The American Spectator : The Help

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The Help

By James Bowman on 10.5.11 @ 6:02AM

Liberal-mindedness at its most condescending and self-regarding.

What a good thing, I'm sure we can all agree, that oppressed black people in Mississippi in 1963, though they lost Medgar Evers, were saved in the end by that cute white girl just out of Ole Miss called Skeeter. What? You don't remember that part of the story? That's because Skeeter is a figment of the imagination of Kathryn Stockett who was born too late for the heroic days of the civil rights movement and projects her own girlish liberalism and compassion for black suffering, not to mention her own literary ambition, onto the imaginary Skeeter, a cub reporter in charge of the cleaning-tips column for housewives of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. Skeeter, though beset with boyfriend problems and racist girlfriend problems and a mother with cancer, not to mention a missing black nanny about whose fate her mother is maddeningly vague, makes the sort of contribution to racial progress that she, Ms. Stockett, would doubtless have made, if only she had had the opportunity, back in the day.

As this fictional contribution comes in the form of a book called The Help (just like Ms. Stockett's book) telling what purport to be the untold stories of Mississippi's black female servants (just like Ms. Stockett's book) -- a book which she dashes off as her brilliant literary debut resulting in fame and fortune (just like Ms. Stockett's book) -- we can hardly avoid seeing the thing as politically correct wish-fulfillment fantasy. Which it undoubtedly is. Not that that appears to matter to anybody. What is interesting to me about the phenomenon of Ms. Stockett's block-busting best-seller and, now, the Dreamworks film that has been made out of it by Tate Taylor is the extent to which people these days are prepared to accept what I regard as an outrageous interpretation of this bloody and eventful chapter of American history as a journalistic romance, just like Vietnam or Watergate.

If, like most people, you get your history from the newspapers, you may well believe that David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan (and Daniel Ellsberg) of the New York Times were the heroes of Vietnam, just as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post were the heroes of Watergate. Thus, perhaps, you will be easily persuadable that it must have been some journalist revealing discreditable secrets who can best be cast in the role of the hero (or at least a hero) of the civil rights movement -- in spite of the fact that we have always known the evils of segregation and racism in the South were no secret even to those who fought so hard to prolong and uphold them. Doubtless there were lots of respectable white folks, like all the ones in this movie apart from Skeeter (Emma Stone) and the beautiful but vulnerable social outcast Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), who were willfully blind to details of the sufferings and indignities endured by their black servants, but this was more of a symptom than a cause of those sufferings and indignities.

At any rate, the idea that these could have been alleviated by being poured into the sympathetic ear of a 20-something budding journalist, as interested in finding a boyfriend and in writing for New York glamour magazines as in her subjects, is ludicrous. As for the film's central episode involving the serving of a chocolate pie with unmentionable contents (though here they are unfortunately mentioned) to the racist witch Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard), Skeeter's ex-best friend, by her former cook, Minnie (Octavia Spencer), in retaliation for the latter's dismissal after using the white folks' bathroom instead of venturing outside in a hurricane to the more Spartan accommodations provided for their colored help -- well, let's just say that it lacks a certain something as a symbolic embodiment of racial conflict in the Jim Crow South before the age of enlightenment in which we are nowadays so lucky to be living.

That we cling so hard to this belief in our own enlightenment is one reason why that unbelievable incident, like the unbelievable movie as a whole, is apparently taken seriously by the throngs jamming the multiplices to see it. Like Ms. Stockett and the makers of the movie version of her book, too many of us are more proud of our own liberal-mindedness than we are interested in the truth about those who lived before liberal-mindedness became so readily and cheaply available to us as it is today. That's why the liberalism of The Help has a sort of rote quality to it. The movie even throws in an anticipation of the self-esteem movement as black nanny Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) teaches her neglected white charge: "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." You is doing the child no favors, lady. But there's some more folk wisdom for you from the latest of Hollywood's favorite Magic Negroes. Such smugness, it's true, is not so bad as bigotry and racism, but neither is it all that much more attractive.

About the Author

James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (44) | Leave a comment

Moe Blotz| 10.5.11 @ 8:50AM

Right in. Too many of the beneficiaries of our public indoctrination centers (schools) will accept the movie verbatim and not bother to research the period in order to glean the truth. How many Americans still believe the Costner depiction of what happened on the grassy knoll?

