Being Normal is Sooo Boring
By, Tamatha Lancaster
From smiling to being upset, The Help is a drama that sends emotions all over. The emotions that are felt aren’t just received through the dialogue but also from many other elements. The acting, camera work, and mise-en-scene make the movie what it is because they set the tone of the movie. They help the movie to become a great one.
The movie takes place during the Civil rights era in America (early 1960s), in Jackson Mississippi. It stars Emma Stone who plays a woman name Skeeter Phelan who wants to become a journalist. She goes to help out the African American maids by getting their point of view on the white families that they work for and the hardship that they go through everyday. Skeeter can be seen as the hero of the movie because she gave the maids a voice when no one else did. When we first meet Skeeter Phelan, we can already see that she is different from everyone else (as shown below) because of the way she looks and the way she talks to the maids. She treats the maids as if they are actual people and she isn’t as fake as the others.
From smiling to being upset, The Help is a drama that sends emotions all over. The emotions that are felt aren’t just received through the dialogue but also from many other elements. The acting, camera work, and mise-en-scene make the movie what it is because they set the tone of the movie. They help the movie to become a great one.
The movie takes place during the Civil rights era in America (early 1960s), in Jackson Mississippi. It stars Emma Stone who plays a woman name Skeeter Phelan who wants to become a journalist. She goes to help out the African American maids by getting their point of view on the white families that they work for and the hardship that they go through everyday. Skeeter can be seen as the hero of the movie because she gave the maids a voice when no one else did. When we first meet Skeeter Phelan, we can already see that she is different from everyone else (as shown below) because of the way she looks and the way she talks to the maids. She treats the maids as if they are actual people and she isn’t as fake as the others.
When looking at the clothes all the women have on, including their hair, you can see that she’s different. Skeeter has her own hair out and curly while wearing a simple dull outfit, whereas all the other women have on their fake stiff hair and bright dresses. Throughout the movie, these women always have there guard up when it comes to the way they look. They have an image to maintain and they don’t want to show any kind of weakness when it comes to how they dress. You can tell that Skeeter doesn’t really care much about her appearance because if you look at how she dress through the entire movie you can she’s wearing clothes that look worn out and don’t fit her as much. The only time we see of the women not dressed so prissy is when Hilly is driving to Skeeter’s house (as shown below). She’s dressed in casual clothes with her hair down and messy, chugging down a beer while smoking. The way she dressed changed because she finds out that the story about her eating Minny’s shit was in the new released book the Skeeter wrote. She doesn’t care about the way she dresses at this point because all she is worried about it making sure that no one knows that the person in the book was actually her.
What also makes Skeeter different is the fact that she actually had a maid when she was younger that she looked up to. This is also why she is so nice to the maids because one of them was absolutely nice to her but then she lost her. Cicely Tyson plays this maid named Constantine Jefferson who took care of Skeeter like she was her own and made sure she was fine. Skeeter felt special back then so now she is trying to let the maids feel special too.
While trying to help the maids with their voices, she has to deal with her mother (played by Allison Janney) trying to get her to find a man. One of the maids that she talks to is Aibileen Clark, a women who lost her son, played by Viola Davis and she plays the part well. She plays the part so well that you can get emotional just by looking at the expression on her face. When you look at the scene (as shown below) where Aibileen starts to talk about the her son’s death, the only light there is, is on Aibileen’s face. This little strand of light shows that she is opening up, talking about something that she’s been bottling up for the longest. She is now expressing that there is nothing that’s gonna stop her from getting her stories out to the public, this can also be seen as the turning point for Aibileen.
Before Aibileen starts telling her story about her son, the camera is on her and another maid name Minnie Jackson (played by Octavia Spencer who I think is hilarious), and as she starts talking, the camera slowly pans left towards her until she is in the center of the screen. At this time she is also at the center of her story, meaning that Aibileen is at the center of her breaking point. At the point where she just want to let everyone know what she goes through as a maid.
While trying to help the maids with their voices, she has to deal with her mother (played by Allison Janney) trying to get her to find a man. One of the maids that she talks to is Aibileen Clark, a women who lost her son, played by Viola Davis and she plays the part well. She plays the part so well that you can get emotional just by looking at the expression on her face. When you look at the scene (as shown below) where Aibileen starts to talk about the her son’s death, the only light there is, is on Aibileen’s face. This little strand of light shows that she is opening up, talking about something that she’s been bottling up for the longest. She is now expressing that there is nothing that’s gonna stop her from getting her stories out to the public, this can also be seen as the turning point for Aibileen.
Before Aibileen starts telling her story about her son, the camera is on her and another maid name Minnie Jackson (played by Octavia Spencer who I think is hilarious), and as she starts talking, the camera slowly pans left towards her until she is in the center of the screen. At this time she is also at the center of her story, meaning that Aibileen is at the center of her breaking point. At the point where she just want to let everyone know what she goes through as a maid.
