But it seems for every person like me, who anticipates showing up to a Magic Johnson theater (because you know they're showing it) on opening night, there's another person asking, "Really? Another slave film?"

I actually don't think there are enough films about slavery. I mean, it was a roughly -year stretch of American history (indeed, older than the formation of the country itself). Considering the length of time, all the people involved, all their varied stories and how deeply embedded the "peculiar institution" is in America's history (and present), there should be way more films than those that currently exist. We're just now getting a mainstream film about Nat Turner. Do we want to throw in the towel before we get a theatrical release about Harriet Tubman or the Haitian revolution?

That said, I understand the counter perspective that says "enough already." Movies about slavery are emotionally brutal, as Brown points out. The more historically accurate, the worse you probably feel while you watch people who look like you being dehumanized. After seeing 12 yeas a Slave on opening night, I wandered around Manhattan for 20 blocks to "process' before heading home. I get it. And I get why people would opt out.

I also think there's a lot of shame that some people--not necessarily Brown; I'm speaking of people in general--carry around because their ancestors were enslaved, trapped and dehumanized. That's a lot to unpack. That's also understandable.

Then there are those who do feel like Brown, whose article actually doesn't loathe movies about slavery as much as the title suggests. Brown's core argument opposing slave films isn't so much about the content but, rather, how films about slavery are unduly lauded by mainstream viewers and perceived as more important, how they function to assuage white guilt and that there aren't enough films about other topics reflecting black lives.

"I want stories about Solomon Northup and Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman to be told," Brown writes. "But I also want to watch movies about black debutante balls and the Great Migration and a coming-of-age movie about a black teenager in Houston who loves to skateboard and gets into trouble with her Desi best friend."

All of those points are valid, though I don't think films about slavery are getting in the way of other stories being told. It's not as if movies set on plantations are being churned out with the regularity of Madea films. But there's an unquestionable void in Hollywood for movies featuring black people just being random and regular. And yes, Hollywood should celebrate more than slave films. Duly noted.

And still, I argue in favor of the slave-film genre (and more mainstream content about slavery, in general). The more realistic--even if that means horrible--the better. Even though slavery is the foundation of American economics, citizens tend to be pretty ignorant about it, at best, and completely disrespectful, at worst.

Brown points out, "The complicated, harrowing, lasting history of slavery should be taught in classrooms." It should. But last year,Texas school textbookswere comfortable downplaying the horror of slavery, even emphasizing an upside and calling people stolen from Africa "workers," as if the only difference between people unwillingly taken from their homes and then shipped overseas to provide free labor and people who apply for jobs and get paid is mere semantics. Seeing "Lupita Nyong'o being whipped onscreen" should not be how students are educated about slavery, Brown writes. But, unfortunately, it can happen.

The ignorance and disrespect show up in others ways, too.That combo is why there's a steady trend of some happy white couples getting married on plantations, the sites of some of the worst atrocities in U.S. history. It is why in 2016, a respected children's-book publisher can release a title with an image of the slaveholding first U.S. president cuddled up with his slaves as if they're one big family and see nothing wrong with it until the intended audience reacts with a universal "WTF?" It is part of the reason that the United States has still not apologized for slavery.

America is in serious denial about slavery--and its remaining ramifications. And while I acknowledge Brown's point that "it's clear by 2016 that films about slavery do not help us become a more tolerant or understanding society," it's also equally true that not making slavery movies, in order to avoid putting a large swath of black American history on the big screen, won't make us any more tolerant or understanding, either. So why don't we just keep making the movies and keep educating and informing so that the conversation stays at the cultural forefront, as movies about slavery tend to do? And yes, that can happen with books and TV shows. But why not keep the trifecta and operate on all cylinders?