For English Enhancement Subject UEC0121

1. Question 5
Race is not a neutral concept in The Help – 1960s Jackson, Mississippi is one heck of a segregated
society. Still firmly stuck in the Jim Crow era, there are strict rules, laws, and norms restricting the
lives of the black townspeople. These rules also restrict white people who want to cross the color
line.
This movie unflinchingly explores the worst of the false stereotypes about black people – that they
are lazy, dirty, carry diseases, and are in general less intelligent and less valuable than whites. This
movie shows how these fictions are woven into the fabric of everyday life in Jackson, from the
laws to ordinary conversations, and how these beliefs get passed from generation to generation. It
shows a deep mistrust of whites on the part of the black community, who have been betrayed by
them again and again. It also shows how powerful and how dangerous it can be to challenge the
stereotypes and dissolve the lines that are meant to separate people from each other on the basis of
skin color.
The Help also shows us the inner workings of a segregated society against the backdrop of the
growing US Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Although there is some variety in economic and
social class, race is the number one determinant of a person's place in Stockett's Jackson,
Mississippi. Race also determines who has access to educational, occupational, and economic
opportunity. Racial tensions are high as white community members employ violence and coercion
to try to keep the Civil Rights Movement from sweeping into their Mississippi town. At the same
time, it shows us how, against all odds, Skeeter, a white woman, daughter of a cotton family, joins
together with Aibileen and Minny, two black women who work as maids, to challenge the unfair
practices that make the lives of the town's black members so difficult.
Set against the volatile backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, The Help looks at how the white
community in a Mississippi town uses physical and other forms of violence against its black
citizens to try to stop the flow of change. It explores domestic and workplace violence through
Leroy's beating of Minny, Elizabeth's beating of Mae Mobley, and through the stories of the maids
who have been raped and brutalized on the job by their employers. When Hilly uses her influence
to have Yule May sentenced to four years in the state penitentiary, we can see how the legal and
penal systems can be used to inflict violence as well.

2. And the violence doesn't stop there – The Help also looks at the violence of laws and speech that
teach hate in the first place, and the power of loving speech to counteract all of that. Although
violence is always present in the novel, its major focus is on those kind and loving acts that work
to diffuse it. When we say diffuse it, we mean in the big-picture, long-term sense of the word. We
would argue that the book Help, featuring the stories of the Jackson maids, works to diffuse
violence by exposing it. But all of the women in the book are at risk of some severe repercussions
by telling their stories at all. Would you risk your life to bring something important before the
public eye?
Question 6
The lessons I learned was based on the character named Miss Celia. In the movie, Miss Celia is
shunned by the other women. She is a bit eccentric, not quite fitting in with the Jackson,
Mississippi culture, but as you get to know her she is quite likable, having her own trials and
triumphs. As I watched Miss Celia's story line play out, I realized everyone needs a friend.
Sometimes we let little oddities or social faux pas or our own insecurities get in the way of what
could be a great friendship. I felt re-dedicated to making sure that the people I associate with feel
included. Keep in mind that I said everyone needs a friend--and that includes Miss Hilly, the
woman in the movie you love to hate. Maybe if she had some true friends she wouldn't have been
as cruel. Or maybe not. But it doesn't hurt to try!
You cannot watch this movie and see how sweet Miss Aibileen was to little two-year-old Mae--
one of the 17 white children she had nannied - without remembering that children are precious. It
was a little said to see the white mothers leave the majority of their parenting to "the help", or the
black nannies. Now I'm sure that there are lots of mothers who are able to appreciate their children
and spend quality time with them despite needs for daycare or nannies. However, in this movie
parenting was portrayed as being left almost totally to the help. It made me want to come home
and hold my little guy. But I had to settle with just checking in on him since he was already asleep.
This story is tied together by Miss Skeeter, a white woman who collects stories from several black
women housekeepers, or the help, to expose the injustices of current societal laws and customs.
She has some trouble socially because she disagrees with the way the help are treated including
problems with her mother and a romantic breakup. Even though Miss Skeeter goes through a lot
of heartache to publish her book of stories, she shows courage to bring about social change. It's

3. take a brave person to stand up for injustices and stick to their values. What would the world be
like if we were all as courageous as Miss Skeeter?
The last lesson I'll share with you is another touching exchange between Miss Aibileen and little
Mae. Miss Aibiliene was constantly telling Mae, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important."
At the end of the movie, Mae is able to repeat this back to Miss Aibileen. What the takeaway
here? Positive affirmations help children feel their worth. All little children deserve to have loving
reassurances. We can truly have influence about how children feel about themselves. Let's use
our influence to help children be the best people they can be. They'll get plenty of messages
otherwise, we might as well encourage as many positive traits as possible.
Question 7
No one is wholly innocent or wholly evil.
Racism in the help is not a black and white issue, or a black vs. White issue. Some of the white
characters are genuinely good, and more are beautifully redeemed, like skeeter’s mom, charlotte
(allison janney). And not all the black characters are good. Minny’s husband leon beats her. Yule
mae davis (aunjanue ellis) steals from hilly. Even hilly, finally faced with the impotence of her
violence, crumbles before the empowered aibileen at the film’s close.
Too often we are tempted to vilify our enemies, to make them out to be monsters with no possibility
of redemption. But the help refuses to break the world into categories as nice and neat as “good”
and “evil”. We are all both, and therein lies the hope of redemption – for everyone.
Oppression destroys both the victim and the oppressor.
Though at first the world of The Help seems sharply divided into the white haves and black have-
nots, the powerful and the powerless, the oppressors and the victims, the distinctions quickly
become less clear.
1963 Jackson is still clearly a man’s world: in addition to Minny’s abusive husband*, Jackson’s
white women are clearly relegated to the domestic sphere. Despite Skeeter’s clear desire to become
a sucessful, professional female journalist, her entire community pressures her to find a husband
and settle down.

4. Minny’s own disdain for white women is overcome when she’s forced to seek employment from
Celia Foote, the lone white outcast from Hilly’s society. Why? Because she was white trash who
married up because she got pregnant. As Minny watches Celia’s oppression at the hands of the
same women who oppress her, she begrudgingly sympathizes with Celia. The two become friends
– against Minny’s will – and the feast Celia prepares for Minny at the film’s close will be
remembered as one of cinema’s most beautiful moments.
Two women discover that shared suffering unites them far more than their skin colors can divide
them.
That oppression creates a culture of dehumanization is nowhere more apparent than in the story
Skeeter’s mom Charlotte is finally forced to share. Skeeter returns from college to learn that her
own nanny, Constantine Jefferson (Cicely Tyson), no longer works for her mom. Near the close
of the film’s second act, Charlotte is finally forced to tell Skeeter that she fired Constantine, and
we watch the scene unfold with unflinching cruelty. Charlotte was hosting a dinner party for a
national club of which she’d just been elected a local president. Constantine – at least in her mid-
80s – made a mistake, and the national president – clearly Charlotte’s guest of honor – demanded
that Charlotte fire her.
Caught between the social web into which she’d embedded herself and the familial relationship
she’d developed with Constantine, Charlotte chose society and fired Constantine, who died a short
time later. The internal violence Charlotte experienced in this choice is etched in every line of her
face in the flashback, but is unleashed as a torrent of pain and shame as she confesses her sin to
Skeeter.
The help shows us that violent cultures don’t just hurt the victims. Even the oppressors are
damaged by the violence they enact. Oppression is a cancer that kills all of us.