The Help

Have any of you watched the movie 'The Help'? Its based on the book of the same name by Kathryn Stockett. It takes place during the civil rights movement that took place in America during the 1960's and speaks of three women who are extraordinary in their own way- Aibileen Clark, Minny Jackson and Eugene 'Skeeter' Phelan. Skeeter, an aspiring writer, is a young woman who returns home to Jackson, Mississippi after graduating from Ole Miss. She finds that her beloved childhood maid Constantine has quit, and cannot get over the fact that she didn't write to her before leaving. All her friends are married and having kids and she dreams of having a career as an author. She gets a job as a columnist about home-making in the local paper. She asks her friend Elizabeth's maid Aibileen for help, and is uncomfortable about the way her friends treat the household help. Like they don't have feelings, like they aren't human. This inspires her to write a book based on the lives of maids who have spent their entire lives taking care of white children.

'The Help' is true to its name. It gives you so much insight into other people, into ourselves. It helps us understand how inhuman we can be. These African-American women, spend their lives feeding, bathing and dressing other people's children, and those children grow up prejudiced against the women who actually brought them up. Every morning, Aibileen comes to her employer, Elizabeth Leefolt's house and wakes up her daughter Mae. She tells her this mantra everyday, "You is kind, you is smart, you is important", because her mom couldn't be bothered with her. These women love these kids like they do their own flesh and blood, and probably even more than their own parents and they end up being treated worse than the dirt on one's shoes. It requires a huge heart to love someone else's kid, especially when that someone treats you like you have a disease. How is it human to treat someone like they are not even real people? Humanity isn't a human instinct. Before being accused of plagiarism, let me tell you my mother said that.

The sad part is, that we, in India, don't treat our help any better even now. Most of us treat them like they don't have a life of their own. Forget about the way we treat our servants, what about our caste system? We decided that some people in the society weren't even worth speaking to, forget about that we thought we shouldn't even touch them. 'The Help' is a mirror to all of us. It shows us that all of us are capable of cruelty if we want to be. All of us want to feel superior to someone else, even if we hate to admit it. Deep down, we do. Its a part of us that most of try not to show, but it comes out in different ways. 

I never forgot the way Aibileen speaks to Mae Mobley. She was a little girl who was never told that she was pretty, never carried around by anyone other than the maid, never loved. That too is a kind of discrimination. Not being loved because she just wasn't pretty? She was a little girl! All little girls should be told that they're pretty, no matter what. I have to admit, watching this movie, moved me, touched me, and made me want to become a better person!