“Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. A church baby we like to call it. Taking care a white babies, that’s what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning.”
This story captured my heart from the very first paragraph. Set in Jackson, Mississippi, 1962, The Help gives insight into the world of black maids and their white employers during the turbulent civil rights era. The book is told from three different points of view, maids Aibileen and Minnie, and a white journalism graduate from Ole Miss, Skeeter. Delving into the complex relationships between races, Stockett’s fictional account reveals the full range of emotions–pain, affection, fear, ignorance, love, humiliation–that underpinned Southern society in the sixties.
Someone, please make a movie out of this one. My dream team for The Help: The daring and statuesque Aibeleen would be played by Queen Latifah. The character of Minnie requires a feisty dynamo with a comic edge–Raven-Symone. Gwyneth Paltrow would make a great Skeeter (hair would have to be frizzed). Elizabeth Leefolt? Reese Witherspoon. I can see Becki Newton of Ugly Betty fame playing the wicked Junior League president, Hilly, but she would need to eat a few slices of caramel cake every day for several months to fill the role properly. One of my favorite characters was Celia Foote, the blonde bombshell from Sugar Ditch; Scarlett Johansson could pull her off.
Strong feelings abound for this book. Some folks love it; some folks hate it. The portrayal of dialect is offensive to some and the portrayal of Southern whites is offensive to others. Certainly, these few characters do not represent the totality of Mississippi attitudes and personalities in the 60’s, but when I read some of the emotionally-charged negative comments, I’m reminded of Rodney Dangerfield’s famous line: “I resemble that remark!”
So relax. It’s just a novel. Curl up with this one and recognize the miles we’ve traveled to become a better state and better people.
Tags: Kathryn Stockett, Mississippi, The Help
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