Written by Harry Fry
In recent years, the film The Help, directed by Tate Taylor and based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett, has been critiqued for its supposed inaccurate features. Scholars have argued the film illustrates a common habit in the cinematic world of exacerbating historical truths to generate fiction. Rooted within the uncertain environment of civil rights and desegregation, this feature will argue that The Help’s overarching significance was to convey this atmosphere of instability and prevailing intolerance in the 1960’s Deep South. The narrative signifies the unorthodox reversal of roles existing between two mother figures – the biological mother, and the maid, a more figurative maternal character who typically raised the child – unravelling the experiences of both against Mississippi’s proto civil rights atmosphere. This essay will consider the importance of these often-underemphasised households dynamics, wrapped inside a society founded on racial intolerance.
The narrative revolves around ‘the help’ who devote most of their lives to caring for the children of others. A fundamental character in this narrative is Aibileen, one of the black maids who raises a white child, Mae Mobley. We learn in Aibileen’s opening monologue about the death of her own biological child. She attempts to replicate her maternal position through the care she provides for her employers’ children throughout the film. Whilst Aibileen refers to having ‘bitter seed’ towards life upon losing her child, the connection she forms with Mae Mobley is the most intimate and loving relationship seen throughout the narrative. Mae Mobley’s actual mother, Ms Leefolt, is an outsider, standing against these two characters’ impenetrable world. Aibileen is represented as the child’s parent in every way except biological, as if there is in fact a genetic bond between the two of them. This is exemplified when she safeguards Mae Mobley as her bedroom is torn apart during harsh weather conditions. The turbulent external environment symbolises the hostile reality of continued formal and informal segregation within Mississippi in the 1960s; this connection is paradoxical, as if Mae Mobley was an adult, her relationship with Aibileen would be shunned. However, Aibileen and Mae Mobley, in defiance of these expected interracial interactions, find comfort together. Amongst these challenging external forces, Aibileen appears more secure in herself and her life with Mae Mobley, indicating to an extent, a co-dependent relationship between the two.
A parallel to this caring maternal relationship is Mae Mobley’s connection, or lack thereof, with her own mother. Ms Leefolt struggles to identify herself with the role of mother, and hence is entirely uninvolved in her child’s upbringing. Aibileen oversees Mae Mobley’s physical and mental developments, whereas Ms Leefolt is conversely portrayed as her mother in name and biology alone. She carries out a pregnancy with Mae Mobley’s soon-to-be younger sibling throughout the film. Aibileen draws attention to this, naming Ms Leefolt unfit to be a mother – directly addressing what could be the audience’s preestablished opinions. Furthermore, the juxtaposing physical treatment of Mae Mobley by Aibileen and Ms Leefolt accentuate these issues: Aibileen kisses Mae Mobley when holding her whilst Ms Leefolt does not, Mae Mobley listens to Aibileen and asks for her, yet never for her mother. Crucially, this leads to Mae Mobley calling Aibileen her ‘real mama’, as Ms Leefolt consistently neglects her child – allowing her to be parented by another. This is damaging as whilst the audience may sympathise with Ms Leefolt’s conflicts, she is fundamentally viewed as partly to blame for her condition. It is also a dichotomous reality: ‘The Help’ are forbidden from touching their employers – when serving coffee, a maid sets it down in front of the employer as their hands cannot touch – yet they will physically interact with their kids when caring for them. Through playing on this contradictory fact, this event can be seen as highlighting the illogical regulations within society upon the eve of actual desegregation in Mississippi.
These clashing identities and roles signpost the overarching themes of The Help. Firstly, the implicit reality of Aibileen holding more autonomy over a white family’s child than anyone else in the household, despite being a black maid. This conveys a contrast for the white woman in white homes with a maid, as hiring a maid allows her more agency within the household to command as a domestic head, whilst simultaneously reducing her agency in the household as a mother. In this film, mothers are allowed to control a maid’s employment, yet typically allow for their employee to take over their central duty in motherhood. Whilst limiting women to the largely historical role as homemaker is erroneous, it should be viewed as significant when a woman explicitly grants another woman to dominate her child’s guardianship. The result of this causes Ms Leefolt and Aibileen to eternally share a cyclically tense relationship: Aibileen is fired and Ms Leefolt instantly realises that without a maid, her clear lack of a relationship with Mae Mobley is exposed. This concluding event in the film is never resolved, establishing the institutional problems with societal demands in this context. Ms Leefolt, like other mothers in the film, is expected to hire ‘The Help’ and permit them to act in their place as a mother. A similar example is worth referencing: Skeeter, the protagonist, has a distant relationship with her mother, as she was predominantly raised by the family’s maid, Constantine. Regardless, these mothers may never accept the implications of following these societal cues.
In centralising the often implicit reality of a maid’s role as lead guardian, we can observe the reality of maternal household dynamics, feeding into the themes of wider significance within the film. The juxtapositions of black and white, maid and mother, employee and employer are blurred. This film mirrors the dysfunctionality of segregation-era United States’ society and households, particularly in the South, but also highlights the damning consequences on both black and white mothers. That being said, this mutual struggle originates differently: black women are commonly forced to care for others’ children under legal restriction to make a living, whereas white women are pressured into being absent for their children’s lives. In all instances, though, women are removed from motherhood that they should be given full right to.
Bibliography
Quinn. Eithne, (2012), Closing Doors: Hollywood, Affirmative Action, and the Revitalization of Conservative Racial Politics, Journal of American History, Volume 99, Issue 2.
Stoddard. Jeremy, D, and Alan. S, Marcus, (2006), “The Burden of Historical Representation: Race, Freedom, and “Educational” Hollywood Film.” Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 36, no. 1.
Taylor. E, (2011), Life In The South, Through The Eyes Of ‘The Help’, NPR.
Van Wormer. Katherine, (2014), Narratives of Women Who Worked as Maids During the Civil Rights Era, VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project.
Featured Image Credit: New Orleans, 1939. “Negro Home Service Demonstration Project – Negro Home Demonstration (Aid), 1735 Josephine Street. Interior.,” January 31, 1939, WPA photo via [1] # 3, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JosephineStreetDiningRoom_NewOrleans1937_3.jpg.
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