What's the Poop

I'm sure everyone has seen The Help by now and remembers the iconic pie scene. (Which, by the way, the book was so much better, as always.) For those that haven't, you don't know what you're missing. Seriously, it's on the Roku Channel right now, go and watch it if you haven't. Then come back and read this.

Anyway, now that everyone has seen The Help, we can all laugh together at how epic the pie scene is. I mean, come on, seriously, we've all dreamed of sweet revenge on someone at some time or other in our lives. We just never had the gumption... (gall, courage, audacity, grit, spunk, or nerve?)

Now, granted, the whole show (and book!) is awesome and well worth the repeated watch (and read!). Just when you think of the movie, you see it playing in your mind. Where Minny Jackson, played by Octavia Spencer, serves a gorgeous-looking homemade chocolate pie to Celia Foote, played by Jessica Chastain. While Celia enjoys the scrumptious pie, she degrades Minny between each bite. Minny just smiles a shit-eating smile. You really begin to wonder what she did to the pie when she wouldn't let Missus Walters, played by Sissy Spacek, have a slice of the pie.

Honestly, I immediately thought Ex-Lax or some laxative. I believe most normal people thought the same when they watched the show, also. Seriously, we may have told someone in our life to eat shit before, but we never thought about serving them a shit pie (let alone our own shit!!)

One has to wonder how much weed and wine the author, Kathryn Stockett, had while she wrote that scene. I can see it now: "I'll just have Minny tell Celia to eat my shit, but also, have Minny literally feed her shit to Celia!! Now that's some good shit there. That's going into the book, yep, and no way will the publisher get to edit it. If he asks me to, I'll just smile and tell him to eat shit..."

But you know what? That's now even what bothers me about her writing the shit pie into the book. Not by a long shot. There's so much more to it. Yes, there's so much more to it.

Simply put, I want to know how many pies has Minny made to perfect her shit pie recipe so that no one could detect it until she told them it was there? Seriously, did she make only the one for Celia from an old family recipe or has she made several over the years for other people that have upset her? I really have to know the answers to this.

I mean, come on, you can't tell me that Mexican vanilla covered up the smell and taste. I don't care who you are, there's no way it'd taste that good that Celia would have finished one piece! Especially if this was a trial-and-error pie that Minny had made for the first time.

So, who in Minny's past taught her to make this pie? Is it an old family recipe, passed down from mother to daughter? Was there someone that she made one for before? How many times has she felt the need to make it before? Has Celia eaten one before that and not known? So many unanswered questions arise from just this one scene.

In a show with such a wonderful message, I know it's an odd topic for a mind to snag on. Some of you are probably even laughing, saying, "Who cares?" Seriously, though, think about it. The author has missed out on a whole opportunity with a complete side story all set up and ready to roll. All she had to do was fill in the details of how Minny came across the knowledge and who she made a shit pie for before Celia's in The Help.

Just my opinion, and one of the odd things that cross my mind at night.