So, I finally got around to watching "The Help." I was on a transcontinental flight and it was free so I thought, "hey, what the hell? I liked the book." Surprise, surprise, I thought this was a great movie. Not great in a it's-going-to-stand-the-test-of-time kind of way. But it was well-made, beautifully acted and, contrary to a whole of criticism I'd read, assuredly NOT a white savior fantasy.
I think part of the problem is that people tried to make this a movie about civil rights. It's not. It's certainly part of the context (how could a movie about Mississippi in the 1960s NOT be kind of about civil rights?), but it's not the focus of the movie. Not at all. Rather, I would argue that it's about 2 things: how to be a good researcher, and how to build alliances. Maybe I'm just projecting too much of my own life onto it, but that's what I got out of it.
Skeeter (Emma Stone) does exactly what a responsible researcher should do: she presents her project up-front to her narrators, lets them set the parameters of the story, and gives them proper credit (and a share of the money she makes). It's apparent from the beginning that Skeeter is not your ordinary Junior League-er in Jackson. She got curly hair, for goodness' sake! But she also isn't a raging bitch.
The big point of antagonism at the beginning of the film (which is narrated by Aibileen (Viola Davis), a domestic worker in Jackson) is about whether or not the Black maids use the bathrooms at the houses where they work. Hilly (played with masterful hatefulness by Bryce Dallas Howard) starts a campaign to pass a law requiring separate domestic bathrooms for Black maids who, she contends, carry different diseases. Hygiene "concerns," of course, have been part of racist discourses going back at least a century at this point, and Hilly even says out loud that she has the support of the White Citizens' Council for her ordinance.
Skeeter, meanwhile, landed her first professional writing gig out of college: writing the domestic advice column in the local paper. Not really having learned a lot about cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry at Ole Miss, she asks Aibileen for her help in writing the column (Note: She doesn't ask Aibileen because she assumes Aibileen knows about domestic duties because she's a Black woman; she asks her because that's what she does for a living. Perhaps that's the only job available to her, and that's a conversation to have, but let's be real here.). Here she gets to see how the family Aibileen works for treats her, and this is the genesis of her book idea. Her editor in New York told her to find a story that hasn't been told, or a new way to tell an old story, and she thinks this is just that. Hmm. Sounds like EXACTLY what we're supposed to do in academia.
So Skeeter asks permission from Aibileen to interview her and to publish her stories. After a while, Aibileen agrees, making a point of telling Skeeter that this is a form of resistance against a system that abuses Black women. When another maid, Minny (Octavia Spencer), also starts interviewing for the project, this point becomes even more clear. Skeeter is not stealing their stories in order to make her own career, unless you actually believe that any researcher who uses interviews to write a book that will inevitably forward his/her career is a thief and an enemy of social justice. What's more, when Skeeter gets a book advance, she divides it equally amongst the maids who she's been interviewing. When she publishes the book, she does so anonymously, meaning that both she and her narrators are not identified by name, in order to protect everyone involved. When she and Minny disagree over the inclusion of a particular story in the book, Minny lays down an ultimatum: either Skeeter include the story in the book or she can't use any of the information she's gotten from Minny. Skeeter agrees. Again, this is responsible research, and the finished product is a synthesis of both the researcher and her narrators. This is feminist research at its collaborative best.
But even more so than this methodological lesson (which I think is pretty important) is the deeper meaning of the film: it's about building alliances for social justice. Skeeter doesn't become interested in the maids' stories out of nowhere: it's because she was raised by a Black maid, who her mother summarily dismisses just before Skeeter returns home from college. Her love for Constantine is deep and abiding, like one's love for a mother. She doesn't see Constantine as a servant or someone owned by her family: she loves her. Her life is important to her, and it breaks her heart when she finds out what her mother has done.
Love is the basis of the best alliances, according to Aimee Carrillo Rowe. Not just love in an intimate sense, but in a broader and more meaningful way. My concern for your life, your humanity, your wellbeing, is based in love. It's not just enlightened self-interest, but the conscious action of linking my life to yours, sharing your burdens and triumphs. That's what I saw going on in this film. Nobody "saved" anybody, or even tried to. Skeeter used the tools at her disposal to expose something she saw as wrong, and did so in a responsible way. But there are similar alliances built between the domestic workers, whose own alliances among one another are portrayed as vital to their survival. Aibileen is still dealing with the death of her son; Minny is trying to protect herself and her children from an abusive partner. Skeeter isn't involved in any of this, any more than either of these women share these concerns with her. Minny is able to take her children out of the abusive home situation because of the white woman she works for; but Minny has already saved her as well, helping her cope with her infertility and anxiety about being perceived as a social outcast.
The point is that nobody is a "white savior," and nobody is a "magical Negro," but these women have powerful, and complicated, bonds that entangle them in a web of mutual respect and obligation. They love one another, and that is what makes for the alliances that ultimately change individual circumstances and their community as a whole. It's not about "sisterhood": no one pretends that there aren't fucked up power dynamics at play. But they do choose to work proactively within the context in which they live, instead of allowing that context to divide them.
So I liked the movie. It wasn't some weirdo colorblind fairy tale like "The Blind Side," but actually a very authentic-feeling story about women's lives and the many factors that impact them. I'm not saying everybody has to like it or agree with me, but I think in the future it would be nice if the people who want to criticize something like this would actually take time to watch it first. I understand if you don't want to watch it, or if it's something that doesn't appeal to you. But if you're not going to take time to actually investigate what it is you're critiquing, then perhaps you should just keep your assumptions to yourself.
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