The Help

Way back in the day I was my own webmaster. I created Wam's Movie Spot, where I wrote reviews on films like The Matrix, Wild Wild West, and Ever After. Feel free to visit the still-existing site, but be warned that I just found out that it is still out there as cyber junk on angelfire, and it has a lot of broken links and images. I moved on quickly and hosted it under my own domain name for about two years, and that more refined website is gone. However, you will get to read a lot of ramblings about movies. I was a teenager when I made the site. I loved writing, and movies were something I could write about. These days, I still love writing (obviously) and movies, and I probably go to them too often.

So, why have I brought all of this up? Because I'm going to go back to my movie reviewing days and talk a little bit about The Help. This isn't really so much a review like I did all those years ago, but really a reflection on some of the issues the story brings up.

Let me preface this by saying that I have not yet read the book, despite my love for reading. I hope to do so soon, but I'm naively waiting for it to come down in price after it jumped with the release of the movie, but I might just jump that ship soon and get it anyway.

The story behind The Help is a young woman trying to break into a literary career during the 1950s. She has a job at a newspaper, but dreams of more. She sees the injustices going on towards the African American women, who are only 'the help' in so many people's eyes. So, after a chain of events, she is able to get these women to speak to her and share their stories about being the maids, caretakers, cooks, and any other role that might be necessary in their line of work.

The movie has provoked a lot of discussion with my family. I had classes in high school and college that taught me all of the bad things that happened to good people during the time of racial segregation, and I especially know that discrimination still exists and will not be going away soon, no matter how much people wish for that to happen. That being said, I don't think about these things on a daily basis. Seeing this movie brought back all of those ideas and emotions for me, and I learned more from the film, like how even in private residences white people tried to keep their toilets separate from the toilets of their staff. Yes, this film was a work of fiction, but it was based on many women's realities, and I'm glad that times have progressed in the past 50 or so years.

On the ride home from the movie, my mom told some stories about her past. Apparently, one of my great-grandmothers would always call African Americans 'darkies'. Also, while my mom grew up in the 60s and 70s, she felt that she was often discouraged from hanging around black boys, even on purely platonic terms.

Then, I went to my grandparents' house the weekend after seeing the film. My grandmother had read the book, but not the movie, and she shared some simple stories with me about that time period. Living in Northern Missouri is nothing compared to how things were in Mississippi, but they still weren't as progressive as areas in larger cities. My great-grandparents had a huge farm that sprawled as far as the eye could see. Back then, in the 50s or so, they owned that land, but they also had a lot of black people living on the land. The way my mom and grandmother have described it to me is that these people worked as farm-hands, or they just worked a little plot of land near their homes, and just lived on the farm, likely with no charge to them. Their homes were not much more than shacks, and they didn't really earn much money, but they didn't seem to want for anything more. They just lived their lives.

Most of these people were illiterate. The two that my grandmother told me the most about were Perry Elder and his wife. My great-grandparents would buy groceries occasionally for the Elders, and even though Mrs. Elder couldn't read, she would copy the letters off of the packages of the items that she needed the best she could. I was told that the one thing she needed every trip was a package of cough drops, which she ate as her candy.

My grandmother told me that Mr. Elder would come for dinner at their house sometimes. He always refused to eat with my grandparents in the kitchen, and always waited until they were finished before he would eat. My mother was a baby around that time, and he apparently just loved her. She would sit in her high chair and they would entertain each other while he ate. My grandmother said he would tell her jokes, and just laugh and laugh, which often made my mother burst into a fit of giggles too.

While my mother was still a toddler, if even that old, Mr. Elder passed away in his home. His wife was arrested, even though his death was of natural causes. When my great-grandparents found out about this, they pitched a fit! Mrs. Elder was taken from her home against her will for no good reason, and then she had no real way to get back to her home once she was released. My mother guesses that my great-grandparents went to the jail to bring her home, but we're not really sure how she made her way back.

I found it interesting to hear these stories from the past, and I thought I should share them. The past is always there, and it's good to not forget so that the same injustices can be recognized in the future. I'd love to hear some of your stories, too!