Emma Stone, Viola Davis, and Octavia Spencer are great choice of actresses for this movie. And without these specific people the visual of The Help probably wouldn’t have been as good as it seem because the acting wouldn’t have been the same. This would mean that the viewer wouldn’t have gotten to experience the same emotions as they did if there were different actors. And while Minnie Jackson got her appreciation with being a maid and Skeeter Phelan going off to New York, Aibileen loses her job because of a lie but with that she gains something more important; her voice.
Work Cited
The Help. Dir Tate Taylor. Touchstone Pictures, 2011. Megashare. Web.. 28 Feb 2014. <http://megashare.info/watch-the-help-online-TXpRNU1BPT0>
Work Cited
The Help. Dir Tate Taylor. Touchstone Pictures, 2011. Megashare. Web.. 28 Feb 2014. <http://megashare.info/watch-the-help-online-TXpRNU1BPT0>
The Help
By: Amanda Cartagena
The film The Help, is a film about hard-working African American maids who struggle through the authority of White people during the Jim Crow days. Skeeter Phelan who is part of the rich white people is also a writer struggling to get a book of hers published. People who don’t have African American maids don’t know what the maids actually go through, that is until Skeeter Phelan decides to interview the black women, which ends up turning her friend’s lives upside down. Friendship is a strong relationship, but sometimes you have to do what is right even if it means going against your friends.
Skeeter starts her book by interviewing Aibileen Clark, she is a maid of one of the white households. Although Aibileen struggles with the abuse of white people, she still has strong love and devotion to the children that she has raised. Skeeter writes about her good friend Elizabeth Leefolt. Aibileen talks to Skeeter about her strong bond with Mae, the daughter of Elizabeth. She tells Skeeter how Mae is physically abused and neglected by her mother, which is why she tries to boost her self-esteem. Although Skeeter knows that is wrong for her to betray her friend she starts to learn that the maids go through a lot, and in order for her to publish her book she must interview more maids, which is a risk that she ends up taking.
The film The Help, is a film about hard-working African American maids who struggle through the authority of White people during the Jim Crow days. Skeeter Phelan who is part of the rich white people is also a writer struggling to get a book of hers published. People who don’t have African American maids don’t know what the maids actually go through, that is until Skeeter Phelan decides to interview the black women, which ends up turning her friend’s lives upside down. Friendship is a strong relationship, but sometimes you have to do what is right even if it means going against your friends.
Skeeter starts her book by interviewing Aibileen Clark, she is a maid of one of the white households. Although Aibileen struggles with the abuse of white people, she still has strong love and devotion to the children that she has raised. Skeeter writes about her good friend Elizabeth Leefolt. Aibileen talks to Skeeter about her strong bond with Mae, the daughter of Elizabeth. She tells Skeeter how Mae is physically abused and neglected by her mother, which is why she tries to boost her self-esteem. Although Skeeter knows that is wrong for her to betray her friend she starts to learn that the maids go through a lot, and in order for her to publish her book she must interview more maids, which is a risk that she ends up taking.
Aibileen ends up introducing Skeeter to Minny Jackson. Minny is also a maid at a white household. She tells Skeeter how she has lost her job working for Skeeter’s friend Hilly. Hilly is a women who bosses all of the other white women around, and is cruel to the African American maids. Hilly dislikes Minny but she can’t resist her pies, which builds up tension in the movie when the film is zoomed up on Hilly’s face after she has eaten Minny’s pie and Minny tells her “Eat my shit”. After Hilly being in disgust from actually eating Minny’s shit she also ends up finding out that Skeeter has betrayed her and the other white women when she finds out that Skeeter’s published book is about the relationship between the white women and the maids. Even though the book didn’t make her tick off until she found out that Minny talked about her eating the pie of shit. She then tries to go after Skeeter.
This film involves a lot of betrayal, even though to the white people Skeeter was the wrong person, but to the maids she was known as their hero. The maids were recognized and awarded once the book was published since they had helped Skeeter write her first book. While the maids were satisfied, the white people grew hatred for Skeeter.
Ebert, Roger. "The Help." Rogerebert. N.p., 09 Aug 2011. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-help-2011>.
"The Help." IMDB. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454029/plotsummary>.
Honeycutt, Kurk. "The Help." Hollywood reporter . N.p., 09 Aug 2011. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/help/review/219915>.
Ebert, Roger. "The Help." Rogerebert. N.p., 09 Aug 2011. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-help-2011>.
"The Help." IMDB. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454029/plotsummary>.
Honeycutt, Kurk. "The Help." Hollywood reporter . N.p., 09 Aug 2011. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/help/review/219915>.