The Help

In a previous post I wrote that I was reading The Help and that once I finished I would get back. Well guess what! I finished it.  Once I past a certain point in the book I couldn’t seem to put it down.  Even though the story is fiction (and the author makes a note in her own words at the end of the book to make it known to the reader) it could just as well be true.  Anyone who has grown up in the South and studied the region has read about life in the 1950s and 1960s and how drastic things got.  As I was reading the book I got angry and some of the things that she was writing about, not at the author, but at the fact that what she was writing was true.  The fact that there really were conversations about white people getting diseases from their black help if they sat on the same toilet (that’s right I said toilet), the fact that different bathrooms were built so this wouldn’t happen just makes me depressed. I can’t imagine thinking those things or even acting on those things. But when I stop and think about that time period I am reminded how far as a city, state, and nation we have come and how far we have to go. 

In the past movies and even books have portrayed the South as a backwards community that did not know what was going on in the “real” world and refused to progress with the speed of the rest of the country.  Just because we’re slow and don’t do things at the speed the rest of the country thinks we should, doesn’t make us backwards. I once traveled to Memphis with the high school band and met a band from Minnesota and they asked us if we had air conditioning in Mississippi and if we wore shoes.  I was shocked that this perception still existed in the 20^th Century (it happened in 1998) and that people actually believed that we didn’t have air conditioning, but that’s Hollywood for you, painting an inaccurate picture.  Yes it is EXTREMELY hot in Mississippi during the summer, but we have air conditioning and we wear shoes, maybe not at home but at least in public.   We are a proud stubborn people, we have seen things that no one should have to see, we have experienced things that no one should have to experience and we brought it all on ourselves.  There are some of us who refuse to let that part of our history die and refuse to believe that they were wrong.  But that is not everyone in the South.  We are an educated people and those of us educated choose to stay with the hopes of making it a better place to live for our children and their children.  And yes there may be times when we southerners choose not to do things only b/c someone from the outside is telling us we need to do it.  This isn’t being backwards but being prideful and having a natural reaction to someone from the outside telling us what we “need” to do. I mean how would you feel if someone told you that everything you believed was wrong and everything you had been taught your ENTIRE life was now wrong.  The way you lived your life was wrong and backwards and you needed to fix it. I don’t think many people would take too kindly to this and I think they would have the same reaction.  Yes things in the South were bad and needed to change in the 1950s and 1960s and yes many southerners needed to be told to change and have it pointed out to them that this needed to happen.   What I guess I’m arguing is that, things have changed in the South.  Sure there are many things that need to change but there are many things that need to change across the country.  Hollywood pointing to the South like it’s the redheaded step child of the country needs to stop! Some of the most talented people have come from the South.  Some of the most beautiful works of art, both in literature and paintings have come from the South.

So I am pleased to see that a southern writer wrote about her state during a time she grew up and experienced it. I’m excited to see how the movie will turn out and to hear the actors take on the dreaded southern accent. (By the way just because we talk slow doesn’t mean we are slow, just means we enjoy talking and listening so we take our time).  Kathryn Stockett is from Mississippi and will quickly admit that as soon as she was old enough she got out of Mississippi. She also writes that it is perfectly ok for her to speak ill of her mother (that being Mississippi) but she will gladly educate anyone else speaking ill of her mother (unless of course Mississippi is that person’s mother as well).  And I have to say that I have done the same thing! I may hate many things about living in Mississippi but I LOVE this state. I love the people of this state, even if some of them still cling to the old ways, I love the feel of this state and I love knowing that when I pass someone on the street they are going to smile Hello to me and sometimes ask how I’m doing. You can’t get that anywhere else.  Sure the weather is not something to brag about, one day its 60 degrees, the next it could be 80 and then 30 degrees. But you get used to it.

In The Help Kathryn Stockett tells the story of three brave women who choose to write a book about the lives of maids in Jackson, Mississippi.  Brave because they decided to tell the story during the Civil Rights Movement when blacks were being beaten or killed and whites who helped were getting the same treatment.  Brave because it was a new frontier, no one knew what happened between a maid and her missus and these women were about to tell this story.  As I was reading it there was one character that I did not like and if I met her today there is no telling what I would say to her.  This character’s name is Hilly and she is the know it all, she is in charge of the Jackson League and leads the women in the community.  What Hilly says usually goes.  We all know women like this, knew them when we were girls and knew them in college.  I can’t stand this woman.  There is a difference between being a leader and being a dictator. Hilly and women like her are dictators.  They lead by placing fear of retribution into those they lead.  No one wants to be ostracized, as one of the three women, Skeeter, finds out. Being on the outside was no fun for Skeeter and I think having her best friend Hilly(for they were best friends) do this to her, opened Skeeter’s eyes and motivated her to write the book faster.  The Help takes on a subject that many people have thought about and maybe even written about but it tells a story from the point of view of the help and one woman who chose to step out of her character at the cost of her friendships and relationships.  Mrs. Stockett does a great job of pointing out the things that needed to be changed in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s and of pointing out that things may appear different on the surface than they are beneath it.

I recommend this book to EVERYONE. Read it and then next year when the movie comes out, go see the movie.  It’s a fictional story about fictional people but the circumstances in this fiction could be and probably are true.