How To Treat White Women In The Help

In 2011 the movie The Help was made and based off the best selling book of the same name. The book portrays how white women treat their black maids in 1960’s Mississippi. The main character Skeeter, who grew up in a well to do white family in Mississippi, comes home from college and watches her now married and grown up friends treat their black help with no dignity. Throughout the movie Skeeter’s friends are very concerned with what others think and how it will affect their social status, even if that means showing extreme prejudice and selfishness to the black maids. The Help demonstrates how the idea of defined social classes is outdated and people should answer the call to help others who are not financially well off.
In The Help, white women ensure that black maids have no means to rise …show more content…
The rich white women wear delicate silk patterned dresses sometimes embellished with intricate designs, hair perfectly hair sprayed into a trendy hairstyle, and makeup fully done. Main Character Hilly Holbrook in the beginning scenes wears a silk dress that goes past her knees, that has a feminine pink floral pattern. Her hair is perfectly molded into a pouf hairstyle with a pink bow, not a hair is out of place, nails manicured to perfection, and the look is completed with pearl earrings framing her face. In contrast, the maids are forced to wear muted simple dresses with white aprons, and hair in a low bun. When the maids are not working they wear dull dresses made out of cheap fabric that look old, raggedy, and lifeless because they don’t have any money to spend on new clothes. The comparison between the appearance of the rich and the maids helps the viewer discern the immense money gap between the two. The socialites have enough money to ensure they stay updated on all the new trends and on other trivial fads, but they will not spare an extra cent on the maids