Introduction
This paper is a cultural assessment of the movie “The Help.” The setting of the movie is Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s. During this time, racial discrimination was very prevalent, as well as the civil rights movement. The cultural assessment will include a description of the movie family, family processes, values, socialization and child-rearing, healthcare beliefs, adaptation, and assessment of development or functional competency. It is important to realize that cultural assessment entails being open-minded to others and understanding that we all have our differences (Kelley, 1997, p. 32).
The Movie Background and Context
During the 1960s, when The Help movie took place, a lot happened in Mississippi. Black people were fighting for their basic rights through peaceful protests and marches. They wanted to vote, use the same restaurants as white people, and have their children go to better schools. But many white people, like those shown in the movie, didn't want things to change. The maids in the movie lived through these hard times while taking care of white families' children and homes. They had to be extra careful because speaking up could be dangerous for them.
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Description of the Movie Family
The movie takes place in the southern city of Mississippi in the 1960s. A young lady by the name of “Skeeter” has returned home to pursue her dreams as a writer. The movie shows how Skeeter developed a bond with two African American maids named “Abilene Clark and Middy Jackson.” Their relationship stemmed from a phenomenal outcome, where Skeeter was able to give them a voice. Skeeter was a white woman who did not side with her white friends as they disrespected and mistreated the black maids. She is portrayed as a respectful and kind individual who wants to help the black maids share their experiences as maids. Skeeter came from a family where she, too, grew up with a black maid whom she loved dearly and who was fired because of her age. When Skeeter decides that she wants to write a book detailing the experiences of the maid, she is met with resistance and anger because they do not want the truth to be revealed. The book exposed the hurdles that the black maids encountered as they worked to care for the households of white families.
Character Development
In The Help movie analysis, we can see how different characters change throughout the story. Skeeter changes the most - she starts to understand how unfair life is for the black maids and decides to do something about it. But we don't see the same kind of growth in Aibileen and Minny. They already knew life was unfair, and even after the book came out, they still faced the same daily struggles. The white characters like Elizabeth and Hilly don't really change either. They stay mean to their maids, showing how hard it is to change people's minds about race.
The movie spends a lot of time showing how Skeeter learns and grows, but less time showing what happens to the maids after the book comes out. We don't find out if they got better jobs or if their lives improved. The maids' stories helped Skeeter become a successful writer, but we don't know if they got any money from the book or if it made their lives better.
In The Help movie analysis, we can see that Skeeter's book did more than just tell stories. While she wanted to help, she was still a white woman telling black women's stories. The maids took huge risks sharing their experiences with her. They could lose their jobs or even face violence from angry white people. Even though the book became successful, we don't see if it actually made life better for Aibileen, Minny, or other maids. They still had to work in the same homes, with the same low pay, dealing with the same discrimination every day.
Social and Cultural Analysis
Sociocultural Environment
Within the movie, two races and two classes of people are clearly defined. There are blacks who are depicted as lower class, and whites are shown as a part of the upper white class. The culture of the movie shows the separation of black and white races, which was common at that time. It was also common to see white families employ black women to help care for their household. The father figures in the family played a strong role by being the head of the household and going to work every day, while the women were responsible for the care of the home. In the movie, it appears that upper-class women are not trained in cooking or cleaning, even though they are depicted as housewives. Elizabeth, Hilly, and Celia sought out the help of black maids like Aibileen and Minny, who helped with the household duties, including caring for their children. The black maids were from a lower class and did not have much education. Some maids started as teenagers to help their families. They were paid only ninety-five cents per hour for everything they had to do.
The Help movie analysis reveals a complex system of social control where even small acts of resistance could result in severe consequences for the maids. While the film shows individual acts of kindness from employers like Skeeter, it also exposes how the broader social structure maintained racial inequality through both overt discrimination and subtle forms of control, such as limiting job opportunities and enforcing strict behavioral codes for black domestic workers.
