Film Analysis: The Help

The movie The Help, produced by Kathryn Stockett, depicts the average lifestyle of African American women during the 1960’s, at the advent of the Civil Rights Movement.The most conventional job for an African American woman during this period was a maid for an American family. The movie has a social message and “explores race relations in the 1960’s South by telling the stories of four black housekeepers and the white women for whom they work ” (“Former Slave Sues Author For False Portrayal” 1). Most people are satisfied with the movie and its reminiscent narrative of the South; however, Ablene Cooper--a real life maid whose life is characterized (or caricatured, as the case may be) in the movie--is not, complaining that, though the portrayal
Cooper believes her life “has been stolen, without acknowledgement or payment” (Churcher 2). Ablene draws the conclusion that the fictional character Aibileen Clark in the movie is intended to be the actual representation of her. Everything about the fictional character lines up with the real life Ablene. For example, the fictional character “is a deeply religious woman who sports a gold tooth and a gold cross” (Churcher 3) is just like the real life namesake. The movie also took place in the exact city, Jackson, Mississippi, where Cooper lived and worked. The similarities continue. The characters in the movie spend much of their lives working in white households, just as Ablene did. In fact, to this day “she still works, actually, in the home of the author’s brother” and, thus, the movie “is clearly based on her” (“Former Maid Sues Author For False Portrayal”
Ablene “filed a writ at the Jackson Courthouse, alleging Stockett used her name and story” (Churcher 6). There were, in fact, many pieces of evidence to prove that the movies was about her life. Ablene, emotionally upset, feels nothing but aggravation. Stockett contests the accusation. According to Stockett, she did not steal Ablene’s story. But it is not just Ablene who disagrees. It has been said that Stockett has been accused by others “of getting rich off the backs of a story that is not hers to tell” (Jones 2). The movie gains the attention of millions of viewers due to how melodramatic it is. Even though Ablene finds it to be a disgrace and unfairly relatable to her life, this view does not detract from how good the movie is to everyone else who likes it. Despite the movie being more favorable to whites, its accuracies of the characters tribulations and their relationships in the white households are depicted well; in contrast, the reasons why blacks do not favor the movie as much is because the movie leaves people questioning the “understanding of structural racism, making the solutions to problems involving race appear far too easy” (Jones 5). The percentages of African Americans who liked The Help would probably increase if the movie had included more historical accuracies besides those of the