Ok, now that I have gotten that out of my system, lets talk about the movie. For those of you who had not read the book like me [and yes, I am ashamed that I didn't read the book first, but I just coudn't wait!], you may be wondering what exactly this movie is all about. The movie is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. Mississippi was one of the last states to give any kind of rights to black people and the movie focuses primarily on black maids that are working in the city.
The main character, Skeeter, sees the relationship between white folks and their maids quite differently than her extremely snotty friends, either because she is more educated or because she is more Christian [you be the judge]. One of her closest high school friends, Hilly, has written an initiative for the sanitation board that would require white people with "colored" help to build them a seperate bathroom outside instead of allowing them to use the guest bath because "they carry different diseases than white people". This is the beginning of Skeeters aggravation with "the system" at the time and she begins interviewing Aibileen, the maid of her friend Elizabeth, about what being a maid is like from the maids perspective, something that had never been done at that time. She eventually gets Aibileen's best friend Minny on board to share her stories as well, and begins writing a book that ends up being a collection of stories from a substantial number of maids in the neighborhood.
I came out of the movie feeling a number of things, but I think the foremost emotion was that I am almost ashamed sometimes that I am a white person. I am ashamed that people who share my color of skin act as those we are a better race and would do things like require maids to set their coffee down in front of them instead of hand it to them, lest their skin actually touch. How degrading and awful! I also felt like I am glad to be living in the era that I am in, mostly because I probably would've spent some time in jail during the civil rights movement [it was illegal in Mississippi to create propaganda that proposed blacks be equal to whites] and also because I am thankful that we have almost fully moved on from our country's previous racists ways [although, in the words of Kanye, "racisms still alive, they just be concealin it"].
The moral of this post is, go see this movie. It is very enlightening as well as very touching. And, if you're like me and haven't read the book yet, I recommend starting it soon!
Rememeber: You is kind, You is smart, You is important.
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