Just saw "The Help". See it!

I grew up in Birmingham in the 40s and 50s.
Every middle class family I knew had a maid.
As a kid, I don't remember anything but kindness from any of them.

A friend sent this review:

Must See Movie: "The Help"

"In 1964-67, we lived in Jackson, Mississippi. If you are into period movies or Southern culture, this is a movie worth seeing. It is rated PG-13 because of language.


The movie is set in 1963 and '64 in Jackson, MS. The book is a best seller and the movie is based generally on the novel. It could easily be up for awards next spring. Went to a 3:30 matinee and the theater was filled. People would not leave when the movie was over.

One should also look beyond the actual story and observe the larger structures of Southern culture at the time. The strict boundaries between races, the effect of Jim Crow laws, the power of the White Citizens Council and most of all, the perspective on life and rights from the viewpoint of "the help."

Interesting are the numerous references to Southern mores (the must and must not behaviors), most of which were not written down anyplace. Violations of these mores were quite severe and consequential for African Americans. Every one of "the help" knew what those norms were and carefully passed them on to the young members who began their life's career raising other people's children, while someone else kept their own children.

The movie's main character epitomized rationality and demonstrated inclusiveness in her writing quest. Then there were some other whites at the end who were encouraged by Skeeter to rediscover what courage was.

One flaw by the scriptwriter was that two characters used "Christ" and "Jesus" as bywords. Southerners didn't do this in 1963. "God" was most often used as a byword but not Christ or Jesus, which was more of a Northeastern trait. Today, the pattern is hardly discernible.

The movie will be a box office smash hit. I personally don't think it will reflect negatively on MS, though 1964 was a difficult time in this period of social transition. I think there is a lot in the movie to help us understand our heritage from a fairly objective point of view.


I teach sociology at the college level so, naturally, I was quite interested."

Thanks for the review and the personal historical perspective!

pun intended.

:hide:

Loved that part.

I know all about segregation. Re: separate bathrooms and drinking fountains for blacks and whites and blacks having to sit at the back of the bus. I didn't question it, as I grew up with it.

My mother had a black maid. My mother was a bit of bigot. My mother's thinking was that black people are wonderful and everybody should own one. I was afraid to touch a black person because I believed that the color would rub off on me. My, things have changed since those times (for the better)

in the late 60s ~ early 70s (they lived in Tallahassee at the time) but thankfully it wasn't because she was racist.* I have nothing but fond memories of Miss Geneva - I remember I once asked her how old she was and she just laughed and told me "close to 500 years old" and I swear I believed her probably until I was about 9 or 10 when I figured out she was putting me on...

I always visited my grandparents during the summers back then and she would always make the best PB&J and chocolate milk.

Damn. I miss that.



*I say this because my grandma was the one who taught me it was wrong to be a bigot. Lord knows she had a tough job doing it too on account of my mother not being so persuaded. But between grandma, grandpa and Geneva I turned out mostly ok. lol

SO yeah, I am looking forward to this movie.

My best buddy's maid was Tina.
She always had time for us kids.
Showed us how to make a little fire in the back yard with some old bricks around it and roast EGGS!

Yep, you can roast eggs.
Sometimes they popped.
Kinda tasted like hard boiled, but smokier.

Also made a 'grill' out of a big Crisco can with holes punched in the sides and we cooked baloney (NOT 'bologna') :-) and little burgers on it.

Tina dipped snuff and kept a small spit bucket on the back steps.
For the longest time I thought brown folks spit brown.
:rofl:

some enlightening.critiques:

http://www.artscriticatl.com/2011/08/film-review-the-help-a-feel-good-movie-for-white-people/

http://phillisremastered.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/chocolate-breast-milk-a-review-of-the-help/

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/08/12/why_hollywood_keeps_white_washing_the_past

I was just a kid during that time & even then I had a strong sense of right & wrong. It made me cringe; it was never in me to accept any of this mindset or behavior. I'm embarrassed that it ever happened at all.

