The Help

We went to see The Help the other day. I would like to find the book that it based on. This is a very good movie.

It sets the tenor of the times about black maids in a very prejudiced southern town. But I think this was sort of the way in any town with relation to blacks servants and perhaps could apply to servants anywhere.

I have read quite a few books about English manners in the 18th century. The house fully staffed with servants has quite a bit of the same feel. Servants were not people in the same sense as everyone else. You might feel yourself magnanimous enough to speak to them as equals but the separation was always there. In a pinch you had no real loyalty to them. They would be discarded at whim.

They also touch on the subject of separate restrooms and never eat anything touched by a black, at least in your presence.

It is long by movie standards, almost 2 1/2 hours. Yet it kept my interest.

I remember black maids and vaguely black restrooms in Houston. So it touches me personally.

I really do not like violent movies anymore nor "dark comedies". This was the only thing playing that looked at all inviting. It was a good movie. And I left thinking a little.