the help

So I watched the Help. And I cried a lot. I always cry when I watch this movie. I’m sure you do too, reader. It’s a really sad and inspiring movie. It’s also a movie that is rife with female empowerment and female friendship. And basically the different forms a bond can take between women, because we see a lot of different bonds in this movie, some healthy, some not.

If you want a little summary, here it is:

In 1960s Mississippi, Southern society girl Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns from college with dreams of being a writer. She turns her small town on its ear by choosing to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent white families. Only Aibileen (Viola Davis), the housekeeper of Skeeter’s best friend, will talk at first. But as the pair continue the collaboration, more women decide to come forward, and as it turns out, they have quite a lot to say.

We start the movie with Abileen Clark. She is this very even-voiced woman, and she tells us that she’s been taking care of babies since forever. She’s basically amazing at her job, because that’s all she’s done for twenty odd years. She cares for Elizabeth Leefolt’s family. Also she’s the one that spits out this freaking gem:

Basically telling this little girl that no matter what, you have to remember that you matter, because life is going to continuously try to convince you that you don’t.

We later move onto Minny Jackson. Abileen’s best friend and fellow maid. She works for Elizabeth’s friend Hilly. WE HATE HILLY. Hilly is the worst. She’s a racist bigot. She’s rude and plastic. But if the girl isn’t clever and conniving. A natural leader, even if she is the mean girl, she takes charge of her and her friend’s lives. And her husband kind of fears her. Because Hilly is real scary. Minny, however, we love Minny. Minny runs her mouth and has a really bad life, but she’s still got a sense of humor about her. And she’s so freaking strong. Her husband is abusive and she’s dirt poor, but she gets up everyday and she goes to her job where she basically works for the devil, and she gets it done. Mad respect for Minny.

And at last we have Skeeter.

Skeeter is a white friend of Hilly and Elizabeth’s, and she is somewhat of an anomaly around Jackson (Mississipi), considering that she graduated college with a double major and dreams of being a writer. She doesn’t have a husband and her mom is like, are you a lesbian? And Skeeter’s like, no? I just have aspirations. But Skeeter sees how her friends treat their help, and she starts to kind of resent it. So she starts talking to Abileen, who is like “this is very dangerous” and Skeeter, bless her heart, is like “why?”

But she figures it out. And they start writing a book. Skeeter wants to get it published, and she has a tight deadline, but only Abileen is willing to go out on a limb. Eventually Minny decides to get on the act, after she gets fired from Hilly’s house, for using the toilet. No joke.

But it’s all good because she goes to work with the sunshine itself, Miss Celia Foote. Celia Foote is the most adorable and kind person on the freaking planet, and Minny is just not used to that.

Anyway, so these three women (Minny, Skeeter, and Abileen), they all write this amazing book together. And it’s tragic and beautiful, and like most tragic and beautiful things, it is honest. We get a look into how friendship can be the base of which only good things can grow (with Minny and Abileen’s friendship) and we see unhealthy friendships with Hilly and her followers, who have always bowed to her and probably always will. But this book gives us complex women, who have real feelings of hopelessness and of sadness, but shows us that despite this all, they keep going.

Ahh this movie is so great at showing us different kinds of strong women. Skeeter is the kind of strong woman we kind of understand nowadays: the working woman, who has a career and puts that first and foremost. We see the strong, mean girl in Hilly, who despite all her evil, is still a mother and a member of the Junior League and does all this housewife stuff. Abileen and Minny are two women that lean on each other for support, even though one has a lost a son and the other is in an abusive relationship. We see them keeping motivated to do well for themselves and for their families.

And we see the strength in Celia Foote, who is not affected by color, or by the pettiness of others. She just wants to make sure Minny is always happy and comfortable.

So this movie really lets us see women who embody different traits, and allows us to experience them through different lenses.

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