The Help: the movie and my truth

The Help.     Have you read it?  Have you seen the movie?  Did you love both?  I certainly did.  It’s now one of my favorite movies.

Movies set in the 60’s are so fun for me.  Not exactly the Beach Blanket Bingo types, although they are fun, too.  I love to see the ones that show the inside of the homes and the popular things of the time.  I was a little girl then.   It’s fun to go back and remember things of childhood.  How things looked; what we did; what we ate, how we entertained. Looking at the set from The Help, I saw things that were in my parent’s home.  Familiar things:  metal TV trays with flowers painted on them, black & white televisions, cat-eyed eyeglasses with rhinestones.  I never had glasses back then but boy did I want them.   

I was also very aware of all the cigarette smoking in the movie.  Back then, it was an accepted thing.  There were ashtrays everywhere.  We had some in our house.  My dad smoked a pipe but he was the only one that lived in our house that smoked.  People would come over and never think anything about lighting up.  I remember cleaning the ashtrays afterwards and thinking how much they smelled, but we would have never asked someone not to light up.  That was the way it was at the time.  It was an accepted thing in homes and at work.  We didn’t make special place for them to smoke; we put ashtrays all over so that it would be convenient for them.  We were more concerned about ashes on the floor and furniture.   News reporters always smoked.  It made them look more serious and smart.  (We thought.)  Beautiful girls in gowns and in clubs always smoked and sometimes had a long cigarette holder.  It made them look sophisticated and sexy.  (We thought.)

The Help also brought to the forefront, and sometimes uncovered, the relationships of households and “their help”.  It is probably good for us to be reminded of how far we have come.  In every society, there have been injustices that will be or have been corrected as we become more sensitive and aware of the issues.  Lots of sympathetic tears were shed as we watched characters that we got to know and appreciate be treated as lesser human beings.  I cried.  Me, a Southerner that grew up with a wonderful lady coming into our home a few days a week to “help”.  Did she raise me?  No.  Did we build her a separate toilet?   No way.  I presumed she used the only one in our home.  I don’t know.  Never thought about it.  Did I love her?  Yes.  She was a fun, happy person with a great smile who was in my life.  I followed her around and was reminded many, many times by my mother to stay out of her way.  Did I consider her our maid, housekeeper, help, lesser person?  She was Callie.  Just Callie.  She came to my house and I loved her.  We also had a black man that worked at my daddy’s business for many years.  He was actually a very respected pastor in the largest colored church in the area.  My dad and he talked “Bible” all the time.  They were good friends with a mutual respect.  Still, they were on different paths.

My point is to just put out there a little disclaimer about the movie.  While the behavior of the families depicted was appalling and inexcusable, some of these relationships were “just the way it was”.  My parents would never treat anyone that way no matter their job and would have totally punished me if I had.  Still, it was an accepted fact then that black men and women generally worked for white people.   Sadly, these were the roles we were put in just by the color of our skin.  I remember “colored” restrooms and “colored” water fountains.  Blacks were directed to them just as we would direct people to the men’s room or ladies’ room.  As a white girl, I never thought about that they couldn’t use our facilities.  It was just that the other was theirs.  The thing is that generally, and as far I knew, most black people accepted that as theirs, too.  Black children had to question why things were separate, but for the most part, they were taught just like the white kids, that they just were.  I can’t imagine how they felt.  Still, we were operating in total ignorance.  One generation teaches the next until it is finally questioned and change happens.  That generation wasn’t made up of bad people; just black and white people both acting and living by the guidelines of that time.

So, read the book and go see the movie.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.   It’s an important story told very well.  Although a fictional story, similar things really did happen and were really, really wrong.  But just as in our ignorance about smoking and its effect, know that for the most part, this was the accepted standard that was in place at the time.    We should have all had the questioning of “Skeeter” in us and the bravery of “Aibileen”.