Racial Discrimination In The Help Movie

One of the best American historical fiction film The Help centered around racial discrimination and gender roles in the Civil Rights era in 1960s. Throughout American history, racial segregation has always been an issue. The ideology of “separate but equal” was once a legal doctrine in the United States Constitution. It was until Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education statewide segregation laws have become illegal, and was approximately sixty years after the decision made in Plessy v. Ferguson (“Important Supreme Court Cases”). The Help while the film’s title suggests as “the help” provided from black maids in Jackson, Mississippi to middle class white families. In his article “In Living Color: Race and American Culture”, Michael Omi …show more content…
With the hard work from Martin Luther king to Thurgood Marshall, equal opportunities are not longer glass ceiling that (is visible but unreachable) it is obtainable for all individuals by law. However, “the patterns of racial segregation and exclusion continue to characterize the production of popular” contemporary culture (Omi, 539). Even though nowadays segregation laws do not exist anymore, people are still separate into different groups naturally. Overtime, race has become a representation of self. It is neither about who this person is nor how he/she behaves, it is about what physical identities or traits he/she has. The majority of people tend to operate through lenses with racial beliefs in which has a high change to be false (Omi, 540). Also, research has shown that institutional discrimination can be found in different fields mostly because discrimination upon minorities are “justified on the basis of biological difference” such as skin color (Omi, 540). A handful of people are offensive toward racial minorities and use race to judge one another based on stereotypes. And, stereotypes contain mostly false information and are often exaggeration of certain behaviors in a race/ethnic group. For example, a woman named Miss Chotard asks her maid Willy Mae if she treats Mae as awful and the book described and …show more content…
There are strict rules and social standards to limit and control not only on Blacks for their behavior, but also to restrict Whites who have concerned about those rules. Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a middle class white woman graduated from University of Mississippi. In the movie, Skeeter plays a role as speaker for the black maids. Since the Whites have strong sense of ethnocentrism at the time, believing in their inherent superiority, the voice of the Blacks can barley or never be heard. Also, Skeeter wants to become a successful writer, knowing that it is very difficult for woman to be a writer at the time, speaking up for black maids will be one stone kills two birds for this situation. At first, Aibilbeen Clark, a black maid serving for middle class white family, is not willing to help Skeeter because it “[involves] conflicts over the definition and nature of the color line” (Omi, 541). It is to be understood at the time of Civil Rights era, racial minorities are viewed as on the lower end of social ladder while the Whites are seen as superior on the top of social ladder. It was “common sense” for different racial/ethnic group to remain separate and not cross the line. Those courageous women, after all, outwear the fear of crossing the invisible line between races and work together to published a novel, The Help. It is a story about those who (middle