The Help (2011)

I watched The Help last night, part of a recent haul of DVDs from I forget where. Set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s, and moving through the murder of Medger Evers and the arrival of the Freedom Riders, The Help (based on the 2009 novel by Kathryn Stockett) is a women-centred story focused on those of privilege (white Southern belles), those of poverty (Black maids) and how the two contrast, parallel and intertwine. Because it explores the nuances of the racialized employer-employee relationship, it is not a film of our current moment, dominated as our moment is by extremes, but one that came out when people of different walks still had the courage, patience and strength to talk to each other on difficult topics. Nor is the film above critique. "White trash" culture is depicted in the form of those who, like Celia Foote (played by this year's Oscar-winner for Best Actress Jessica Chastain), marry into a society that deems them cheap for doing so.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I added this film to my pile. I didn't recognize the director, Tate Taylor (turns out he was born in Jackson), nor one of the production companies listed on the back cover --  Imagenation Abu Dhabi. Arab money, the date of the film's release, and the DVD's image-supported title made me curious enough to take a chance. And I'm glad I did, for a film like this -- a returning white college student who convinces a group of Black maids to tell their stories for what becomes an anonymously-titled best-seller called The Help -- wouldn't get past the vetting stage in Canada's public arts funding agencies, nor through those in the largely private-sectored U.S. People today are too rattled to imagine, let alone articulate, realties other than their own. How we got to where we are has a lot to do with where we came from. Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s is, was and remains such a place.