Monday, October 26, 2015

Rebellious yet Admirable


 

Skeeter played by Emma Stone, was one of my favorite characters in this film. She chose to leave her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi to go off to college and better herself with an education. Not may southerners from "ol' Miss" had the desire to leave. Let alone the women wanting to pursue their education. Though, after her education was complete, Skeeter came back to her hometown and received (though begged for) a job at the Jackson Journal. Her aspiring conscious and desire for change caused her to want to help the "help" by writing a scandalous book anonymously about their life's and how they were treated by their southern, uppity employers. Since this film was based in the 1960's, the civil rights movement was still taking place. So, the blacks still did not have any rights, especially rights equal to the whites. Also, women had very few rights to none compared to the men at the time. Therefore, Skeeter was taking several risks with writing her book. Not only was she writing about "the help", which at the time no one would have thought it to be interesting to read about especially because of their skin color. She was also taking the risk of knowing that not a lot of women had careers such as being a writer nor did they aspire to be anything other than what was expected of them by being the average "stay at home" housewife and caretaker. Although, they didn't seem to do much caretaking since they hired their "help".


The Help - Skeeter interviewing "the help"