The Help Movie

Movie Essay Assignment: The Help (2011)

“The Help” is a movie written by Tate Taylor. It is based on a novel by Kathryn Stockett. The movie is about young white woman, Skeeter, who wants to write about life of black maids. The first maid to contribute to that novel is Aibileen. Later, her friend Minny joins. At that time, black people were organizing a movement (later called African-American Civil Rights movement) that had for a primary goal equality between races. The movie is placed in Jackson, Mississippi. The whole action is intertwined with The Civil Rights Movement.

It all starts with maid talking with someone about her life. After she has been asked about her son, she said that she doesn’t want to talk about it. Then the action goes

Working for Hilly, Minny experienced lots of humiliation. Once, when the tornado hit Jackson, her toilet outside was ruined. Hilly’s mother told her to go to the inside one, but Hilly was against it. As soon as she heard Minny flushing the toilet, she fired her. The next day, Minny called Aibileen and told her that she went to Hilly’s house and “got her back” because she was telling everybody that Minny steals. At this point, we don’t know what Minny did, we find that out later. While she was on the phone with Aibileen, her husband Leroy came home and started hitting her. I can guess that he was drunk. I am sure that he didn’t find out that she lost her job because he would kill her. Eventually, she found a job working for Celia. Celia is a white girl that married Hilly’s ex-boyfriend. She is nice to Minny and she wants to learn how to cook from her, but there was the catch-her husband must not know about Minny. He found out soon, but he didn’t mind it and kept it as a secret. At the end of the movie, he welcomes Minny in his home and at his table. Minny helps Celia to get over third miscarriage and gives her consolation. When Hilly finds out that Celia hired Minny, she decides to completely kick her out of her “club”. Later, we find out about that thing Minny did when she said “I got her back”. Minny baked a pie for Hilly to apologize for

The second character that I found strong was Celia. She does not fit into this society and she desperately tries to. When she finally saw the truth, she became happier. I liked the movie because the main focus was on black maids, but we are aware of The Movement. We are aware of everything else that happens, the killing, the riots and the fear. We see that black kids don’t have any education; Minny’s asks her kids why do they hold novel if they don’t know how to read. Not just life of blacks, we see how white women are expected to have kids soon as they get married, they need to know how to cook even though the maids cook for them. Also, husbands are always at work. The movie did not have a classic happy ending, there was lots of pain too. That is not a surprise because nothing can be solved with one novel, it just marks one victory in the endless