Power Dynamics and Decision-Making
The movie shows women as decision-makers in the white community. Hilly is an example of this because she made the decisions in her home. She was also very influential on her friends and was able to fire Minny and tarnish her name. This made it hard for Minny to find another job in an environment where she was already struggling. In the black community, among the black women, the men were the decision-makers. In Minny’s case, her husband abused her regularly and made the decision that their daughter would quit school to work as a nanny when she lost her job. There was no negotiation of that matter.
The movie shows how the low wage of ninety-five cents per hour was more than just unfair pay. The black maids could barely survive on this money, while white workers got paid much more for their work. This made it hard for the maids to save money or give their children better opportunities. What's worse, the white employers had complete control over the maids' jobs. Just like we saw with Minny, one bad word from Ms. Hilly was enough to stop other families from hiring her. This really shows how the white families kept power over the black maids in Jackson during the 1960s. This systematic economic exploitation reinforced racial hierarchies and preserved white privilege, making it difficult for the maids to challenge their oppression openly.
Social Roles
The roles within a family may differ from person to person when asked. In the movie, the upper-class white men worked as the breadwinners, and the women were housewives. Aibileen and Minny played nanny roles in the movie and were employed to care for the home and children. The children depended on the maids more than their parents because they spent so much time with them. Also, it is noted that the maids are passed down from generation to generation, like Minny, who first worked for Hilly’s parents. Celia is considered to be an outcast among the upper class and tries to play the same role as the others in finding a maid to help her. Families have to be open to changes as time goes by (Friedman et al., 2003, p. 339). This is how Skeeter works with the maids to help their story be heard.
The roles in the movie were strict and hard to change. The black maids couldn't just find different jobs - they had to stay as maids because that's all white people would let them do. Their own children often had to become maids, too, like Minny's daughter. This shows how hard it was to break free from these roles. Even when someone like Celia treated Minny more like a friend, the rest of the white community quickly reminded them of their "proper place."
Values
The values that a family holds dearly are affected by society's values and others (Friedman et al., 2003, p. 364). In white families like Elizabeth, the value of family is not very evident. Everyone seems to do their own thing. Her husband works, and she socializes while Aibileen cares for her home and daughter. Elizabeth disciplined her daughter by giving her slaps on her buttocks when she sat on some old toilets on Ms. Hilly’s lawn. She lost the sense of value in the fact that her daughter was now potty trained. Aibileen and Minny value family time and trust in their church family. Skeeter valued her work as a writer more than anything else. Marriage was important among the upper class, and that’s why Skeeter’s mom was constantly pressuring her to go on dates to find a significant other.
Looking at how The Help movie shows different values helps us understand the deeper problems of that time. The white families said they valued their maids, calling them "part of the family," but they still made them use separate bathrooms and paid them very little. The black maids had to smile and act grateful even when they were treated badly. They couldn't show their real feelings or stand up for themselves without risking everything. The movie shows how unfair this was, even though some people tried to pretend everything was fine.
Communication Patterns
Effective communication is beneficial in order for the individual to receive your message. Communication points out the exchange of data, which also includes opinions (Friedman et al., 2003, p. 267). In the movie “The Help,” communication was both functional and dysfunctional at times. Racism played a role in what could be said of upper-class white employers. This impeded their ability to communicate freely. In general, the conversations between the upper class and the maids were very unpleasant. Unfortunately, the maids had to keep their opinions to themselves, which seemed like a heavy burden. When Skeeter went to meet with Aibileen at her home, she listened attentively without disrupting their thoughts, which was a functional conversation. During the movie, dysfunctional communication is seen on many occasions. One example is when Minny wanted to use the bathroom at Ms. Hilly’s home, and she told her to go outside even though it was raining hard and there were high winds. They eventually did not listen to each other, and communication was impaired.
The way people talked to each other in the movie really shows how racism worked back then. The maids couldn't speak freely about how they felt, even when their employers were mean or unfair. We see this when Elizabeth ignores Aibileen's suggestions about taking care of Mae Mobley, even though Aibileen spends more time with the child. The white women could say whatever they wanted to the maids, but if a maid talked back, she could lose her job. This one-sided communication kept the maids from standing up for themselves.