PaulyD| 10.5.11 @ 9:28AM

Conservatives might win the political war, for a time. But we lost the cultural war long ago. The entertainment industry does far more damage than the Liberal media.

squalis| 10.5.11 @ 8:47AM

OK, so it's a piece of fiction. Have we arrived at a point, however, when we can't enjoy a funny and sad story? I mean, I really didn't buy in the the sh.t pie thing, and I didn't believe Darth Vader was real. Yes, I hate their politics, but I will continue to listen to Springsteen and I will see some of Sean Penn's movies in the future. I still think his role in "Mystic River" is one of the most powerful recorded on film.

Hung Right| 10.5.11 @ 9:03AM

Yeah, "Mystic River" was pretty good, but not nearly as fascinating as Penn's real life biopic, "Offering my Mouth to Hugo." You don't need to be a Chavista to love it...

squalis| 10.5.11 @ 10:01AM

Comedy is an essential part of life.

Walter | 10.5.11 @ 10:29AM

HaHaHa, I like it.

Timothy L. Pennell| 10.5.11 @ 8:59AM

You might also think that Joseph McCarthy never found any Communists, let alone, one working in the White House. Or, that, the Founding Fathers were just a bunch Slave Owners, who only counted Blacks, as 3/5ths of a person, because they hated them so much.
You might think that the Indians were a bunch Peace Loving Geniuses. Or that, Mexico, really owns the United States.
You might learn that we dropped the Atomic Bombs on Japan, because they were Yellow, and that, we provoked them in to attacking us, with our Metal Embargo.
There's all kinds of things you can LEARN from the Liberal Sages, with the Cameras.
Who can forget: SYRIANA. With the CIA being the ones promulgating all of the Arab Violence. Or, all of the Movies depicting our Troops as Rapists, and Sadists, and Psychotic Cold Blooded Murderers of innocent Men, Women, and Children.
But, don't worry. Our kids aren't learning all of their History, from a Screen.
They learn the same stuff in their Classrooms, too.

Bill| 10.5.11 @ 9:04AM

"The Help" often stepped in where the parents were absent, to say necessary things such as, "Don't pick on your little sister or I'll slap the white right off you."

Rita| 10.7.11 @ 12:12AM

That's nice.

gearjammer| 10.5.11 @ 9:23AM

Any scenes where the ladies get nekked. I don't watch less they have that.

Nancy in NC| 10.5.11 @ 9:29AM

I read "The Help" and enjoyed it.

Anyone with two brain cells knows there are good and bad in all races. (Unfortunately, all the blacks in the book were good, and most of the whites were bad.) But I don't make my decisions on what I think from what I read in fiction.

Too bad more parents are not teaching their kids to do some critical thinking, and expect the schools to do it. It ain't happening.

Chris| 10.5.11 @ 9:31AM

I couldn't get past the first two paragraphs. One run-on sentence after another. This from an "essayist?" Any editors out there to check bad grammar?

PhilTheCapitalistPig| 10.5.11 @ 9:35AM

HAHAHAHA!!! Thank you Mr. Bowman.. Finally! Someone will tell it like it is..

First let me say I am a white person.

Now, with that being said, I'm so sick and tired of Hollywood making movies about black people getting in a bind and these wonderful white people come and save them.. Seriously, and Americans are suckers for this same tired storyline every darn time.

"What would we do without these wonderful white people to come save us?"

Give. Me. A. Break.

disdainedconstituent| 10.5.11 @ 1:50PM

Your comment reminded me of when "Roots" first came to tv.

My family is Caucasian. One of my stupid sisters was so guilt-ridden after the movie, that she said, "I hate all white people!"

Fortunately, she grew up and wised up and voted against Obama.

USSAlabama| 10.5.11 @ 10:00AM

I won't be going to see this or reading the book. I lived here in Alabama all of my life and remember far too much to watch anyone try to act Southern, much less portray any realistic depiction of historic vignette.

These types of movies are rote. Too many over the decades. If they are to make whitey feel good, what does it do for blacks?

Twisting history doesn't help any of us. As long as people prefer watching movies to reading books, movies will continue to do an excellent job of rewriting history, for that is the mode by which it is now being learned.

