"The Help"

Although I haven't read the best seller, "The Help," by Kathryn Stockett, my daughter did give me a copy after we saw the movie based on the book in the theater.  I recently checked out the DVD from the library and watched "The Help" with my spouse and boy did that start some discussions!

I graduated from a small town high school in Kansas in 1960 where there were whites only living in our town.  Although I remember my mother-in-law telling me that she'd been able to have help in Louisiana when her boys were small because "the help" was so inexpensive there, I'd never thought about what that meant to the people who were "the help."  This movie was a revelation as to what it must have been like to be black in Mississippi in the 1960's -- what an eye-opener it was!  I had read "Black By Me" when I was in my 20's but this movie impacted me in an entirely different way.

Emma Stone is the perfect pick to play our heroine and Viola Davis is superb as "The Maid" who agrees to be interviewed by Emma's character even though it's against the law in Mississippi for them to even meet to have these types of conversations.  The result of these interviews is a book exposing the seamier side of Mississippi life.  Nothing will ever be the same in Mississippi again and outside Mississippi the world is changing - thanks in part to stories like these.  pazt