“The Help” has now spent two weeks at the number one box office spot and looks set for a third, a feat that not even this year’s Transformers or Harry Potter juggernauts could manage. Critics admire it, and even those who dislike it admit that Viola Davis gives one of the best performances of the year. Telling the story of black maids in 1960s Jackson, Miss., and the obstacles they faced, “The Help” even received an A+ CinemaScore, which means that audiences adored it. Yet many organizations found the movie to be racist. I did not find it to be so, and I believe that they simply need to take a closer look.

“The Help” focuses on black maids, who were brought together by a young white woman to tell their story. The two most prominent maids are Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer). The main criticism of “The Help” is that it is a “nice white lady saves the day” movie. It did not feel like that to me, even though there is a pivotal white lady character (look to “The Blind Side” to see something actually offensive). This is the writer character Skeeter, played in an understated performance by Emma Stone. She isn’t there for any reason other than that she thinks there’s a story worth telling. She is more of a device than any of the black characters, and a necessary device at that—without a white character to submit the manuscript to a publisher, the stories of these maids could not have been told. Skeeter does not use the maids to get ahead— she genuinely cares about these women and gives them part of her advance. And if any white person walked out of this movie feeling better about him or herself because we live in a post-racial society and all white people aren’t racists anymore, then he or she has much bigger problems.

Not once does the film try to make Emma Stone into the lead and the two black actresses into supporting characters. It is Aibileen’s story, as the movie opens and closes with her, and features her narration along the way. Despite the marketing campaign that portrayed Stone as the lead with Davis and Spencer supporting, the movie itself makes it clear that it is Aibileen’s story. A similar complaint was made about the marketing for the movie “A Single Man,” which seemed to censor the lead character’s homosexuality. While this is regrettable and less than ideal, if it gets more people to see the movie, the marketing worked—and the final product itself isn’t warped.

Another major criticism of “The Help” is its light-hearted tone. While it is one of the warmer movies of the year, and the lighting is like a sepia photograph brought to life, it certainly doesn’t hold back its punches. The film portrays a maid being arrested and assaulted by the police, and Aibileen suffering in the 100-degree heat of her separate bathroom. Much has been made of a scene where Aibileen and Minny are laughing in a kitchen and how this apparently devalues the entire civil rights movement, but maybe instead the scene should be seen as just two maids enjoying each other’s company and forgetting for a brief moment their horrific situation.

I also don’t understand the criticism of Viola Davis for choosing to play a maid in the 1960s. She wanted to give these women a voice, and she did it in stunning, acclaimed fashion. If she manages to get an Oscar nomination, she will be only the second black actress (after Whoopi Goldberg) to have two. That is the real tragedy of Hollywood—that minorities are so rarely honored or recognized for their work.

The movie isn’t perfect, and I do wish that it had been better in its portrayal of black men, who are almost completely absent from the movie. However, it did give many black actresses a chance to work in a movie that wasn’t directed by Tyler Perry, and hopefully opened many doors for Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer to continue working in Hollywood—and as characters other than maids and sassy best friends.