A movie with all-female casts touches on racial, power, and social class issues to empower women
The name Viola Davis seems to be echoing everywhere come awards season this month. Her acting in ‘The Help’ is highly-praised, so highly that she gets an Oscar nods – along with her two co-stars Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer. The Help, also nominated for Best Picture, talks about the racial struggle African-Americans faced in the Civil Rights era (circa 1960s).
Synopsis
What is really interesting is the all-women cast of the movie which is an adaptation of a book of the same title by a women author – Kathryn Sockett. Young starlet Emma Stone is Eugene ‘Skeeter’ Phellan in the movie, a young and aspired young lady who is pursuing her journalism career against the era’s odds. She is particularly concerned about the discriminated lives of African-American maids (hence the title The Help). Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) is a maid who has spent most of her lives raising 17 American kids whereas Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) is an outspoken fellow maid whose fierceness has gotten her fired multiple times.
Time was hard for people like Aibileen and Minny with typical rich and racist housewives like Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard). Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain) is one rare exception. The movie continues exploring injustice and social class issues as Skeeter writes her book about the maids, ‘The Help’.
Memorable Quotes
Aibileen Clark: You is kind. You is smart. You is important.
Charlotte Phelan: Courage sometimes skips a generation. Thank you for bringing it back to our family.
Constantine Jefferson: [to Eugenia] Every day you’re not dead in the ground, when you wake up in the morning, you’re gonna have to make some decisions. Got to ask yourself this question: “Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?”
Stuart Whitworth: I’ve never met a woman that says exactly what she’s thinking. Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan: Well, I got plenty to say.
Aibileen Clark: God says we need to love our enemies. It’s hard to do, but it can start by telling the truth.
The Help could be your mother-daughter or girls’ night out movie to watch, a feminine movie that will remind us once more of how strong women are, and what we are capable of doing.
An empowering movie for women: The Help. A must watch. http://t.co/ypifMv0R