Culture:
A battle for justice
Martin Saunders reflects on the surprise
box office hit, The Help, and what it has
to say to the Church in 2011.
Every summer seems to bring with it a
new publishing phenomenon. Once we
were transfixed by
Captain Corelli’s
Mandolin, another year we were
compelled to
Eat, Pray, Love. This
summer’s poolside/train carriage read
of choice was – from nowhere –
The
Help, a book which has sold millions
of copies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Now, despite a modest budget
($25m) and a relatively unknown and
almost entirely female cast, a film
version has become an unpredicted
box office smash in the US, grossing
over $150m in its first five weeks of
release. But is it merely a schmaltzy
chick-flick, like so many other
best-seller adaptations, or does
The
Help contain some depth and
meaning?
The last time I cried during a film,
Elliott was waving goodbye to ET.
The Help reduced me to tears no
fewer than seven times. It wasn’t the
reaction I was expecting. Set in 1960s
Mississippi, among the homes of
well-off young white women and
their poorly treated African-American
maids, it’s hardly the sort of film I’d
usually choose to watch. Yet it is both
so compellingly told and so gently but
firmly clear in its message that I found
it profoundly affecting.
The story centres principally on
two very different women. Aibileen
(Viola Davis) is the long-serving maid
to the neglectful Elizabeth, acting as
stand-in mother to the toddler she has
no interest in raising. Skeeter (Emma
Stone) is the plucky, intelligent society
girl who doesn’t fit, harbouring a
dream of becoming a writer and
spotting a Story That Needs To Be
Told in the lives of Aibileen and her
friends. Raised in a world where
racial segregation is advocated as the
natural order, Skeeter begins to
suspect that all is not right in the
treatment of these women, and begins
interviewing them in the hope that
she might be able to publish a book
about their experiences. As those
conversations unfold, reluctantly at
first, she (and we) gain an insight into
just how awful the commonplace
treatment of black people was, barely
50 years ago.
As we watch this mistreatment,
chiefly orchestrated by Skeeter’s
‘friend’, Hilly, it is again difficult not
to have a physical reaction. I found
myself repeatedly burrowing my nails
into my palms as my fists clenched
involuntarily at the behaviour of this
devil in a summer dress, chillingly
(but brilliantly) played by Bryce
Dallas Howard. You cannot fail to be
awestruck not only by the depth of
her racism, but also that she (like so
many real people) had convinced
herself that it was righteous – even, in
her own words, ‘Christian’.
On both sides of the divide, a
claimed Christian faith is the moral
basis for the character’s actions. The
white society women believe that they
have been given a divine right to
superiority; the black servant women
file each Sunday to a church led by the
charismatic Preacher Green (David
Oyelowo), who knowingly compels
them to love their enemies in order to
‘have the victory’. This is not simplistic stuff, and
at this, as with much of the film, we are forced to
reflect on the modern context. There are still
issues today on which substantial numbers of
Christians stand on opposing sides – each group
utterly convinced that they are in the right, that
they are following God. Israel/Palestine, abortion,
gay marriage and ordination, women in
leadership, contraception…the list is sizeable.
The
Help doesn’t give us easy answers, but it does
illustrate that both sides can’t be right.
As the story moves on, Skeeter quickly
realises the urgency of what she is compiling
and, at the risk of shattering the community that
raised her, presses on in spite of ferocious
opposition.
At its heart, then,
The Help isn’t a film about
racism (although it is striking and important to
see racism portrayed in a non-masculine context),
but a film about standing up for what is right.
Skeeter never mentions God, but that’s no reason
for Christians not to be inspired by her. The fact
is that she spots deep injustice (one of the maids
asserts at one point that they are already ‘living in
hell’), and fights back – if that’s not the work of
the kingdom, I don’t know what is.
The character and the story should inspire us
to ask the same questions of our own culture.
Skeeter apart, every white character in
The Help
is entirely blind to the culturally ingrained evil
being perpetrated all around them. If we take a
step back and look – like Wilberforce did – with
kingdom eyes, could it be that there are similar
issues around us? They might not be as slap-inthe-
face obvious as blatant southern US racism,
but they could be just as cancerous.
The Help
should inspire us to pray – to ask God to show
us where things are not right; to bring us to tears
over injustice.
And so, unavoidably, to those tears. Totally
unexpectedly,
The Help reduced me to a
blubbering mess. There are laughs too,
specifically around a brilliant denouement about
which I daren’t reveal any spoiling details. But
by the end, your heart will have had more of a
workout than your funny bone. Partly those
tears come from sadness at the lives of the
characters, but overwhelmingly they are inspired
by a realisation that we live in a fallen world –
one where great evil is done in Jesus’ name.
The
Help is a period film, but its themes are not still
stuck in the past. Watch it, enjoy a wonderful
piece of film-making, and let it inspire you to
kingdom-bringing action.
The Help opens in the UK on 28th October.
There is a FREE screening of The Help as part of the Big Chill element of the Youthwork Summit event on Friday 21st October. If you're interested in seeing the movie, click here NOW to register your place. This is a strictly limited offer.
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