"The Help"

Hi Jane and MPP,

I've attached (and pasted below) a brief review of "The Help" and some information on a National Nanny Night Out event that will take place the weekend the movie opens. Thought it might spark some discussion and that the movie event might help nannies find a local peer group!

Nanny Deb
Professional Nanny and Postpartum Doula
Member of: INA, PNA, MAN
Blogging at: http://talesfromthenannyhood.blogspot.com/
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The Help is set in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, and focuses on 3 women and the changes that take place in their lives when they collaborate on a secret project with explosive implications.

Aibileen and Minny are black maids, whose work cooking, cleaning, and raising the children of their white employers allows the lives of the women they work for to run smoothly. Aibileen is raising her 17th white child, and while she still accepts her place as an unappreciated gear in the cogs of her employer’s life, she is also growing bitter after years of coping with blatant and ignorant racism. Minny doesn’t suffer fools gladly, which means she has been fired from multiple jobs before she finds work with a young married woman who is an outsider among the young white socialites that make up the “in crowd”.

Skeeter is a new college graduate who stepped outside the proscribed roles for women of her age by not simply marrying and having children after high school. When she returns to Jackson, she discovers that the maid who raised her, Constantine, has disappeared. Skeeter’s search for meaningful work and her desire to find out what happened to Constantine combine with her growing discomfort concerning the way her white friends treat their maids and lead her to a life changing decision. She’s going to write a book about the help.

Skeeter tries to recruit the maids in Jackson to tell their stories about what life is like for them, and meets plenty of resistance. The story about how the black women of Jackson decide to take the risk and tell the truth, and how the relationships between Aibileen, Minny, Skeeter, and multiple other characters develop and change over time as the proposed book moves from dream to reality is an amazing, heart wrenching, and eye-opening tale.

The Help was published in 2009, and a movie based on the book is being released on August 12th of this year. Nanny Biz Reviews is coordinating a National Nanny Night Out event for opening weekend, to encourage nannies across the US to go see the movie with their local nanny peers and then enjoy dinner and discuss the movie. To find an event near you, or for help coordinating your own event, you can find more information here: http://nannybizreviews.com/national-nanny-night-out/ Or, feel free to check Facebook for updates, by searching for “The Help: National Nannies Night Out”.

Have you read “The Help”? What did you think?