Thumbs up or down for 'The Help' movie trailer?

Kathryn Stockett's novel "The Help" has been a longtime favorite with readers, spending more than a year at or near the top of bestseller lists. This August, it'll come to screens, starring Emma Stone and Viola Davis with Sissy Spacek and more.

The trailer above seems to give a pretty full sense of what the movie will be like -- how it will represent 1960s Mississippi, what kind of accents the women have, how the good guys and bad guys (and women) will be portrayed. What do you think: thumbs up or thumbs down?

-- Carolyn Kellogg

 

Comments

[Sharon]

Big thumbs up!!!! I like it!

[bemelodious]

Thumbs-up, for sure! The casting looks great.

[MarineWife31]

Thumbs WAY UP!!! I can't wait!

[Lynn K. Nelson]

I've read hundreds of book and this one by far is the best I have ever read. Every American should be required to read this book.

[josnne]

great read, can't wait to see the movie

[JERRELENE]

It's about time a book like this was written. In some cases, white women did
not know how to function without "The Help". They were helpless without
them: Raising their children, cooking, cleaning, and other household choirs.
It is time those women who were " the help" are given their just due in what
they did for the Southern Families. They were not dumb or stupid as they
were looked on to be. Praises to "The Help" and to the person who brought
them of the shadows of obscurity.

[Keren]

Wow! Thumbs up - can't wait to see it!

[Bettina Sherick]

I wholeheartedly agree with Lynn K. Nelson. This book should be required reading. I can't wait to see this movie.

[Orville]

The author of the The Help is a racist white woman and this movie is clearly for white people not black folks.

I guess, for white folks movies like the Help make them think they are actually progressive. The problem is, the Help is form of white racism because it constructs black people are unintelligent, docile, and passive victims.

The help is all about white folks liberating blacks.

The Help reminds of me of Sandra Bullock's racist movie The Blind Side. Black people have no agency in The Help because it is centered around a white saviour. The reason white folks like white saviour movies such as The Help is because it helps them to feel better about themselves. However, my black elders fought for their rights during the civil rights era. My elders did not sit around and wait for some rich, uppity, white person to help us get our rights.

I thought the trailer was incredibly racist specifically the line "we love them and they love us." Yes, black women love to live in servitude to rich, upper class white women. It is so sad that Viola Davis chose to take on the film role of a mammy. I think this just goes to show that Hollywood does not provide talented black actresses with quality film roles. The best role a black woman can have is being a maid.

[cynthia]

Orville, honey, you are so sadly mistaken and BLIND yourself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. The reasont this country can't get past THE PAST is because of people like you.

[Janet]

Orville, You obviously have not read "The Help".

[Grew up in Jackson]

Thumbs way up! Can't wait to see the movie!
Don't listen to that Orville person. He/she doesn't know what he's talking about. It's people like that who hold us back. I knew the good side of Jackson life, and blacks and whites got along just fine.

[W LAWRENCE]

THUMBS UP

[Mary]

I loved The Help and think the movie will be great. I have lived in SC all my life and yes, my mother had "help" all her life. However, we were not anywhere near MS. My mother's help came to our weddings, funerals, and were and are part of the family. I have a cherished quilt that I received from one of our dear friends. Some of the treatment in The Help was not good, I will admit. And I'm proud to say that it did not take place in SC.

[Saddened]

Comments like Mary's, attempting to claim that the black women in South Carolina who worked for white women were treated any differently than they were elsewhere in the South during the miserable Jim Crow era, or Cynthia who tells Orville to "stop feeling sorry for himself", drive home the sad truth of how desperately we as a people - I'm a 53 year old white woman - do not want to take responsibility for the past. I watched this trailer with the same disgust I felt trying to read Stockett's book. IT IS A BOOK TO MAKE WHITE PEOPLE FEEL GOOD ABOUT THEMSELVES. We're not like Hilly, no, unh unh! We're good people and we love our help! There's a pie for alla you who are buying this and patting yourselves on the back for doing so. Shame.

[Boomer]

The accents are pretty good for a movie. Please keep in mind this is set in 1962. Jackson by the late 60s was already changing beyond the mindset of Hilly Holbrook (I should know, I am from Jackson and went to Ole Miss).

[agnes sullivan]

I loved the book, but I could not relate with the white ladies or the black ladies. However, what I loved was the dignified way the black ladies look and act. I know in fiction everything is cleaned up and almost glamorous. But the beauty of the black skin and the pastle colors and matching purse is so feminine. The white women have a little hardness to them. I'm a 60yr old white female. And I find that as I have aged I have a lot in common with any women my age. When I was young we all had differences. But the beauty of age is we are all so much a like. The book was thought provoking even though probably not accurate.

[sh]

I am confused if you or your family were mistreated would you be happy about a movie being made about that time and being written by a race that wronged them? The white women with money left their most valuable item with 'The Help', I believe it is a slap in the face to both races. How stupid are the white women to leave the one thing that you can never buy again (a child and their childhood)? The Help knew how to treat people right since they were wronged so many times and had to work hard for everything. The sad thing about this book and movie is the families that did the wronging are going to profit from the royalties and so will their friends since they were probably cast as extras. We will be silly to go see it just because it will be the way for many to have a motion picture debut.
For those who want Orville to let it go, maybe you should ask yourself is it your right to ask him this? It only took how many decades for slavery to end and then how many more decades for injustice of treatment to end or has it ended? Orville you were right on with your comments.

