Review & Backstory Based on #1 New York Times Best Selling Novel

Author Kathryn Stockett, who is from Jackson, Mississippi had her novel rejected by 60 different agents before it was picked up, selling over 3 million hardcover copies. She then turned the story over to her life long friend Tate Taylor, also from the South, to write the screenplay. He was, like Stockett, struggling to establish his career at the time. After some soul searching, Stockett also assigned the rights to Taylor for the film. Suddenly Taylor found himself with a massive break through – the screenplay was to be a major motion picture backed by DreamWorks, starring Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain; and, he would be directing it. The book was originally considered rather controversial and offensive to certain southerners but others have fully endorsed the authenticity of the stories and the portrayal of the South at that time.

“The Help” is now nominated for 3 Golden Globes in the categories of Best Motion Picture – Drama; Viola Davis – Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama; and in the Best Original Song – Motion Picture category for the song “Living Proof” with music by Thomas Newman, Mary J. Blige and Harvey Mason, Jr. Lyrics by: Mary J. Blige, Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas. It also has a DGA nomination.

“The Help” is set in 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi and focuses on the intimate and intricately interwoven lives of four women of this small southern town, during a time of immense social and political upheaval over civil rights . ‘The Help’ are the African American women who work  as domestics for the middle class ‘white’ community. During this era, African Americans were referred to as ‘Negroes’ and ‘Blacks’ and Caucasian Americans were referred to as ‘Whites’, even in documents of law. Schools, buses, bathrooms, restaurants, in fact every conceivable thing was segregated in the Southern US. Mississippi was the last state to relinquish its racist laws and only did so under great pressure.

‘The Help’ tells the story of a courageous young woman, Skeeter (Emma Stone), an aspiring journalist and her friendship with Aibileen, (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) both maids of her friends’ families. Laws that forbid African Americans and whites to comingle or support each other’s activities rigidly controlled the 1960’s South. Emma Stone (Skeeter) embarks on a secretive journalism project for a publishing company in New York City. The story however requires the cooperation and contribution of the African American maids, to tell their stories.. Skeeter’s ambitious project requires bravery, trust and true friendship between the women. Not only were the stakes high for the individual women but publishing the work could result in a major step forward in the civil rights movement. The Publishers were keen to tell the personal stories of the maids if Skeeter could get a significant number of them to speak out about their personal experiences as domestics.