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The movie “The Help” opens tomorrow in theaters starring Cicely Tyson and Academy Award nominated Viola Davis and many others. The movie is based on one of the most talked about books in years and a #1 New York Times best-seller.

The movie takes place during the 1960s and is about African-American maids in Mississippi that team up with a young, privileged, but socially rebellious, white woman to expose the dirty truth about the white women they work for. It’s also about how three very different, extraordinary women in Mississippi, who build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project that breaks societal rules and puts them all at risk; which results in a remarkable sisterhood that instills the courage to transcend the lines that define them.

“The Help” has been promoted as a timeless and universal story about the ability to create change and is filled with humor and hope.

Many people are upset about the movie; especially the title, because many feel it’s taking us back as a race when we should be focused on moving forward. Some even feel it’s a slap in the face of African-Americans. Without even reading the book, many have said, I’ll pass on this one.

In the Aug. 8-15 week of JET magazine, actress Octavia Spencer, who plays the role of “Minny”,says that she feels many African-Americans dislike the story of the movie because it reminds them from whence we came. And for a lot of people it’s just too painful to go there because it says to them that the rest of the world doesn’t think that we’ve evolved and she disagrees.

Academy Award nominated Viola Davis, who plays the role of “Aibilene” also, says in Jet that “it’s not as black and white as agreeing and disagreeing. She completely understands. It’s a story and an image that is always visited: the Black domestic. She adds that she thinks people are tired of that story and it’s hard to watch people being demeaned, especially when they look like us. However, she says it’s a great story; although it happens to take place in the 1960s and the characters happen to be maids and are fully humanized.

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