The Help

So. I just finished watching The Help.

Right now, I am moved, so I just wanted to share the emotion - that is one good movie.
I have always been interested in this part of American history, as you all know, I wrote my thesis on Martin Luther King, Jr., so this was right up my alley. And boy, was it an experience.

I can´t yet start to analyze what makes this movie so good, but I must recommend you to watch it. Everybody is familiar with the big scenes of the fight for human rights - Rosa Parks not getting up, Martin Luther King, Jr. and all that. It probably wouldn´t be too hard to take that material and shove it into people´s faces in the name of "the ugly truth". But that would put everybody in the defensive. You can´t go forcing stuff down people´s throats. And I do believe that in the past thirty, maybe forty years, people have been attacked with this topic left and right. I mean, in America, you now have positive discrimination! And it´s still a topic in the society!

I believe that... well, no. Another way. I still can´t believe the history that is there. All the slavery, discrimination, separate but equal shit? Is there really any way to make that right? Of course, this is one-sided, now we have all the gangs and stuff, but right now I am moved by a movie and also, I don´t have this too thought through - the what is still right and how to make it right parts of the problem. So I won´t go there too much.

I just wanted to say. The Help portrays people, influences and a world to its own with breathtaking detail. It makes you see that the problem was not just somewhere up in the government. It makes you see that back in the day, to save face was so important that one would have done anything to protect one´s name. And finally, it makes you see how much energy and courage must have gone into making the whole civil rights movement go. It was not "just" about MLK, about big marches and sit-ins and all the big stuff. It was also about enduring, standing up to the people who belittle you, even though you absolutely have to go on functioning in the same town, among the same people. It´s about how much strength went into things that to us are small - such as publishing a book about what is really going on in a perfect society. The film shows how it´s not just about the courage, it´s also about surviving the aftermath.

Especially about surviving the aftermath.

I´m just sayin´.