My ideas here are half-formed--sort of thinking aloud.
Just read the Help. Made me think about race, class, the South, and how it's easier to change laws than attitudes--the 23 year old racists in the book would now be about 70; their racist children approaching 50. I wonder how different things are than they were 50 years ago. But that's another conversation.
Right now I'm more interested in ideas Stockett raises about adult social groups (you may want to skip this paragraph if you haven't read the book). Plenty of movies portray mean high school girls and their awful cliques, but Stockett shows that adults can be just as mean and exclusionary. Poor Celia--white trash who married money--knows where she wants to fit in, but doesn't recognize that she never will. One great thing Stockett does is to make readers think that maybe Celia and Skeeter should be friends (at least, I was thinking they should), only to have Celia reject the idea because Skeeter is socially unacceptable. Delicious, stinging irony. But then, other than being outcasts, what would Celia and Skeeter have in common? They may not belong in the Junior League, but nor do they belong together.
What can be tricky about adult social experience is knowing where we fit in--for, as much as we disparage cliques, most or all of us want to belong to groups. In high school I had 80 extra-curricular activities and 1200 peers from which to choose. As an adult, I have to look farther. Perhaps I should say, as someone who spends most of my time at home, because for many people the work place is a sort of club. Church, book group, PTA are other sorts of adult clubs. Online, you can find any and every sort of group, but it's not the same as being in the same room.
But in The Help, adult sociality looks pretty similar to high school. I got thinking that perhaps this continuation of high school cliques is primarily prevalent when adults settle where they grew up. Maybe all around me are people who, having essentially never moved, live under similar social pressures to those depicted by Stockett.
As a transplant, I haven't really thought about what it would be like to run into high school friends every time I go to Costco. For better and for worse, whoever I was and whatever I did in high school are largely irrelevant now. My neighbors don't know my parents or siblings, my history. I am my current thoughts, actions, clothes, haircut, husband, children, house. The lack of history can be freeing, but sometimes lonely--even after 12 years in a town. I guess that's what the internet is for.
