It's hard to dislike a movie like "The Help." Yes, it depicts black people in a way that many would rather not see, but it's full of romantic hope about the possibility of racial co-existence. This is what has people ooh-ing and aah-ing over the book and movie. It does a very good job of glossing over the bad parts, leaving people with memories of funny lines rather than a recollection of what it was possibly like to be black and living in Jackson, Mississippi during the era of the Civil Rights Movement. For example, as I was leaving the theater, a group of teenage girls walking ahead of me could not stop repeating the lines of the movie. You know, the part where Minny brings Hilly the chocolate pie and tells her to "eat my s***" after Hilly has eaten two slices. The Association of Black Women Historians was right when it stated that the movie trivializes the black experience and resurrects the mammy stereotype. It's sad that all anyone could remember after about 146 minutes and possibly reading the book, was the fact that the black maid pooped in her former employers pie.

Before I launch into my treatise about how "The Help" is truly no help at all, I would like to state that it is my humble opinion that the real problem people have with the book is the fact that it was written by a white woman. How dare she think she knows anything about having to serve a white family? Write the characters' dialogue in dummy English like they were unintelligent? And then dare to put in a passage about being raised by a black maid/slave? It's a shame that we live in a world where any and everything is under serious scrutiny just in case someone might have racist intentions. It is from this scrutiny that phenomena such as the 'token black' have been born. No matter how hard an advertiser tries, there will always be someone out there thinking, "Why couldn't that have been a black lady in that commercial?" The fact remains however, that it is very difficult to answer questions about the possibility that a white woman could ever understand the power inequalities and racial dynamics of black women in positions of subservience. One can try to be like Skeeter, kind and sympathetic to the plight of the less fortunate, but claiming to understand completely a situation that one has never experienced, smacks of haughty know-it-all-ness.

First, I will focus on the book since it is the original and has a lot more content than the movie. There are so many things wrong with it, ranging from historical inaccuracies to questions about how much research Ms. Stockett did before she embarked on her literary journey. In defense of her book, Stockett has claimed that she did not seek to write a historically accurate account of the events surrounding the civil rights movement, and so, in other words, she has the right to do whatever in hell she feels like. In answer to that, I can only ask, why would anyone write a book centered around such an important piece of history without caring to properly record the details? To me, her nonchalance shows an attitude of disinterest as far as black people are concerned. This isn't a comic book or some horrible teenage fantasy about vampires and werewolves! Are black people not as important? This undoubtedly prompts questions as to whether Stockett would have had the same attitude if the movie was about white history.

And then there's the juxtaposition of that historical period and present history. Why is the most popular movie about black people at the time when we finally have a black president, one depicting black people in such a manner? As with every other movie that I have seen which was supposedly about black people (except 'The Color Purple' of course), why does this story focus so much on the lives of the white people? Minny and Aibileen are the only ones that we really do hear about or see. The rest of the story pretty much revolves around Skeeter. Her struggle to become a writer, her relationship with Stuart, her daily battle of wills against her mother. Take Leroy for instance. We never see him even though he's the husband of a major character. In the book, his abuse of Minny is a recurrent issue, but in the movie it's mentioned maybe once or twice.

I don't know much about black history and so I cannot comment much on the claim that the movie distorts and belittles the experiences of black domestic workers; or the depiction of the “mythical stereotype of black women as asexual, loyal, and controlled caretakers of white people.” One thing I do have a problem with, is the fact that the black characters are depicted as being a lot weaker-willed than they seemed in the book. With the exception of Minny, every other maid is docile and almost grateful to their white masters, “Yes ma’am”-ing and flinching at every uncivil word.

I cannot have summed up my thoughts about "The Help" in a better way than the ABWH did, and so I will borrow words from the official statement written to fans of the book –”

In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.”