THE HELP: history as a Hallmark movie of the week

Current box office number one THE HELP is a powerful and moving story, beautifully told and featuring some fine performances.
But it left me with an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

Could the long, painful, often violent, frequently uplifting and still unfinished struggle for civil rights in the USA really be reduced to this - a two hour tale of a bunch of African American maids in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi who decide they've had enough of their hypocritical treatment at the hands of the wealthy white women who employ them, and rise up against their oppressors by contributing to a book detailing the reality of their lives as servants to the ruling class?
In a world where complex political ideas are stripped of detail, nuance and accuracy and fed to a willing populace as easily digestible thirty second soundbites, should the same process be applied to such an important part of recent US history? Particularly when it comes wrapped up in a happy ending that suggests everything will soon be resolved in favour of those who've been discriminated against. The final walk from the camera down the sunlight sidewalk to a better tomorrow struck me as insulting to those involved and just plain wrong.
Writer-director Tate Taylor employs the same storytelling technique used by countless Warner Bros films of the 1930s to make the political personal and explore often complex social and political issues in terms that the audience could relate to. In the 30s Warners tackled the social and economic pressures of the Great Depression head on, acknowledging the inequities and the struggle to survive and demonstrating how they could be solved by the existing political system without the need for revolution. The intention was twofold - to offer hope and preserve the status quo.
As Taylor's film is set in the past its use of the technique has a different intention - to whitewash the reality of what happened and refocus the picture to a soft, sun-splashed image where the oppression was (reasonably) benign, the revolt civilised and the outcome ideal. To me, the message of THE HELP was that there's no need to dwell on the ugly reality of the Jim Crow laws and the often violent suppression of the rights of a large minority of the US population solely on the basis of their skin colour. Instead let's feel better about this grotesque stain on America's recent past by reframing the issue so it plays like a Hallmark movie.

What I find so disturbing about this is how effectively Taylor does it. THE HELP is an undeniably powerful and moving statement on the struggle of blacks to gain the civil rights most of us today take for granted. It's impossible not to have a very emotional response to the situation of the maids and their quiet, dignified resolve not to take it anymore.
It's equally impossible not to despise their chief tormentor Hilly Holbrook (a magnificent performance by Bryce Dallas Howard) who is determined to ensure that segregation is for now and forever. But I found it cowardly that the enforcement of segregation was depicted in such a non-violent fashion.
I get that it's not realistic to portray the entirety of the civil rights era into a two hour work of fiction. I get that THE HELP works as a means of explaining the issues to 21st century audiences unwilling to plough through dense but compelling history books such as the trilogy by Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch. I get the whole idea of making the political personal.
But what concerns me is that THE HELP is so effective in telling it's story that it'll be taken as telling the entire story, effectively rewriting history and consigning the larger reality to oblivion.