And we all know who is making them.

Daniel| 10.5.11 @ 10:08AM

I don't agree with this review. Certainly the movie has its flaws: too many characters are simple caricatures, it was a bit too long, and we don't really understand why or how Skeeter and Hilly took such different paths. But I liked it as a tribute to the women who worked hard and helped raise others' children but never got the thanks and credit they deserved. Skeeter's book gave the maids a chance to tell their stories, both good and bad, and in some way receive respect as human beings and children of God. I don't think it suggested that Skeeter saved them or drove the Civil Rights movement by writing her book, just that she was independent-minded and did something decent. Also, for a change, it's nice to see a movie where a church is shown in a positive light as a force for good.

Walter | 10.5.11 @ 10:25AM

Even today racism and segregation are hot topics in the southern states . I couldn't care less about this book but this article was an interesting read. Was there ever any segregation north of the Mason/Dixon? If so, when did it completely evaporate? If anybody can answer these questions honestly I would be interested in finding out.

PCC| 10.5.11 @ 2:52PM

Dear Walter,

There was no segregation north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Next question, please.

JP| 10.5.11 @ 3:27PM

I agree, no segregation in the north. They never had ethnic neighborhoods. I remember too the 1974 battles on busing in Alabama. Oh wait, that was Boston.

Mike Giles| 11.30.11 @ 3:07PM

Of course there were ethnic neighborhoods. The majority of the immigrants who came to the US, came to the northeast and the midwest. They often settled in neighborhoods where people of similar backgrounds, religions and tastes lived. What you didn't have in the north was segregation as the law of the land. You might get into trouble wandering into the wrong neighborhood in the Boston. However, you wouldn't get arrested for trying to eat at a lunch counter in Boston.

Alice Moore| 10.5.11 @ 10:30AM

I've seen the movie and have read the book. We the reader or viewer can vicariously live through Skeeter; the Great White Daughter. Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Act? No! It was a plucky White patrician girl of Mississippi that bravely published the accounts of angelic Black women domestics. Minnie was even able to redeem the modern day Mayella Ewell.

The caricature role of Hilly played by Bryce Dallas Howard also served to make the audience feel good about themselves. Even Maleficient in Disney's Snow White could walk out of the theater and say, "See, I'm not that bad!"

loulou| 10.5.11 @ 10:31AM

I can tell without reading the book or seeing the movie that this is pure apcray.

Don't tell me--Morgan Freeman was the wise black man who had to advise the stupid racist white girls. Am I right?

Helen| 10.5.11 @ 10:45AM

While I agree with most of your hind- sight comments I think Ms Stockton captured the essence of the south at that point in time. While there are many things we, as southerners, should be ashamed of re the past., to rewrite history is a disservice to all.. These were the relationships of blacks and whites in the 60s. I can remember my father getting out of bed and driving at 2:oo in the morning to pick up and take our black. "colored," housekeeper to the hospital and then bring her to our house to spend the night after her husband had viciously beaten her. Yes, there were many injustices in the South of the 60s but there were also many human kindnesses . White women were also amongst the downtrodden as they were often uneducated and depended upon husbands to provide. It was a man's world albeit a white one. That was then and this is now. Stokton has written an honest piece.

PolishKnight| 10.5.11 @ 11:20AM

Versus the progress of the Southern white woman today who is portrayed on Jerry Springer as on welfare with her slackjawed boyfriend cheating with a transsexual stripper.

Under which stereotype were Southern women better off?

J.C.Eaton| 10.5.11 @ 1:34PM

Why is a fine, young Polish lad watching Jerry Springer?

Tina B| 10.6.11 @ 10:02PM

LMFAO, J.C. you are . . .a hoot.

Al Adab| 10.5.11 @ 11:29AM

What is sad is the fact that here we are discussing a movie as though it had any relevance to some issue of today. I have not, and will not, see it as I chose not to encourage this industry with my money.

