Well I guess it’s about time for us to review The Help. Even though this movie has been out for several weeks now, it has received great reviews and has remained the #1 movie at the box office for the past several weeks.
To be honest, part of our reluctance to review The Help is because of the extremely sensitive subject matter it exposes. For starters, three of the bloggers on this site currently live in Jackson, MS. However, I do feel that it is important for us to keep this film in the spotlight a little bit longer.
My wife and I were able to view The Help a couple of weeks ago and I was surprised at how much I liked it. From an artistic standpoint, it was a well-done film. The acting was very good by most of the main, and supporting, characters. A film like this can sometimes drift into very clichéd and sappy drama, but the great direction, by Tate Taylor, handled the story in a very raw and truthful way that guarded from those cautions.
In today’s post I just wanted to look at one aspect of the film I enjoyed and tomorrow we will look specifically at the issue of racism.
The main aspect of The Help, both the film and the book, that I enjoyed is that it shines a light on a sin of our culture. Yes this is a sin that is definitely seen more in the South, but it is not limited to a geographical location. Even though this is a film that deals with racism, more generally speaking, it is a film that’s about bringing the truth to light.
Countless times in Scripture we are told of the power of light shining in darkness (John 3:20, 1 Cor. 4:5, Eph. 5:13). There is a sense in which the darkness [sin] loses its power when it is brought into the light. As we mentioned from an earlier post, darkness and light cannot coexist. Once light is present, darkness is absent and visa versa. Both Kathryn Stockett and the filmmakers, had a passion and desire to shine a light in a very dark area of our culture. And I applaud that!
Christians are no different from the world when it comes to covering up our sin. We, as well as unbelievers, love to conceal our sin and try to clean up on the outside. However, if a Christian has any sense of the doctrine of sin and of Christ, we know that we’re filthy (and that’s putting it kindly) and Christ is the only one who can save us from it.
It is ultimately our pride that wants us to conceal our sin and try to appear like a nice person on the outside. A movie like The Help, reminds us that only God is good and we live in a fallen world that needs to deal with our sin. And the way we deal with our sin is not by concealment, but by bringing it to light. We see this passion most clearly in Skeeter [Stone] and Aibileen [Davis], as they make great sacrifices to see that the truth is brought to light.
The boldness of those who were willing to shine a light on the sins associated with the story of The Help should be applauded by all, especially Christians. We need to be an example to the world of humbly confessing our sins and be willing to do the courageous and expose the sins of the culture we live in as well.
Reel Thinking 