The Help

Imagine being denied of your civil rights? The civil rights movement in the 1960s reached heights. African Americans had experienced all aspects of discrimination in their lives. They were no longer slaves but defiantly not equal citizens. We can see in this time of racism in the southern America through the film the help. The help directed by Tate Taylor the characters Hilly, Skeeter, Celia and Charlotte all show us their different views of racism living in the southern Mississippi Jackson. Techniques such as dialogue, camera angles, costuming and lighting all show this.
The civil rights was at the forefronts of people’s minds with the African Americans and whites being fully separated most of the southerners agreed with this and agreed with the Jim Crow laws in place. Segregation was an attempt by the white southerners to separate the African Americans and white race in all parts of life and to achieve supremacy over blacks. They specified certain places for “whites only” and then “coloured” rooms. African Americans had separate schools, restaurants, parks, transportation and bathrooms. In the film the help we see that there is a lot of separation between the African Americans and whites. An example of an extremely racist character is Hilly Holbrook she is a very racist, determined, selfish and vain character who only cares about her social status and keeping the whites and African Americans apart. Hilly is trying to create a white supremacy town. We see a mid-shot with a slight low angle in the film which shows hilly in her bathroom marking her toilet paper. Hilly does this to see if her maid Minny is using her toilet. This is an example of how Hilly wants both races to be separate and shows us how racist she is towards her African maid and other maids in general. We can see in this shot that the low angle makes Hilly look in power and that shows us the kind of character Hilly is throughout the film. The director’s purpose of Hilly’s character is to show the...