Maids of Honor
"You is kind. You is smart. You is important.
”
The Help (2011)
When I was considering a well-timed article that would highlight the intersection of Black History Month and Women’s History Month, initially I had not considered the Help. But it was free on Youtube and I put it on in the background while I worked on some projects. The story seemed small - insignificant personal accounts in the guise of white saviorism fueled by “real housewives” drama. Certainly a well put-together film but maybe not the screaming impact I was looking for.
As I rewatched it though, a creeping familiarity came over me. I had just come from a much-needed happy hour meetup with some SMPS colleagues and had another scheduled for the following weekend. Amongst the things we talk about, work, office culture, “who knows who” we also just talk about being women in the world. Dealing with the kids, husbands, parents, family, health, lives, everything and anything that takes up your 24 hours in a day while trying to keep everything from falling apart. Sharing your thoughts and feelings can be liberating in a safe and sacred space. It’s not a space exempt from duality, however, I have had my fair share of women coworkers just as ready to stab me in the back. But while leaning on the positives, sharing can be powerful. And one thing this movie teaches very well is that most changes begin with small but powerful acts of defiance and bravery. The impacts may be minimal but the results can be powerful with enough energy and an open mind. In the midst of this change it is more important than ever to lean on those who share your struggle.
The Review
Aibileen and Minny are Black housemaids in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963. The routine of their lives is a legacy handed down to them given their caste in the 1960s South. The duties of these domestics is to clean, cook, and care for white families and their children. They have done this all their lives. When Skeeter (Eugenia is her given name), a White, well-monied, college girl from a prominent family in Jackson, comes home from school to care for her ailing mother, she also asks about her own maid and where she has moved on to. After she gets a job at the local paper writing a domestic advice column, she begins to question the nature of their caste system and becomes inspired to write something of more value. After requesting the help of the housemaids to fuel her advice column, her curiosity causes her to dive deeper into the housemaids’ thoughts and feelings about serving white families while leaving their own kids at home. Because Skeeter wants to be a prolific writer she aspires to publish the housemaids’ accounts. Aibileen is the first to oblige and has in fact journaled her own observations of the nature of her daily work. Minny soon joins her after being rudely fired from her position and feels she has nothing to lose. The only problem is that saying how you really feel in Jim Crow Mississippi could get the housemaids arrested or killed. Aibilene and Minny oblige Skeeter and share their stories under certain circumstances, and soon Skeeter is on her way to having her articles published by an agent in New York.
The head of high society in Jackson amongst the housewives of the elite is Hilly. Her thinly veiled and sardonic racism is the cause of much drama and grief for the domestic help, her mother, and eventually her community. Her impetus in life is a mirror image of Skeeter’s - she is championing an effort to require separate bathrooms for Blacks that work in their homes for “health reasons”. In a world of “keeping up with the Jones’” she is the “Jones” in her neighborhood. Her manipulation and ire-fueled antics are that of the “grandmother of mean girls”. After she fires Minny for using her restroom (an act of defiance after repeated threats from Hilly), and having her replacement maid Yule Mae arrested and beaten by police, the other housemaids in the community to step up and share their personal stories about serving white households in the South at the time.
As Skeeter struggles with publishing these articles, now merged into a book, she also has to deal with her mother’s health issues and caste issues, as she discovers that her mother fired their housemaid to save face, the woman Skeeter considers as the mother who raised her. Also dealing with her own issues is Celia Foote - a new-money debutante who can’t make friends with the bridge club in the tight circle of housewives that Hilly leads. She is brazen and freewheeling from a small town, a delightful but pressured Dolly Parton homage, and foreign to the circle of “ladies” in their neighborhood. She befriends Minny after secretly hiring her as a housemaid when no one else will.
The drama in this small community comes to a boil when everyone in town starts reading Skeeter’s book after it’s published. The stories seem familiar and speculation begins to circulate that this book may be composed of real accounts. For the safety of those domestics who contributed names are omitted and the book was published anonymously but that doesn’t stop the circle of housewives from gossiping. Will the book bring about a change or consequences for those who employ the Help? While no enlightenment occurs on a grand scale the story does prove that stories are powerful and worth telling to those brave enough to listen.
The Take
For obvious disclosure, I do not identify as Black or White, nor was I raised in the South. I wasn’t even born exceptionally rich or poor. But I do relate to so many characters in this film from various perspectives - both of my grandmothers cleaned houses for a living, I have amazing colleagues with whom I can share work matters, several of my family members have certainly pressured me about finding a man and having kids, I couldn’t wait to leave my hometown and go to college in the “big city”, and in addition to my mother, I was raised by a whole family of supporters. So the microcosm in which this story takes place lights up a few memories and relatable stories in my mind.
The first relatable experience I noticed in this movie is the tightly-knit community that the housemaids have in this neighborhood. They all know each other, they all observe much while operating “unseen”, they compare notes on who is good to work for and what goes on in these White households, and they support and care for each other. I cannot help but draw a comparison to my own network - recalling the several instances where I’ve been contacted about employer references, discussed who is hiring, who has what kind of office culture, and so many aspects of finding the right firm to work for in this industry. It still baffles me to this day that some firms remain oblivious to the nature of the culture they are curating, and do little to nothing to solicit employee feedback. The most obvious solutions seem to be the most overlooked, except by those firms who are brave enough to face the realities that their employees share.
