Some argue that The Help underplays the civil rights era.  That was more than apparent after watching the movie review clip at the end of class last Thursday.  But unfortunately evil comes in more types than just horrific brutality the jim crow era is known for.  We do not see any lynchings in The Help, but we see the destruction of lives through mental games and higherarchy of the female social construct that was essentially law.  A construct where Regina George of Mean Girls looks kind or where ostracization and manipulation is a crowd favorite.  The Help shows that where a white man had the power to get up and shoot someone, the white woman had the power to ensure a black person could never get another job again, leaving them with nothing but the responsibility for a family they must still provide for, and a side of shame and belittlement.

I know that this is very different from the cruelty that the female critic (blanking on her name sorry folks), but cruelness is cruelness no mater what description entails, and The Help shows one of the many sides of cruel that was very apparent during this time period.

As I said in class, I actually just finished reading the help. I usually hate reading books after I see the movie (I’ve seen the help before this class) because the movie is never as good as the book, but I heard that the book and movie were very similar when it came to The Help.

Overall, the movie follows the book rather well.  Tate Taylor, the dirctor of the film, is a friend of Kathryn Stockett, the author of the book, and Stockett helped on the screenplay before production began as well.  Overall to me, there were two things that were apparently different between the book and the film.  The first being that the violence was toned down a bit in the film, in order to make it more of a PG film according to IMDB.  The other difference that was changed from the book to the movie that is worth mentioning is part of the ending of the film.  Don’t worry, the Mae Mobley and Aibleen goodbye scene is just as heart wrenching in the book.  But in the book when Skeeter goes off to New York, the paper she works for before actually gives the Miss Myrna column to Aibileen.  This is something I’m not sure why they cut from the film, especially because this tidbit of information would have given the audience more closure with Aibileen’s character, but then again, closure is a debatable word in this situation due to the time period.