The Help

[ladytrentham]

Ok, now I'm remembering the case at the Myrtles plantation: a black woman had her ear cut off by the white man who was sexually abusing her, and she revenged herself by putting white oleander in a birthday cake. IIRC, she took out at least one small daughter and the lady of the house.

[granolamom]

I finally watched this. I don't have much to add, except that somehow I missed, despite all the publicity around the opening of this movie, that the director, Tate Taylor, is a childhood friend of the book's author, and both are friends of Octavia Spencer.

Also, this is so trivial, but I felt sorry for Mae Mobley! Not only does she lose her closest companion Aibileen, but also pretty much any time she sits on a toilet, adults are at best very, very tense, and sometimes screaming, over-the-top angry. A recipe for a lifetime of constipation!

[tabby]

Come to think of it, wasn't there a scene in Roots where someone spat in a white's drink?

I don't remember that scene in Roots, but I do remember it in The Color Purple.

[chiqui]

That scene was in Roots. The white lady and the black slave had been childhood friends, but when they were elderly and met again, the white pretended she had never known the black, and ordered her to get her a drink of water from a well. The (former) black slave spat in the ladel where the white couldn't see and handed it to her.

[Deleted]

And the white lady was played by Sandy Duncan of all people. That scene really stuck in my head.