Family and Community Life
Environmental Conditions
Home allows a family to plant a seed that will someday grow into a tree with roots to hold the family together. The environment in which the home is needs to be appropriate so that the family can grow (Friedman, Bowden, & Jones, 2003, p. 250). Everyone lived in Mississippi. The white families lived in big homes that had a lot of space, and their babies had their own rooms and beds. They also had nice-looking lawns and furniture. I did find the environment to be noisy at times. The children in the white families were cared for by their black nannies and grew closer to the nannies than their own parents. In contrast, the black nannies lived in poorer areas where they had smaller bedrooms to work with. Their children shared the room and bed, but they were close. The children may not have felt safe during the civil rights movement when there was fighting. Additionally, the homes were close together and looked outdated. Living conditions appear starkly contrasting in The Help movie analysis, which not only speaks about economic discrepancies but also a social hierarchy that has been deliberately maintained. The spatial separation of housing became a physical manifestation of racial inequality, practically denying the black neighborhoods the resources and infrastructure improvements that came to white areas. The church was an important factor in the nanny's lives; they attended regularly and were well supported by the congregation.
Socialization and Child Rearing
A lot of our social skills come from our family; however, in the movie, I noticed that the parents did not socialize much with the children. There was no playing games or cuddling time. Skeeter and all the children who were cared for by their nannies learned to socialize through their interactions with them. The white families allowed the nannies to fully care for their children, which caused them to miss out on close relationships. The maids taught their children how to be maids so they could someday be able to take on that role. In the movie, Minny is seen telling her daughter how to behave on her first maid job at the age of 14.
The way children were raised in the movie shows a lot about race and class. The white children grew up seeing their black maids as caretakers but not as equals. Mae Mobley loved Aibileen, but she was still growing up in a world where black people were treated as less important. The maids' children learned early that they, too, would likely become servants for white families. This shows how both black and white children were taught their "place" in society from a very young age.
Healthcare Beliefs and Practices
In the movie “The Help,” set in the 1960s, it was believed that black people carried diseases that were not the same race in the white community. The schools and the bathrooms were separated. It was thought that diseases could be spread from the toilet seat. When Aibileen's son needed to go to the hospital, he was forced to go to one that would accept blacks. The hospital was not able to care for his needs adequately.
This part of the movie shows how unfair the healthcare system was. Black people couldn't go to the same hospitals as white people, even in emergencies. These separate hospitals for black people usually didn't have enough doctors or good equipment. The movie also shows how some white people, like Ms. Hilly, spread wrong ideas about black people carrying diseases. She used these lies to push for separate bathrooms, which was just another way to make black people feel less human.
Adaptations
To be adaptable, an individual or family must be able to change their behavior to be suitable for the situation (Friedman et al., 2003, p. 161). Being able to adapt was not easy in the movie, especially for Aibileen and Minny. They had to keep their true feelings but worked with disrespect in order to provide for their families. They also had to adapt to the segregation that surrounded them. Skeeter had a hard time adapting without her nanny, who took care of her and her role-writing.
Critical Analysis
Gender and Class Issues
The movie shows how being a woman and being poor made life even harder for the black maids. While white women like Hilly and Elizabeth had money and free time, the maids had to work hard just to feed their families. Even Minny, who was the best cook in town, could barely make ends meet. The white women could choose not to work, but the black women had no choice - they had to work as maids because that was the only job they could get.
The white women also had their own problems with how society treated them. Skeeter was pressured to get married instead of focusing on her career. Celia was rejected by the other white women because she didn't act like them. But these problems were very different from what the black maids faced. The maids had to worry about keeping their jobs, staying safe, and supporting their families.
Movie Impact
The Help became a very popular movie that many people liked. It made people feel good because it showed how one person could help make changes. But it also got some criticism. Some people said it made the racial problems of the 1960s seem too simple. The movie showed individual acts of kindness, like Skeeter helping the maids, but didn't show much about the bigger problems black people faced, like voting rights or school segregation.
The movie was more focused on making viewers feel comfortable than showing how scary and dangerous that time really was for black people. Even though it talked about serious problems, it sometimes made them seem less serious than they really were. Still, it did get people talking about how black people were treated in the past and how some of these problems still exist today.
