Soul Man probably hurt C. Thomas Howell’s career

I am not sure why I was thinking about the movie Soul Man. Soul Man probably hurt C. Thomas Howell’s career. Soul Man is a 1980s movie where a white man named Mark (C. Thomas Howell) darkens his skin to win a scholarship to law school. He discovers that he has no idea what it is like as an African American.

I have not seen the movie in years but I know that it was controversial. Howell has expressed that he regrets making the film sometimes because it hurt his career. That is unfair. While not a great film, it is not mean spirited. If anything Mark became a better person over the course of the film.

I think the movie might have been an easy target because the writer and director were not African-American. Maybe an African-American writer or director (or both) would made a different film from the same basic plot. That might have been a better film.

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