ipl-logo

Gender Roles In The Help

1187 Words5 Pages

Dustiny Cyr (Belaski)
Mrs. Merrick
AP Language and Composition; Period 3
9 May 2016
AP Final: Essay
Directions:
TYPE OR PASTE YOUR ESSAY HERE

Chosen Essay Prompt:
Examine a popular movie in terms of gender roles, and write about it. In what ways do the characters reflect conventional roles, and in what ways do they step out of those roles?

The Help: Gender Roles The strive to reach gender equality can have the ability to influence individuals to band together for a single cause. In Tate Taylor’s movie The Help, Taylor displays accounts of gender roles among a group of African American and white individuals living in Jackson, Mississippi. Through his directing Taylor has allowed for the characters within The Help to come …show more content…

Taylor allows for his audience to become accustomed to the life of wealthy white families. Many women did not have the same wife/motherly responsibilities that mothers and wives in today 's society hold. In Tate Taylor 's The Help, when white families obtained enough wealth they could then have an opportunity to hire another minority (typically an African American minority) to take on all of the responsibilities that they deem as a burden. Given the opportunity, some white women typically still did not display respect for those who they hired. In The Help, the white men would typically be the ‘ backbone’ of their family not only providing financial support but societal status as well. Throughout the movie, the white women generally would stay at home and complete tasks and hobbies that they enjoyed participating. Usually assuming the roles of childbearing, many white women did not have a place within the working community. For years, a woman who pursued her education was seen as a threat. Although very few women went against these stereotypical roles, Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan became one of those exceptions. Graduating from college and pursuing a stable writing career Skeeter became both disliked and feared by many of the women within Jackson, Mississippi. Not wanting to simply become a child bearer for a man, Skeeter continuously pushed for a more promising …show more content…

During the 1960’s many American’s believed that a man stood as the ideal model for masculinity, dominance, and stability. However, women began to fight for their right to have the same equality as men granting them a slow but steady leap towards gaining equal rights. In Tate Taylor’s The Help, Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan, Aibileen Clark, and Minny Jackson are characters used in order to display women’s fight for feminism through the incorporation interracial strength. In the movie, Skeeter’s ability to work with Aibileen and Minny formed a big statement with the public due to her willingness to integrate her work with African American women. Although some may not have been aware of it, but Tate Taylor may have purposefully used the roles of these women in order to effectively capture women’s strive for feminism during the

Show More
Related
865 Words | 4 Pages

In comparison to the movie, the play undermines male dominance by focusing on women’s efforts to solve their own problems. First of all, there aren’t even men in the cast of the play,

Read More
1484 Words | 6 Pages

It is often said that a new definition of a woman arose in the 1920s. But is that true? While most women experienced many newfound freedoms in the 1920s, black women could not explore these freedoms as easily as white women. In the novel Passing by Nella Larsen, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry grew up in Chicago together and are now both two wives and mothers in New York City during the 1920s, but there is a big difference between them. The novel’s title refers to light-skinned black women masquerading as white women for social benefits.

Read More
1746 Words | 7 Pages

Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, attests to the hateful and cruel reality that is the life of African Americans in Jackson, Mississippi circa the 1960’s. Stockett writes many anecdotes surrounding the relationship between Constantine, an African American maid, and the child she cares for, Skeeter. Skeeter reflects upon a memory of Constantine and

Read More
1288 Words | 6 Pages

Her tragedy reflects not only the sexism in the African American families in early 20th century, but also the uselessness

Read More
1285 Words | 6 Pages

Each of these concepts are utilized at the advantage of men, and the disadvantage of women, and has shown to provide detrimental consequences and results for women in society. However, in this film, and other films by Tyler Perry, appear to take the added step to combat these aspects that are present in the media’s portrayal of women. While these are present in the movie, he often makes a point to combat it with an inverse portrayal of each

Read More
589 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, there are many characters that can be identified as an antagonist throughout the story. However, Hilly Holbrook is the most significant of them all. With her attitude towards colored people, her controlling personality, and the methods she uses in order to have her way, it is obvious that Ms. Hilly is a definite villain of this novel. In the novel, many white families, including Ms. Hilly’s, had hired African American maids to help them around the house.

