At the beginning of the movie "The Help", the heroine Skeeter (played by Emma Stone), who has just graduated from the University of Mississippi, returned to her hometown, Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. She went to the local newspaper to find her first job. What stood upstairs was a star-strangled flag, but the Star-Spangled Banner was completely gone. This scene no longer makes me feel strange. The story took place in 1962. The black civil rights movement was in progress. At that time, it was two years before Pastor Martin Luther King stood behind President Johnson watching the signing of the Civil Rights Act. .
After the end of the Civil War, the United States successively promulgated a series of "reconstruction bills" centered on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the equal status of all ethnic groups was basically guaranteed in the system. However, there are policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom. The southern states have successively promulgated a series of so-called "Jim Crow Laws" on the premise that they are not unconstitutional. In fact, they continue to promote racial discrimination, the core of which is called "equality but segregation." "(Equal but Separate): Well, black people are equal to us, but we need to be isolated, have our own space, and the water of the well does not violate the river. In Jackson, Skeeter, all public facilities strictly separate whites from people of color, including public transportation, public schools, drinking fountains in public places, and public toilets.
Skeeter was born in the upper class of white people, and his growth environment was somewhat similar to Scarlett Scarlett in "Gone with the Wind", except that the black slaves in the mid-19th century became dark-skinned servants in the mid-20th century. The black maids are responsible for cleaning the room, cleaning the toilet, cooking and cooking, and cleaning the silver tableware. Not to mention the housework, they also take on the important responsibility of taking care of the host’s children. Skeeter was brought up by a black maid. During her growth, her mother and the maid played the role of mother. When she grows up smoothly and returns to her hometown after receiving higher education, everyone is counting on Skeeter to become a new member of the "Southern Belle" group. Her daily life will closely revolve around drinking iced tea and eating black maid’s cooking. Fried chicken and pastries, playing bridge, and gathering people to chat about these things, and the core mission is to find the right man, tall, handsome, stylish and rich, and get married as soon as possible. But Skeeter is a bit different. She wants to be a writer. The job given to her by Jackson's local newspaper is to write articles for the housework section.
Skeeter naturally regards the black maids as the main interviewees because they are responsible for all the housework. After contacting Abilene, the maid of a friend's house, she realized that the real story was not how to do housework, but how to raise the children. When the white mother was seriously dereliction of duty, Abilene actually played the role of a real mother. She used southern black English at the time to encourage the little white girl to say, "You is kind, you is smart and you is important." Although black maids are doing their duty, Jackson’s white beauties are launching a campaign to pass legislation prohibiting servants from using the master’s bathroom in the name of protecting the health of white children.
I have watched many documentaries about the American civil rights movement in the 1960s. I have also watched tragedies caused by violence by racists such as "Mississippi is Burning". The film "Help" provides racial discrimination against the American South from a female perspective. The subtle analysis. Regarding the stance of the American South and the North towards black people, I had a basic view in the past. The movie "Gone with the Wind" tells the audience that although Scarlett Scarlett and the black slaves are not equal, the relationship between the two can be summed up with warmth and closeness. The Yankees that Southerners hate may think that blacks are born equal, but in actual life the two sides keep a distance, so the relationship between whites and blacks can only be said to be equal but indifferent and alienated. The movie "Help" has changed my over-simplified dichotomy. It turns out that southern beauties can also treat blacks in a way that seems gentle but is still quite bad in nature. For example, banning maids from sharing the bathroom, there is another scene in the movie that left a deep impression on me. In order to collect enough money for the child to go to college, a maid whispered to the host and hostess to borrow $75. The host immediately found a reason to leave, leaving the hostess alone to face the servant. The servant said in the low-ranking state that he was willing to work for the master without pay until the $75 was paid off. The hostess categorically pointed out the truth, and said how can you not be paid? I can't lend you money. It doesn't matter if you don't borrow money, she also persuaded the servant that, based on the Christian's willingness to be charitable, you should refuse me to lend you the money, and you can't let me help a person with a healthy limb.
Faced with this kind of humiliation that is almost "tolerable or unbearable", what should the maids do? The United States does not have the social conditions to rise above the pole, and not everyone has the opportunity to participate in the parade organized by Martin Luther King, but everyone can tell their own story in their own way. Her partners provided the opportunity. Abilene began to hesitate. She asked what should be done if the story she told affects the image of white people. Skeeter encouraged, "Those stories that actually happened should be told." After dozens of dictated stories by the maids were gathered together, Skeeter published a book called "The Help" (The Help). ). With the help of this book, she was given the opportunity to work in New York where the race relations were more harmonious and relaxed, and Mississippi where she remained behind was also gradually making progress. At least the awareness of the rights of the black maids was completely awakened, and no one should be punished. Can escape.
Is "Help" a good movie this year? Maybe it's not ranked, except to contribute an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Viola Davis, the black actress who plays Abilene, hides the emotions, sorrows, sorrows and joys under a calm appearance, but the audience (at least the audience who watched the same movie as me) is moved from time to time to find napkins, and then when his eyes are still wet, Spiritually, she has obtained the pleasure brought by the black maid turning over and seeking equality. Without the weighty performance of Viola Davis, the film would appear to lack focus and fall into the trap of oversimplifying, overly typographical, and overly romanticized civil rights movement.
Although movies are not of high quality, I particularly like the concept of underprivileged groups defending their rights through stories, because today's China particularly needs meaningful oral transcripts. After Google "Oral Record" in Chinese, the most advanced search results are emotional mood, marriage detective's unforgettable experience of seven rapes, my husband Ai Ai and I don't want to be peeped by his brother, and I learn to be a "bad woman" to wake up Husband’s passion, etc., it is difficult to hear the voices of disadvantaged groups. Is it because the disadvantaged group has no verbal interest, or is it that no one wants to record it like Skeeter?
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