The Help: Difference between revisions

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A novel released in 2009, then made into a movie in 2011, ''The Help'' (by Kathryn Stockett) is about the life of several black maids in [[The Sixties|1960s]] Jackson, Mississippi, and the [[Intrepid Reporter]], Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, who interviews them to try and get their stories out to the world.

 

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* [[Abusive Parents]]: Elizabeth Leefolt to her daughter, Mae Mobley.

** From the little we seen of her it seems Elizabeth's own mother was also abusive.

* [[Defector From Decadence]]: Skeeter.

* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: The "pie" that Minny makes for Hilly. Doesn't stop it from being [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome]].

** Hilly firing Minny because she thinks she used the indoor toilet.

** Pretty much everything Hilly does. Trying to make sure Minny has to come work for her by telling everyone in town that she's a thief, sending Yule May to prison for ''four years'' because she's friends with the judge's wife and petty thievery only gets six months (Yule May stole a near-worthless heirloom to help pay her boy's way to college), then also makes Minny's husband's boss fire him, which nearly ''causes him to kill her''.

* [[Ethnic Menial Labor]]

* [[Extreme Doormat]]: Elizabeth, who's constantly bossed around by Hilly, cowed by her husband, and is practically a chew toy to her domineering and extravagant mother. With such a pushover personality, it's no wonder she never realizes Aibileen dedicates some pages in the book to her very own home life.

* [[Former Friend of Alpha Bitch]]: This trope comes into play after Skeeter is cast out of Hilly's social circle.

* [[Genki Girl]]: Celia Foote, ''oh so much''. She is constantly running around, speaking fast, and generally is very energetic and happy about everything. However, she's not as flat a character as she seems.

* [[Girl Posse]]: Skeeter and Elizabeth are this for Hilly, at least at the beginning, although Skeeter rebels over the course of the story.

* [[Good People Have Good Sex]]: Implied when Johnny Foote compares being married to Celia after having dated Hilly for a long time as being like moving from Antarctica to Hawaii; he's not just referring to how much warmer Celia's personality is.

** Being set in the south makes it even more of a surprise when ''[[True Blood]]'''s Sarah Newlin (Anna Camp) and LaFayette (Nelsan Ellis) appear. Nelsan Ellis, sadly, has a very minuscule role, making it a blink-and-you'll miss it.

* [[Hidden Depths]]: Lou Ann, a member of Hilly's [[Girl Posse]] is originally dismissed by Skeeter as nothing more then a kiss up to Hilly and is as silly, shallow, and vain as the rest. As the book progresses however, glimpses are given to show that she is in fact very different to what is first assumed.

* [[How We Got Here]]: The film starts with Skeeter talking to Aibileen about what it was like to be a maid, and then it cuts back several days before that, explaining why Skeeter decided to write the book and how she got Aibileen to talk to her.

* [[Humiliation Conga]]: Nobody will let Hilly forget about the pie.

* [[Intrepid Reporter]]

* [[Magical Negro]]: Deconstructed. The black characters all have varying shades of this, but they take great pains to show why they act this way and all the pain that comes with it. Aibeleen and Minny both aid the white characters in the same way as other examples of this trope, but they're treated like dirt and long to be free.

* [[Mistaken for Gay]]: Mrs. Phelan asks Skeeter if she's gay thinking that was the reason she wasn't already married or at least dating. Skeeter says no but later in the book she mentions how the gay cure drink her mother makes her to drink upsets the stomach and how when she starts to date Stuart her mother was delighted that she liked men.

* [[Noodle Incident]]: Averted. It first appears that we will never get to know what exactly Minny did to Hilly after she was fired. We find out later, and it is ''not'' pretty.

* [[Oscar Bait]]

* [[Pet the Dog]]: In the book Aibileen watches Hilly playing with her children, and concedes that, bitch that she is, she's an excellent and loving mother.

* [[Product Placement]]: Coca-Cola and Crisco.

* [[Rich Bitch]]: Hilly Holbrook. She's bad from about the very ''second'' we meet her, as she's convinced that Minny is trying to steal everything she owns.

* [[Title Drop]]: At the beginning of the film, a woman writes down the words The Help on a note pad, the name of the book that is [[Captain Obvious|also the title of the movie]]. It also serves as the film's title card.

* [[Unusual Euphemism]]: Used by Minny when speaking of what she did to Hilly, naming the event the 'Terrible Awful'.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Films of the 2010s]]

[[Category:Academy Award]]