In the movie The Help, Tate Taylor, the director, paradoxically explores racism as a social crisis in the American society. Everybody is free to make choices in life but the path that an individual takes has a profound effect. Taylor carefully manicures the awful relationship between the black and white persons using talented actors like Emma Stone, Viola Spencer, and Octavia Spencer in the movie.
Enthusiastically, he describes the laughs, hates, and cries that culminate into racism when the white families interact with the black families. Taylor presents the disgusting treatment, torturing, and killing of the black people in the broad daylight without the law taking its course. For instance, he focuses on house helps Viola Spencer (Aibileen) and Octavia Davis (Minny), who despite struggling to clean, wash, and babysit children from the white families; their lives do not change for the better.
Meager salaries, failed relationships, and harsh treatment from their bosses motivate them to be silently resentful. Therefore, The Help, a soul-stirring film, digs into civil rights movement/activists, racism, and tension between people of different races.
Besides Aibileen and Minny being the major characters, Taylor uses Skeeter as an important character (a White woman) to condemn racism. Although the whites are the perpetrators of racial prejudice, Skeeter not only decides to search for her childhood black house help, but also socially bonds with the present blacks. Skeeter’s main aim of associating with the black women is to use them as a conduit to seize the opportunity, as the best writer.
Fortunately, she wins the trust of Aibileen and Minny albeit the trust is cut short when the blacks discover she is writing stories about them in her notebook. Through her interaction with the black women, Skeeter breaks the laws, traditions, and customs, which revolve around the two communities. Her aim is to reveal the struggles, sufferings, and social obstacles that black women face.
Thus, her character as trustworthy, loving, and non-discriminatory reveals that although the white community promotes racism, a few of them secretly condemn the vice. Although Taylor’s film is likeable, the weakest point of the movie is when he drags in Skeeter, a white, to achieve his thematic element (racism).
The film is about the social life of African-American women but the inclusion of white women, especially Skeeter, draws in biasness. Taylor seems to show the audience that the film cannot be a success without having a white person among the main characters. Furthermore, at the initial stages of the film, he solely concentrates on Skeeter rather than Aibileen and Minny to achieve condemn racism.
The personal rating of the film is excellent mainly because of its physical, emotional, and social attachment. Finally, the movie is necessary for families and people who are eager to incinerate and cast out the devil of social prejudice, which is still a thorn in the flesh in the contemporary society. Emotionally, the film draws tears, laughter, and cheers, which are interesting parts for an individual to watch.
In conclusion, through careful exposition on the origin and impact of racism in the society, Taylor quietly condemns the people, groups, and leaders who promote the vice in the world. Although the inability to use solely African-American women to prove racism seems to be Taylor’s weakest part in the film, he achieves his aim of casting out social prejudice among the different races in the world. Therefore, The Help is a film that all households should watch.
Works Cited
Taylor, Tate, dir. The Help. DreamWorks SKG, 2011. Film.