[eliav]

another tarzan flick just as Orville so eloquently stated. beware of the white saviour images in hollywood church and any other venue. the white race is not our saviours, look for salvation from your own kind. i don't believe in santa claus" jesus" and tarzan as benevolet saviours for blacks.

[Jackie]

Way to go! I can hardly wait... loved the book and the character development. The younger generation needs to learn how times have changed and why change was so necessary.

[MaryRose Duffield]

Loved the book. Recommended it for Plitzer Prize as something that was typical and real at a certain time in America. Loved the trailer and will see the movie. I think it is wonderful that we can now look back and see how things were and then appreciate how things have changed.

Further:
Below after reading Orville's review which I appreciated, I want to say that I saw the book differently. I loved the white woman's hatred of the way the maids were treated and how she appreciated them as people. And I thought the maids of that time were so courageous to help her write the book, because of how they could have been harmed by angry whites for their cooperation. I loved the Civil Rights movement and Great Society because it helped bring so many Blacks/African Americans into the middle and upper classes. I praise everyone involved, and I regret that Orville is so angry. Cheer up, Orville, I am 81, and I remember how things were.

[susan Stapleton McLaurin]

I loved the book and the preview looks like a winner!

[Linda Bacon]

A BIG OLE THUMBS UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It certainly seems to be following the book,
and I like the look of it. Having graduated from High School in 1960, I know what the era of this movie looked like, and I think they have gotten it just right.

[Dana]

Orville's comment was dead on, if you disagree then I beg of you to wake up. Cynthia, racism is by no means a thing of the past, it's just done differently. Educate yourselves, please.

[Tess]

Is Emma Stone very tall, with fizzy ,uncontrollable hair and a large nose and bad dress sense. Is the actress playing Milly over weight. No ! because the producers want glamour.They should of asked Beyonce to play Minny.

[Margaret]

To the person who suggested the actress portraying Minny was not overweight, are you serious? What constitutes a weight issue in your mind? Are you aware of the health problems related to obesity? I hardly think the producers are attempting to play the "glamour" card, just the brilliant actress one.

[Cece Coon]

I am an avid reader of all types of books and I loved "the Help". I grew
up in the 60's in the South and this book is true to life. I hope the author
writes her next book quickly because I can't wait to buy it. I can't wait
for the movie and hope it's half as good as the book.

[Cece Coon]

Loved the book and cannot wait for the movie.

[Actress]

With regards to Orville's comments "Hollywood does not provide talented black actresses with quality film roles. The best role a black woman can have is being a maid" I will just say this, I had a conversation with a notable Casting Director in LA and she told me point blank to be prepared to play the role of a Maid or Nanny because those are the most frequent roles that come through for actress of color. And that is a person who reads A LOT of screenplays etc.

This was a painful truth AND it motivated me to be a writer/producer so I can create the stories and characters that allow actors of color to play more than the usual suspects. True, Hollywood has a bias, but we are capable of taking the reigns and telling the world a different story.

[Me]

I am sure this movie is well done, but Orvillle is right. And the sad truth is that anyone who has spent any time in the South knows that "the Help" still exists for many of the rich people down there. I've met women who still do that work. They exist out here on the West Coast, too, but they are Latinas.

[Amy]

Orville's not wrong. I think strong enough roles for the black actresses might save the concept, but the concept needs saving. As a Southerner used to horrid accents in films, though, I will say the dialect coach on this one did well.

[Susan]

I think I would like the movie if I hadn't read the book. The movie seems like a glossy version of those times, almost like a comedy with the cute actresses and upbeat music, whereas the impression I got from the book was one of a hard life, and a lot of sadness - not being able to feed yourself, the harsh living conditions, not being able to trust or speak your mind, not much to hope for. There were little bright spots of humanity - the tenderness between Aibileen and the children she cares for, the occasional kindness shown to the women by the families they work for. And the movie, or the trailer at least, seems to paint Skeeter as the heroine which I didn't get from the book at all. All three have their roll. I feel thankful Skeeter starts to see the light about how black women and men are treated, but I certainly don't see her as the biggest risk taker. She was white with a rich white family back in a time when black women had no rights and could be killed -- for even just going in the wrong bathroom. I am kind of disappointed, so I'm going to have to wait awhile before I decide to see the movie.

[tinfoil hattie]

HORRIBLE book. Worse-looking movie. My 14 y.o. son & I cringed through the previews Friday night. I HATED the "nice white lady" theme running through the book, and I sank way down in my seat at the "I'ma he'p you wraht yo' book" and "We allare!" dialog in the trailer.

How do people here NOT see how terrible this book and movie are? African-American women portrayed as the cliche, loving and beloved "mammy" figure that has dominated since "Gone With the Wind." Super White Woman to the rescue! "I'll help these poor, ignorant, helpless Negro folks! Why, how awful that some people are so mean to them!"

Yeah, right. As if there's no discrimination anymore. As if white people don't hold ourselves above all others, even if we do so unconsciously. This movie is one big insult after another.

If you disagree with Orville and others, I suggest you google "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" and start there. Then keep examining your white privilege until you finally give this book and movie the utter contempt they deserve.