Feminism and Diversity
In reply to the discussion: Intersectionality in Movies: The Help [View all]obamanut2012
(29,005 posts)Aibileen in the movie, instead of leaving it in Skeeter's hands.
Yes, it was indeed odd to me that the only male really fleshed out, on side of Skeeter's boyfriend, was Mr. Johnny, who was definitely NOT an enforcer of the legal and social mores of that time and place. I will give a little bit of slack here that he MAY have changed attitudes a bit, because his wife was an outsider as much as the maids, even ore IN SOME WAYS (ie they were allowed in houses Celia wasn't, albeit only as domestics).
Making Hilly the Face of Segregation was annoying as hell to me. Women in that time and place , white women with money, had very, very little power or influence on society. They didn't make the rules. Or the laws. Or enforce them. Or decide to concede on rare occasions. They weren't the ones who murdered and raped. They were petty tyrants to their domestics, which of course is classic behavior when the oppressed are give some power over the even more oppressed.