That a movie attempts to take a nostalgic look at a bad time and somehow portray it in light of current "left think" to make some current political point seems absurd. Does no one remember the burning cities, the destruction of the black communities (Detroit never recovered) and the overall divisive bitterness that the era engendered? Whatever good the "civil rights movement" may have done, the downside overwhelms it. The aqccomplishments and progress in race relations over the last fifty years - and yes it is much better today- happened in spite of not because of those events. That we now have a political party demagoguing the issue for its own advantage is dispicable and the incessant use of "racist" unforgivable.

Dr. X| 10.5.11 @ 11:48AM

Racial issues in the U.S. have absolutely nothing to do with race. If the White majority wants to make the 13% Negro minority pick cotton without pay, than that is what shall happen. If on the other hand the White majority wishes to canonize all Negroes and civil-rights activists as the embodiment of perfection and goodness and holiness, then that is what shall happen -- and is happening.

Racial issues in this country are about one class of whites demonstrating their supposed moral superiority and supposed sophistication over another class of whites, the symbol of which is the Bible-thumping, gun-toting, pick-up driving, toothless Klansmen of the South. In 2011 the latter class is obviously a straw man and a caricature used to maintain the self-referential morality fable in which the White anti-racist sophisticate is always the hero.

Just don't ever bother to read the FBI Uniform Crime Reports... or read Obama's autobiography or listen to his pastor... or look at what just happened to the Harris family in Chicago, or the whole myth will unravel.

Seek| 10.5.11 @ 1:27PM

Racial issues in this country have everything to do with race -- a pathologically violent black race and the whites who, as a whole, are terrifed of offending them for fear of being physically assaulted or called a "racist."

Mike Giles| 11.30.11 @ 3:22PM

Blacks are no more "pathologically violent" than whites are. For some reason, no one seems to ascribe organized crime, the St Valentine's Day Massacre, the murderous street gangs of 19th century America or the crime spree of the Depression era hoodlums to "pathologically violent" whites. From white people throwing other white people into gas chambers and ovens, to yellow people slaughtering other yellow people at Nanking, to black people butchering other black people in Rwanda, race has nothing to do with being a vicious thug.

CalMark| 10.5.11 @ 1:44PM

The hate and racism attributed to white people was the pride and joy of southern Democrats. This hate and racism was so ingrained in their rotten little souls that they even formed a political party (which actually won electoral votes) specifically to maintain segregation.

Today, the descendants of those hateful racists belong to the same Democrat party, and are now busily engaged in sanitizing their parents' and grandparents' hate. Oh, the irony.

joshuire550| 10.5.11 @ 2:13PM

I can definitely identify with the concept of how enlightened we think we are. Believing as I do in the immutable truth that all men are created equal, I recently commented to an elderly black couple that I'm naive enough to believe that we can all live together. The wife, suddenly sporting a nervous look, said no; the husband shook his head in agreement with her.
Our Machiavellian president probably counted on such exchanges to get himself elected.

Dave| 10.5.11 @ 2:26PM

Liberalism is a menatal disease and should be treated through repeated blows to the head.

Oldefarte| 10.5.11 @ 3:22PM

As one who was born and raised just forty five miles north of where the Clarion-Ledger was published [and who has not read this book, seen the movie or EVER INTENDS TO DO SO], I can attest to the probable BULLEXCREMENT contained in same from a personal witness standpoint. No doubt, both will be the total garbage of liberalism that Hollywood etc conveniently paints in their propagandized brainwashing known as creative license of literature. For every fabricated indoctrination of falsehood contained within the pages or clips of this putrisism, I could easily account for a hundred stories of kindness, generosity, and moral behavior by the white citizens of that area toward their black fellow citizens. Was the supposedly crimes of humanity occurring during those times rectified by 1954's Brown vs Bd. of Ed.? With the current 25+% unemployment [compared to 10% non-black] among the black population [due mainly to non-dedication by blacks to education from PUBLIC schools attending by all races], I'd venture to say that their economic situations are only slightly improved from the foregone era represented by this Hollywood cesspool material!!!!!!!!!

Mike Giles| 11.30.11 @ 3:31PM

Oldefarte;
If you want to see a good film, I suggest Waiting for Superman. See it before you lay all the problems of blacks and public schools on the black students and their parents, and a perceived "lack of desire".

kwinterkorn| 10.5.11 @ 6:59PM

An irony I noticed recently, on hearing about Herman Cain's background, is that this movie is about his mother and father, generically speaking. Imagine if all the liberals had to put up with the children of the help becoming excellent conservatives, like Cain.

