I knew when I read the book by Kathryn Stockett titled “The Help” two years ago that it would eventually be turned into a movie. I didn’t know that it would happen as quickly as it did when it opened to theaters in the U.S. on August. 10th. We watched it last night to a nearly packed audience. I’m sure it will have receive many Oscar awards when that season begins. The range of up and down emotions you go through as you watch the movie are from lighthearted fun to intense ache and pain in the relationships.
I believe the movie stayed true to the book. The following are some memorable quotes I picked off of imdb.com in no particular order. (Internet Movie Database)
Aibileen Clark is a black maid who says to white baby girl she takes care of: “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
Charlotte Phelan says to her daughter Skeeter: Your eggs are dying. Would it kill you to go on a date?Aibileen Clark: 18 people were killed in Jackson that night. 10 white and 8 black. I don’t think God has color in mind when he sets a tornado loose.Preacher Green says to his congregation: If you can love your enemy, you already have victory.Aibileen Clark says to Skeeter when she goes to interview Aibileen: I ain’t never had no white person in my house before.Stuart Whitworth, Skeeter’s boyfriend: Isn’t that what all you girls from Ole Miss major in – professional husband hunting?Minny Jackson maid who says to her flighty employer Celia: Fried chicken just tend to make you feel better about life.
Charlotte Phelan says to her daughter Skeeter: Courage sometimes skips a generation. Thank you for bringing it back to our family.
Minny Jackson says to Celia: Minny don’t burn fried chicken.
Celia Foote: They don’t like me because of what they think I did.
Minny Jackson: They don’t like you ’cause they think you white trash.
Now, how does this movie relate to human rights today? Of course, everything that I see or hear goes through my grid about human trafficking in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in the world. I believe there may still be pockets of “slave mentality” in the deep South of the U.S. but after the Civil War that poisonous thinking was supposed to be totally eradicated. Right? We have laws in place that protect human life (except for Roe v. Wade which is another hot topic that I won’t get into in this blog) The unfortunate thing is that there is so much going on in the world that does NOT protect human life. Human trafficking is not just in Kazakhstan but China and India and many other places where there are powerful, rich people who victimize poor people who have no other options.
So, yes, Americans will go to the movie “The Help” now and feel good about themselves that we, as a nation, have come a LONG ways from the 1960s where the blacks were put down and there was intimidation and fear. However, they will willfully remain ignorant of what is happening in the rest of the world where little girls as young as two years old are used as sex toys in temples in India. Yes, I just read an article about it today and it grieves me sorely.
(to be continued)
