Recently saw The Help and enjoyed all the performances. Hope it gets quite a few awards for the acting job put forth by all the Lead Actors.
That being said the criticism that its juggling act of portrayals minimizes the Racism faced is true. Like a lot of movies about Black people its not really about Black People but about good white people.
Imagine if every story about Anne Frank was told from the point of view of the Dutch kid whose parents kept her in their basement or if Fiddler on the Roof was all about the cute spunky Russian girl who befriends Tevye's Daughters, and was told through her eyes.
Imagine if any movie about Pancho Villa or any other famous Latino figure wasn't about them per say but spent more time exploring their story through a spunky American's reporter/love interest/random white person eyes.
If imaging the first two made you raise your eyebrow and made your facial muscles scrounge up into your own version of a WTH look, then you realize why people would dismiss The Help despite its fine performances because its another movie with black people as a background to their own story in a long history of movies about black people not really being about them.
Since this is a common Trope It goes without saying that it and a lot of other Tropes are represented in this movie. TV Tropes has a full list of trope s for the is film
