I can't stand this book.
Well, that's unfair. I read only a few pages of the book, not getting past even the short sample my Kindle app graciously provided for free. I stopped reading the book, glad for technological advances like the Kindle, which kept me from having actually paid money to read a story that, once again, marginalizes racial issues in our country and world and downright insults women like my grandmother, who did her fair share of cleaning the homes of wealthy white people, and still manages to string together a grammatically correct sentence.
I've been told to look beyond the author's decision to only place incorrect grammar in the mouths of her black characters while her white characters speak pitch perfect English. And perhaps, if the author grew up under a rock in the South, she did actually manage to never encounter a white person who spoke broken English or a black person who did not. It's possible. It's also possible to eat rancid meat and not get a stomachache, but it's not likely.
I decided The Help was no homework assignment, that nothing was forcing me to read it, and that I have the freedom to choose books that present racial tensions within the context of more realistic, less offensive, characterizations. To be sure, I also I shy away from stories that present all white people as evil racists who sit around evenings wondering how they can further the plight of whichever minority they happen to encounter the following day - white people are not like that, as a whole. Yes, absolutely, there are people who happen to be white who are small, infantile, and grotesque in their thinking about people who are not like themselves, and there are also people who happen to be black, brown, red and yellow who are small, infantile, and grotesque in their thinking about people who are not like themselves. But there are a wealth of people, black, white, purple and green, who are confused by the lack of racial dialogue in a country that so obviously so suffers from racially driven issues still, who choose their friends and lovers based on nothing having to do with skin, and who should, one would reason, look at a novel and movie like The Help with disappointment.
Valerie Boyd, professor of journalism at the University of Georgia, wrote about this in clear terms:
"Like the novel on which it’s based, the movie adaptation of “The Help” will likely be a huge hit with white audiences. But for black viewers it is condescending and frequently insulting, despite admirable performances by Davis and Spencer, who bring a measure of complexity — actual flesh and blood — to the characters of Aibileen and Minny. It speaks volumes about the ongoing racial chasm in this country that a feel-good movie for white people will leave many black filmgoers feeling sad — and pessimistic that America can ever become anything more than “a nation of cowards.”"
Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post commented as well:
"As affectionately as Taylor has brought "The Help" to the screen, and as gratifying as it is to watch Davis and Spencer bring Aibileen and Minny to palpable, fully rounded life, their narrative, like "The Blind Side" a few years ago, is structured largely around their white female benefactor. That this is the story we keep telling ourselves is all the more puzzling - if not galling - when viewers consider that, precisely at the time that "The Help" transpires, African Americans across Mississippi were registering to vote and agitating for political change. In other words, they were helping themselves. And, on screen at least, their story remains largely untold."
The Washington Post clearly agreed, using strong language to chastize the movie through the byline: "Using Stereotypes to explain racism in "The Help."
I don't question the talent of author Kathryn Stockett. I simply wish she had used her talent to create characters who could tell the story in her head without disassembling the character of my people.
That would certainly have been of more help.
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