Why I'm Still Conflicted About 'The Help'

Since its publication, Kathryn Stockett's The Help has been getting major coverage. That is especially true here in Jackson, MS, where the story is set and a good chunk of the movie adaptation was filmed. For those who are unfamiliar, The Help takes a look back at the relationship between white families and their black maids in the 1960s. The synopsis from Goodreads:

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women - mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends - view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

For some reason, this book has rubbed me the wrong way, which is irrational given the fact that I have not read it yet.

I don't know how I feel about a white woman telling a black woman's story. True, as a writer you won't always be writing about characters who look, act or think like you. (How dull would that get to be?) But at the same time, I am a fan of "staying in your lane." Think of it this way: Am I qualified to write the story of a Jewish Holocaust survivor? Sure, I could do it, but would I be doing their story justice? And the attempt at "black" southern vernacular is so trite. It just seems a little pretentious to me. But this is minor compared to what really gets to me.

It (appears to) romanticize the time period and the conditions of the maids. And some people--particularly southern white women--seem a little too happy and eager to give this story props. It's almost like their longing for "the good ol days," which, as it turns out, wasn't good at all for the black people living in that period. I think this is what really sticks in my craw. On top of that, it seems to be heavy with the white (wo)man's burden. *sigh* I'm just not good with either of those facts.

For all the negative I feel about it, I'm still going to give it a try. I'll look for it in the library (or as a swap on Goodreads) and try to evaluate it objectively. I may be 100% wrong, and if I am I have no problem admitting that. For what it's worth, I have heard that it is a well-written story, minus the "black folks' talk." And since my mother wants to see it we may have to go see it. I will try to keep an open mind about it!

Have you read The Help? If so, what were your thoughts? Does anyone else give this book/movie a slight side-eye, or is it just me?