The Help Film Analysis

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Religious themes are in films all the time. We watch but never dig deeper into the religious meanings of films. The movie The Help, although powerful and funny, has a deeper religious meaning to it than meets the eye.
The Help is set in segregated Mississippi during the 1960s. One white women, Skeeter, wants to interview black maids on “how it feels to take care of white babies when their own babies are home being taken care of by someone else.” Skeeter, played by Emma Stone, is determined to become a famous writer, but she has to first get her feet wet by applying for a job in a local newspaper. It is there that she gets her ideal to write a book. Once Skeeter sees the potential to writing a book, based on the black maids and their experiences of being the help she enlists the help of Abigail, played by Viola Davis, and other black maids in her town. Together they are able to write a book based on the true stories of a day in the life of the black maid in the South.
As Skeeter writes her book and listens to the maids, she learns how their religion keeps them from striking out at the discrimination they endure. After reading the Jim Crow laws she is baffled at how the laws are unfair to blacks. She discovers after listening to Abilgail’s story about her son’s death how
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Many African Americans are brought up as Christians, they first pray and then act in any situation. During the 1960s African Americans leaned heavily on their faith in God to help them make it through everyday struggles. When faced with discrimination they listened the words of God, which tells them to turn the other cheek. However, in the 1960s that philosophy begins to change. They understand that in order to move forward in lives they must not only turn the other cheek, but as the Bible also says, they must fight for what God says is their