Read More
1574 Words | 7 Pages

Nazish S. Quraishi Professor Ahmadi ENGL 101-13 10 January 2016 Courage Triumphs over Racism The film “The Help” (November 24, 2011) of genre historical fiction directed and scripted by Tate Taylor is a faithful adaptation of the bestseller novel The Help penned by Kathryn Stockett. It is a story about how three women team up to form an alliance and secretively work on a writing project that would be shunned otherwise. The film portrayed the time when segregation existed between the whites and the blacks to be specific in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. The film began with a flash-forward scene where Aibileen a black domestic maid is being interviewed, how it feels to work for a white family?

Read More
1584 Words | 7 Pages

The Help focuses on the story of a upper class writer that tries to find her social identity as well as others. With help from the maids of Jackson, Mississippi, they all overcome stereotypes and discrimination. Aibileen's story was the foundation idea for Skeeter because she had been through so much in her life that she decided to tell her story. The fact that she was black, and a woman the role of a maid for the upper class families were passed down from generations so she saw her fair share of being looked down upon. Being a part of the Black/African African race, there were certain things

Read More
1856 Words | 8 Pages

Skeeter is seen to develop in two different ways: a young woman who doesn 't have marriage as a first priority anymore and a woman who later sees an injustice to the black help. Skeeter is a white socialite who just graduated from college with a degree in writing. She came back to Jackson Mississippi with the idea of starting to write for book publishing companies but arrives home only for her mother to question her about marriage. Upon the many

Read More
1839 Words | 8 Pages

Cultural theories by Kathleen Rowe, Laura Mulvey and Stuart Hall can help the audience seek an explanation to how these stereotypical gender roles are portrayed in the movie and how it can create power for the specific

Read More
866 Words | 4 Pages

“ Courage sometimes skips a generation. Thank-you for bringing it back to our family”. The Help shows that courage is needed to bring about change. ‘Discuss Tate Taylor’s film The Help is set in the early 1960’s of Jackson, Mississippi.

Read More
696 Words | 3 Pages

The Help (2011) directed by Tate Taylor, is an inspirational, courageous and empowering story about Southern women in the 1960s. It's the story of the help: the black maids of Jackson, Mississippi, and the relationship with their white employers. The central theme of the film is courage, and how the characters embrace courage to overcome obstacles and fight for social justice. Whether it is their ability to deviate from in-group norms, or overcome fear, courage is essential throughout the characters' journeys. In this essay, I will analyse the situations endured by the characters, and how they respond to these situations with courage.

Read More
1084 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel The Help, Stockett writes about the lives of the African American women working for the prominent white families and the trial and tribulations that they have encountered. The African American women are the people who are taking care of the white families home and children while being disrespected and unappreciated by their boss. “I’d like to write this showing the point of view of the help. The colored women down here.' I tried to picture Constantine's face, Aibileen's. '

Read More
3436 Words | 14 Pages

1.0 INTRODUCTION The Help is an example of American drama film. It was released in August 9, 2011 and its length was 146 minutes and directed by Tate Taylor. The film was adapted to a novel, where there has been a long tradition of African- American women serving as “The Help” for upper-middle class white woman and their families. Descriptions of historical events of the early activities of thecivil rights movement are peppered throughout the novel, as are interactions between the maids and their white employers.

Read More
610 Words | 3 Pages

Black women are treated less than because of their ascribed traits, their gender and race, and are often dehumanized and belittled throughout the movie. They are treated like slaves and are seen as easily disposable. There are several moments throughout the film that show the racial, gender, and class inequalities. These moments also show exploitation and opportunity hoarding. The Help also explains historical context of the inequality that occurred during that time period.

Read More

More about Gender Roles In The Help

Related Topics

Open Document