by Patrick Appel
Building off Patricia Turner's op-ed, TNC identifies The Help's biggest problem, perpetuation of the myth that racists are evil through and through:
It's worth [remembering] that people brought their spouses and children to lynchings, that they kept gory reminders of the work on store counters. I'm sure many of these people were good parents, good spouses and deeply committed to their society. But it's much more comforting to imagine them racists as Lex Luthor evil and Jeffrey Dahmer depraved
For if we admit that racists–and by extension homophobes and misogynists–are not some alien species, but that they walk among us, then we must also admit that we are subject to looking past their flaws, and that we, ourselves, are subject to the same impulses. And then finally we must begin to see how easily we could have lived, in that time, and done nothing. Or done something horrible.
Harold Pollack makes related points. The film begins to address the complexity of racism when likeable characters, such as Skeeter's mother and Skeeter's boyfriend, enforce racist norms, but the movie does generally paint racism as one-dimensional and of the past. Earlier thoughts on the film here, here, and here.
The Dish 