I was moved by both the book and the movie.
I am a white guy and I know that gives me a different perspective from yours.

I understand the issue with the white girl being the instigator of the incidents instead of the maids but it was clear that they were the ones that were brave.
Skeeter was not really brave, just determined to write a convincing book. She was not under the same kind of threat as the maids.
I personally felt a deeper strength coming from the black women.

As to the complaint that major points of history were left out, it's a story about characters, not a history lesson about the world.
Incidents unessential to the character's situations, no matter how important in the real world, must be subservient character's personal issues.
That is how storytelling works.

I felt I got to know Aibilene and Minny as people which I appreciated.
I have few black women as acquaintances in my life and enjoyed the opportunity to spend some time with them in the film.
All movie characters are simplified caricatures of real people, it is just a story after all, but they came off as warm, interesting characters to me.
I wish we could have spent more time with them and less with the cartoonish white women's clubs myself.

I understand that your perspective is very different from mine and of course yours is totally valid.
Certainly more valid than mine about the history and reality of race relations.

But I feel this story is meant for a white audience and as such makes us think and consider issues anew that had been relegated to the back shelves in recent years.
It will still be a long time before race relations actually smooth out, (as the Tea Party's reaction to our president has vividly illustrated), but the only way to progress towards that is to periodically put the issues up front and make people look at them once again.
This movie is one more step in doing that.

I saw the previews for that movie last week and it struck me as - PHONY - these articles you supplied PROVE THAT! Your post/sites are WORTHY OF THEIR OWN THREAD. Do it!!!

Oprah liked it enough to have it in her book club.

I enjoyed the book immensely and am going to see the movie on Monday evening!

I loved both the book and the movie. It's a fictionalized story and while I fully admit to THIS story not being the complete story, it is nonetheless a great story of bravery. There are real sociological studies of black maids and domestics from that era in both the US South and South America if anyone is interested in getting into the nuts and bolts without a fictionalized veneer.

Here's a link to one site with some sources (this one is mostly South African domestics in white households but there are others)
http://gencen.isp.msu.edu/publications/b_domestic.htm

but full house at 1 PM showing Sunday afternoon. When we came out, 3 AA women
were first in line waiting to come in.

I don't get the problem with the story being set up as a white woman
writing the stories. So what? The point is that these women were Rosa Parks.

Personally, I encountered a woman from Jackson, Mississippi in the late 80's
who I heard call an AA woman a 'jungle bunny'. I had never in my life heard
such racist language tossed off without a thought. I'm sure she grew up
in a household just like the ones in the movie.

I fully expect to see Viola Davis nominated for an Academy Award. And I won't be
at all surprised if she wins.

Did anyone else get the connection with the name "Eugenia"? That was
Scarlett's and Rhett's daughter! Eugenia Victoria!

And the red dress Celia wears--like Scarlett's--when she's told
to go to Ashely's birthday party without Rhett--and the red
petticoat Rhett gives to Mammy. OMG. Loved it.

if "the help" was so kind (and I have no doubts they were), why did so many of the white children turn out to be sick fucking racists? I've never understood that.

"In the south can get close, but they can't get big; in the north they can get big, but they can't get close."

I think there's more truth to that statement than most people in the rest of the country would like to admit.

She's extremely cute in a down to earth way and seems like a really good person. Even if comedy is more her thing (Easy A was an awesome movie for what could've been a generic teen comedy).

She was a part of our family and strangely enough had the same last name, though we were not related.

I'll never forget her.

Here is an article from the Charlotte Observer today...

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/08/14/2527262/movie-mirrors-life-stories.html

Wonderful movie. The book was better, as is usually the case. That being said, this movie was damn close to following the book. I loved it...Oscar material in my opinion. Not a dry eye in the house. Oh, and by the way, all the characters were great but Minny NAILED her role!

sold out....