PCP Smoker| 10.5.11 @ 7:30PM

it was all right. A little bit funny, some magic negro stuff, and tons of white guilt. The fictional "vote for Obama" message at the end was nice too

Crack Smoker| 10.5.11 @ 8:40PM

I found it rather sad: completely lacking in any inter-racial lesbian group sex involving trangressive cross-class maid-matron/dominant-subordinant/passive-active/phalic-yonic taboos. Author and director are clearly victims of some heavy-duty thought hegemony. Sucks for them.

POST American| 10.5.11 @ 11:21PM

-----------------BOTTOMLESS LINE-------------------

'90's Show' DIS---traction ---ALERT!---

MEANWHILE, franchise slum Hollywood,
having, apparently, successfully 'eased us
past' not only the yet unfolding RED Chinese
Halocaust-----AND 4 decades of deliberate,
systematic, broad daylight Globalist TREASON
---but seamlessly 'overlooked' the 30th, 40th, 50th,
and now 60th Anniversaries of the awesomely relevant,
EUGENICS 'unfriendly' --KOREAN WAR.

------Great work boys! -----Keep it up!

Mary Mayes| 10.6.11 @ 4:22PM

Thanks for the great review. I'm a southern girl who grew up with "help" in the household, and it was a wonderful childhood. Now I know not to waste my time reading this book and having to be irritated by a liberal's portrait of the southern life.

Mike Giles| 11.30.11 @ 3:42PM

Ms. Mayes;
Perhaps as a Southerner, you can answer the question of whether the entire black servant and the bathroom thing strikes you as odd. It has been my experience that white Southerners are far more comfortable being physically around blacks, than white Northerners are. To quote the comedian Dick Gregory on black/white relationships in the old south:"In the South, whites didn't care how close you got, as long as you didn't get too big. In the North, whites didn't care how big you got, as long as you didn't get to close." That entire episode strikes me as a Northern attitude, unfairly ascribed to Southerners.

Rita| 10.6.11 @ 11:45PM

I've given up on popular culture as a source of entertainment. It's as didactic as medieval church art: indoctrinating "illiterates" into the faith; in today's case, multi-culti liberalism. The brain dead repitition in all media and cultural institutions of simplistic socialist propaganda has crowded out intellectual inquiry and creativity for much of the last century on into the current one. I didn't have to read the book or see the movie reviewed here because the themes/messages are always the same, and numbingly predictable. Apparently, "social justice" means that none of us can aspire to anything more intellectually stimulating than Oprahfied sentimentality, i,e., the mental common denominator.

Eleni Antonaropoulou| 1.14.12 @ 5:32AM

www.unsungfilms.com
The Help
The Help” is a bestselling book written by Kathryn Stockett, which was rejected more than 60 times by literary agents and publishers before finally getting printed. I read the book around the same time the film was being shot, and when I found out about the imminent adaptation I couldn’t really imagine how it was going to work, and I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy.

It’s always tricky trying to get a book onto the big screen, especially books which have had a huge impact on their audience. After reading the novel, it was clear that “The Help” was a particularly special case.

Reading the book, I quickly developed a great admiration for the author’s originality. One of the hardest things to achieve as a writer is the creation of different and believable characters. In this case, the author tells the story through two black maids, and through these characters, Stockett cleverly gives a voice to two people whose voices were seldom heard. Through their story, she succeeds in criticizing a whole conservative and racist society. Black maids raise white kids, while they are not allowed to use the same bathroom. The characters are well structured, showing that everyone has a story to tell and the only thing left to do is listen. The author manages to illuminate this beautifully.

On the other hand, watching the movie disappointed me somewhat. There was nothing clearly wrong with it – generally it came across as a touching and funny film. The problem being that for me, the book was a whole lot more. The casting was adequate and everybody approached their character in the best possible way, but something was missing. The screenplay felt like a light and humorous take on the book, failing to convey the true weight of the story.

The movie wasn’t bad in any way. As a movie it was good. As an adaptation it was lacking. It lacked the spirit of the book, the emotional impact that so often left you speechless. When I read the book, I recommended it highly, while the movie didn’t leave me as excited.