Can TV Engage Racism Without Being Racist?

I ran into this Vulture piece by Angelica Jade Bastién that is presented as a review of a new limited series this week. It is titled, "Them Is Pure Degradation Porn."

My first reaction was to roll my eyes. I think the series is masterful and perhaps the most significant fictional work on the experience of race in America that I have seen in a decade, in that it doesn't patronize its victims/heroes nor offer safe harbor for its villains. To my eye, it produces so much empathy that it never becomes safe or comfortable. It does use the tools of supernatural and horror films. I don't downgrade it for that.

I have been railing on for years about how critics tend to attack any film or tv show that makes them feel deeply uncomfortable... or really, just deeply. I find that critics are comforted by an intellectual distance, lest they not be, somehow, tricked into an emotion. Many of my favorite films have that distance (See: Kubrick and The Coens). But many do not. All art is a manipulation and…