relations in the South.

    Does Skeeter need to display extraordinary love of black people or attempt the gargantuan task of changing race relations in the South to make this palatable to you? Seems a little over the top to me. Couldn’t she simply risk her friendship and indeed her safety in town, which she does, to expose what she feels is an injustice. She and the black maids work together for the betterment of the black maids. Is that such a bad thing?

    11 Aug

  103. Belinda

    107

    Oh, and the heading “A feel good movie for white people” rather shocks me! It seems terrifically patronizing, as if us dullard, stupid white ladies racing off to see the A+ CinemaScore rated picture that most seem to be loving are the dopiest thing since sliced bread for daring to enjoy the film. Could you image another title – A feel good movie for black people – with such a review to follow?!

    11 Aug

  104. Cathy Fussell

    108

    You go, Valerie! I tried, but I couldn’t force myself past about page five of the book. It reeked of racism to me — You know, that ol’ “But we were GOOD to OUR help!” variety. I cannot even imagine sitting through the movie. But really I guess I oughta take a closer look.

    11 Aug

  105. DC 63

    109

    To all of the Black women who worked for white women in the North and South during the 60′s and even today, there was a truth about what it took and continues to take in performing domestic duties. As a Black woman whose father & mother worked in Ms. Jane’s house on the weekends, I have seen up front close and personal, the challenges that come with working as a domestic. “RED and WHITE and Black all over” said it so well.
    Abilene’s moments at the end of the movie were very empowering since she came to realize that her furture was not limited to working as a domestic; that there was a possibility for her to write — which interestingly she was very passionate about. Now she had an inside connection at Harper & Row –Skeeter.

    Sometimes reliving the past is hard. Needless to say, for those who may not have experienced racism firsthand, and for those who did and have, it leaves a bad/bitter taste. I am willing to move past those moments in order to enjoy a GOOD MOVIE when one comes along. The HELP was an enjoyable movie and I’ll pay to see it again.

    11 Aug

  106. Anonymous

    110

    Ali
    12
    I think it is so unfortunate that once again we the Black community have a problem with someone else telling our story ‘inaccurately’ but we don’t take the time to tell it ourselves. The book ‘The Help’ is a fictional novel more about the relationships between the women than the historical setting. Maybe it is ideal to have it be more accurate historically but that was clearly not the author’s aim and if one reada the book AND the author’s note that accompanied the story it would be obvious. This story was based how a little WHITE girl who lived in the south ADORED her black nanny and how SHE viewed life and what she thought the nannies went through. Of course Hollywood dumbs down the story but the cruelty and racism of that era were echoed in the novel AND so was the special relationship between nannies and the white children that they raised. Yes there is much much more that can be said about these relationships and the historical context in which this novel and movie took place but by and large that clearly wasn’t the authors aim. It is unfortunate that we so quickly attack another’s literary work just because it does not follow the train of thought we would like. Instead of being offended by one side of the story take the time to write and produce a movie that tells the other perspective….or maybe that would be taking too much accountablity on our part….”

    I copied and pasted this comment so that somebody…anybody would read it because it is DEAD ON…… Thanks Ali….

    11 Aug

  107. Anonymous

    111

    …righteous indignation of pseudo-intellectual black folks who have nothing better then to scream racism on a book and a movie many of them have never read or seen.

    11 Aug

  108. Anonymous

    112

    Could people please stop saying “Indian” for Native American people? I’m an Indian, from INDIA!!! Thanks

    11 Aug

  109. Jill

    113

    How do you expect race relations to change for the better if you’re sitting here referring to white people as one collective group, as though they all think, feel and emote the same way about social issues?

    11 Aug

  110. jdohe

    114

    I totally enjoyed the movie and will probably buy it.
    Mrs. Boyd, I’m sorry somebody did something to you that keeps you harboring such hatred of a whole race of people.

    11 Aug

  111. Toni Gardner

    115

    This review has filled me with gratitude and relief. I am white, and lived in Alabama 1955-64, basically my childhood.

    Since I first opened the book when it came out, I have been baffled about the positive reaction to it. Despite a couple of tries, I could not even read it. It rang entirely false to me; in fact, I found it nauseating.

    Here’s a great book: “Telling Memories Among Southern Women: Domestic Workers and Their Employers in the Segregated South” by Susan Tucker, though it was somewhat heartbreaking for me to discover that our maids did not probably love me as much as I loved them.

    11 Aug

  112. AntBee

    116

    What a shame that some of you are taking this negative review to heart so much that you would not go to see the film!

    How narrow can one get?

    This is a very good film with an excellent cast.

    The film is not a documentary. It is fiction.

    And it hits on the mark of the Civil Rights days.

    There is no shame that some of our mothers, grandmothers, worked as maids back in the day. These black women did what they had to do to take care of their families. These same black maids were responsible for many blacks going to school and obtaining a college education from the low salaries these hard working women earned. They contributed to their families being taken care of, and although they worked as domestics they held their heads high, and did what they had to do.