The nature of our marketing network, much like any other professional network, is that we all know each other and we all compare notes, whether industry firms appreciate it or not. Marketers in this industry also seem to operate “unseen” sometimes, similar to how the housemaids struggle. I have griped much in the past about marketing departments seeming like a black hole in a vacuum in space where RFPs go in and completed proposals come out. Questions enter and results emerge with little recognition to those responsible. When Skeeter first asks Ailbileen how she feels about her work, and she responds with a dumbfounded realization that no one ever asked her how she feels about it, I felt that line punch me in the gut. Even in another monologue, Aibileen recaps:
“No one had ever asked me what it feel like to be me. Once I told the truth about that, I felt free.”
In our industry very few leaders ask how things are really going down in the trenches, and that may be from oblivious ignorance or the fact that they don’t really care. However you feel about your employer, office culture, or quality of leadership, good or bad, it’s likely to get shared. If you are on the employer’s side, how you handle that truth is what perpetuates a company culture.
Likewise Hilly, played brilliantly by Bryce Dallas Howard, is the epitome of every awful boss you have likely had in your career. Though she isn’t explicitly anyone’s boss in the movie, save for perhaps the maids she employs, she comports herself with the energy of someone who relishes control and authority, and people like that tend to work their way into positions of management some way or another. I have definitely worked for bosses with modus operandi (thankfully not anymore though) - the majority of which have actually been women. I can understand and sympathize with the struggles of climbing the corporate ladder in a man’s world, and that has been the journey of many AEC professionals that I know, however this particular mentality seems reserved for the bosses that secretly relish employee turnover. Burnout is a consistent issue in AEC marketing, some of my colleagues publish regular articles and podcasts about it, and bosses like Hilly in the movie seem to be a majority cause of this burnout. She even sinks to manipulation and lies to exert her force on her colleagues and have her housemaid arrested and beaten by police. The gloating she exhibits is just the worst and even her friends can’t stand her after a while. The scene where Aibileen gives her a big piece of truth is gold, and audiences are always going to relish a snide villain getting their comeuppance.
The deeper truth of the existence of women like Hilly, and women like Milly and Aibileen, is that some other women are going to lift you up and some are just there to drag you down. I’ve seen it in every industry that I have ever worked in and experienced too many examples to cite here. Skeeter’s support role is that of a woman who wants to cross the aisle to lift up these unseen women, Black domestic housemaids, and share their stories to give them a voice. She has her own ambitions, yes, but she wants to write a truth that she lived, and needs the help of these women to round out the perspective. She has a presented opportunity and instead of going it alone she finds more value in sharing their stories, sparked by her own experience with her housemaid Constantine.
In one instance I was asked by an industry professional how to help underserved communities and the emerging professionals that come from them without coming across as a “White Savior”; a common issue among DEI groups. I think Skeeter’s whole endeavor is a good example of this challenge. In her case, she does what I recommended to my colleague - be honest in your intentions, make a space at the table, present the opportunity, and above all, listen. Skeeter’s final published book may not have changed much in the Jim Crow South but she gave the housemaids a platform for their voices and stories to be heard. That small step may have been enough for them, who came from nothing, and may yet spark something more. It ends up being enough for Skeeter when her mother finally decides to support her writing career in New York after her book is published. She acknowledges her daughters courage and admits her own shortcomings with:
“Courage sometimes skips a generation. Thank you for bringing it back to our family.”
This film is another great entry into the subgenre of “women supporting women” movies. The scenario of it taking place when and where it does, so as to highlight the explicit cultural barriers and how to cross them, elevates what it can teach us about where we live and where we work. The workplace is still a challenging arena for women, it’s still a challenging place for minorities and people of color, and not a whole lot has changed in some cultures, even where the laws and rules have evolved. No one in this film gets by or ahead without an advocate, and I think the same can be said for our industry. Milly and Aibileen have each other and Skeeter as advocates, Celia and Minny have each other as advocates (there is a really touching scene with Jessica Chastain as Celia and Octavia Spencer as Milly that hits hard when it comes to women supporting women), and even Skeeter has her publisher back in New York. Skeeter’s motivation to learn more about the lives of these housemaids is prompted by her own relationship with her housemaid and advocate - a sort of surrogate mother who helped raise her. A true advocate will remind you, in the words of Constantine:
“Every day you're not dead in the ground, when you wake up in the morning, you're gonna have to make some decisions. Got to ask yourself this question: "Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?"
The opposite can be proven that Hilly as an antagonist alienates her potential advocates, showing a truth in life that the more you set out to hurt rather than heal, the lonelier you end up. You may not have to eat the same “humble pie” as Hilly did but you will end up with no one to vouch for you.
By the end of the movie the title is aptly earned. Not just for the slang terminology for housemaids but from the fact that the characters in the movie find healing by helping. Helping your fellow women, helping those who come from different backgrounds than you, and helping those who have something to say and nowhere to say it, in the end helps you just as much. At the intersection of Black History Month and Women’s History Month, maybe this movie and the strength of its characters will remind us to stop and consider where we can be of help and how we can help our industry as a whole, by sharing stories, finding your advocates, and for making a space at the table to talk it out. If it’s still difficult to motivate people, just set out some fried chicken. The most relatable quote in this whole movie that took me on a rollercoaster of emotions is Minny’s nugget of wisdom and likely the wisdom behind every Southern woman -
“Fried chicken just tend to make you feel better about life.”