Functional Development Assessment
The Beaver’s system incorporates a rating scale of families relating to their ability in six areas (Friedman et al., 2003, p. 11). The children in the white upper class do not have a sense of closeness to their parents. The women maintain the home and make the decisions related to the home. There is no negotiation between the nanny and their employers; they have to follow directions without their opinion. In regards to mythology, conversations between the maids and their employers were one-sided since they could not freely express themselves. I also noted that the children were open with their nanny. In the third area of Beaver’s model, the maids were constantly being disrespected by their employers, who did not care about their feelings. Autonomy was not promoted because it would allow the sharing of the bathroom, which was forbidden. Being accountable is seen with Skeeter, who goes forward with writing the book. The maids put their faith in her that she will make it happen. Closeness is seen between the maids and the children that they care for. Anyone can see the love and care that is given.
Throughout The Help movie, we notice that the black maids always had to hide their true feelings to keep their jobs. Even when they were treated badly, they couldn't show how upset they were. Only when they shared their stories for Skeeter's book did they finally get to speak honestly. But even then, they had to be very careful. They risked a lot by telling their stories - their jobs, their safety, and maybe even their lives. The white families didn't want these stories told because it would show everyone how badly they treated their maids.
Impact on Today's World
Even though The Help movie shows things that happened in the 1960s, many of its messages are still important today. Some people still get treated differently because of their skin color. They might not have to use separate bathrooms anymore, but they sometimes get paid less or have trouble finding good jobs. The movie makes us think about how we treat people who work for us, like cleaners or babysitters. Do we treat them with respect? Do we pay them fairly? The stories of Aibileen and Minny remind us that everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect, no matter what kind of work they do.
While watching The Help movie analysis, we can see similar things happening today. People still get treated differently because of their race, gender, or how much money they have. Some people still have to work long hours for low pay, just like the maids did. The movie makes us think about who cleans our houses and takes care of our children today and whether we treat them fairly.
The stories in the movie also remind us that speaking up against unfair treatment is important but can be scary. Just like the maids risked their jobs to tell their stories, people today sometimes risk their jobs when they report unfair treatment. But the movie shows that telling these stories can help make changes, even if the changes are small or take a long time.
Summary and Conclusion
In conclusion, “The Help” was a movie capturing racism and the major role the black maids played in the movie. In 1960, black maids were called “The Help” and worked to care for the home by cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children. Both the black maids and their white employers did not embrace each other’s culture. This could be because of the prominence of segregation during that time.
The movie shows us more than just what happened in the 1960s. It makes us think about how people treat each other and why some people have more power than others. The maids earned so little money that they could barely support their families, while the white families lived in big houses and had fancy parties. Even though Skeeter tried to help by writing the book, the maids still faced the same problems every day. The Help movie analysis reminds us that changing unfair rules isn't easy, and sometimes, even people who want to help can't fix everything.
Looking back at The Help movie, we see that it's about more than just maids and their employers in the 1960s. It's about how people treat each other, how power works, and how hard it can be to change unfair systems. While Skeeter's book helped tell the maids' stories, the real heroes were women like Aibileen and Minny, who lived through these hard times with dignity and courage. Their experiences show us that we need to do more than just feel sorry about unfair treatment - we need to actually work to make things better for everyone.
References
- Cunningham, M. D. (2012). The Help: A critical review. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 5(5), 126–129.
- Friedman, M. M., Bowden, V. R., & Jones, E. G. (2003). Family nursing: Research, theory, and practice (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Harris-Perry, M. (2011, August 16). ‘I can’t breathe’: The Help and the problem of historical fiction. The Nation. https://web.archive.org/web/20120322095126/http://www.thenation.com/article/162822/i-cant-breathe-help-and-problem-historical-fictions
- Kelley, B. R. (1997). Cultural diversity in clinical practice. In J. A. Fox (Ed.), Primary health care of children (p. 32). St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
- Singley, B. (2012). Reel help: Telling my story so I don’t have to. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 5(5), 120–125.
- Stockett, K. (2009). The Help. New York, NY: Berkley Books.
- Taylor, T. (Director). (2011). The Help [Film]. DreamWorks Pictures.
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