    Many whites have worked as domestics as well. Now days it is the Hispanics that do that type of work, and ironic that some of those Hispanics work for black people that can afford to have outside “help”.

    To those who won’t see the film based on someone else’s “review”, it is most unfortunate.

    11 Aug

  113. Estella

    117

    Sounds to me like Valerie Boyd has the rampant envy so many critics/reviewers have. Quoting a man like Eric Holder, who refuses to prosecute blacks committing crimes against whites, Black Panthers who wield clubs to intimidate white voters in 2008, makes her assertions specious at best. I loved the book and will see the movie. Sorry you’re so envious of Kathryn Stockett’s success, Valerie. I admire Kathryn’s loyalty to Octavia Spencer, her good friend who was cast in the movie when Hollywood wanted a “bigger” name.

    11 Aug

  114. Kim

    118

    I read the book, but haven’t seen the movie. I thought the book was a great starting point for a dialogue about race, power, submission, poverty, and so on. Some of your points seem to miss issues and ideas in the book, so I wonder if they’re omitted. Did you read the book? You’re very critical of the story, but in that case, it sounds like you should read the book and criticize, instead of pointing a finger squarely at the movie.

    That said, any movie that you walk away talking about, especially when it involves real-life matters, is a movie worth considering. A movie isn’t going to give me an opinion, but it might inspire me to develop one.

    11 Aug

  115. Estella

    119

    Valerie Boyd reminds me of a “race hustler” like Al Sharpton. Smart and articulate, yes, but seizing any opportunity to cry racism and enhance herself rather than offer honest dialogue. She misrepresents the book and movie. I moved two years ago from the San Francisco Bay Area to a little town in East Texas. There is so much more acceptance and openness here — black and white teens are friends, people are respected for their integrity, not their occupations, regardless of color. Liberal meccas could learn a lot from rural areas like this one.

    11 Aug

  116. Mike

    120

    To me,I find that in this movie, the black women came together to protest the arrest of one of the other maids. And that the uniting of them showed courage, and determination to have their stories told. This movie, was just a movie, and I am sick and tired of the blacks of this generation, degrading all of the sacrifices that our past generations have gone through and suffered through. All we do is complain about the past, look at the black children killing each other, and walking around with there pants showing there butts. Were is the parenting and upbringing, that was shown in this movie gone to. All we want to do is complain, instead of trying to generati positive thinking. I must honestly say, that this review, is just a prejudical opionion of a black woman, who doesnt understand the meaning of sacrifice for the better good. And I will end this by saying, that I am a elderly black man. Stop whinning and start trying.

    11 Aug

  117. Anonymous

    121

    I have not seen the movie but found the book infuriating when I read it pre-publication yet I knew it would be a huge success for most of the reasons you give. As a white woman I felt it was giving license to whites, especially self-proclaimed liberals, to pat themselves on the back and say they would have been progressive in ways they would not if they had been in that town at that time. But who is going to identify with the crazed alternative presented–in fact most upper middle class whites were just oblivious not unlike the novel itself which never allows the maids to be more than noble cliches.

    11 Aug

  118. Sue Rock

    122

    This is your FINEST PARAGRAPH – if you grew up in the 60′s you KNEW these were the magazines we all read!!!

    1963, when much of the movie takes place, was two years after Charlayne Hunter, the future journalist, had integrated the University of Georgia. Gwendolyn Brooks had won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry way back in 1950, Lorraine Hansberry had received wide acclaim for her 1959 play (and 1961 movie) “A Raisin in the Sun,” and Zora Neale Hurston had published seven books, mostly about black Southern life. Surely an aspiring writer such as Aibileen would have known of these people (she could have read about any of these achievements in The Atlanta Daily World, The Chicago Defender or Jet magazine) and understood that being a black woman writer was not impossible. But the filmmakers keep Aibileen ignorant of these facts, and they bank on their audience’s ignorance as well.

    11 Aug

  119. Kathy

    123

    Wow, Val … you got just a few responses, huh? I love it when a writer can get the conversation stoked. This is an excellent, thoughtful, smart, insightful piece of criticism. I have been a bit intrigued by the movie and the book, but have neither seen nor read them. I shall now pass. Thanks. Miss you. Be well. xo KJ

    11 Aug

  120. kbuzz

    124

    I truly hope you read some of the posts, especially Red & White & Black. Your rants are racist. You see exactly what you want to see, and believe exactly what you want too.
    It is one story, one perspective from a bygone era. But your diatribe screams Racism, and once again the blacks hold the whites accountable for what happened in the past and make it the present. Indeed, would you blame the vast majority of flash mob crimes on whites. Until the Black Community steps up to the plate and holds it own self accountable, there will be no change. Bill Cosby tried, but all the “African Americans” hear is Sharpton and Jackson. There are no All: white colleges, White History month, White magazines, White channels, white…etc.,. The Great White Race is growing up and assimilating all cultures – every culture exists in my blood – and you call me Racist. What a hypocrite. A feel good movie for Black People – just to see how far we have come.

    11 Aug
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