Released in 2007, the racial drama "Spinning Into Butter" directed by Mark Brokaw broaches the issues of political correctness and how inadequate treatment can hurt people.

Ahead of the actual movie Brokaw shows a cartoon which is based on the 1899 children‘s book “The Story of Little Black Sambo“ by Helen Bannerman: To avoid being eaten by tigers, Sambo gives them his new clothes; now the jealous tigers chase one another around a tree until they are spun into melted butter which explains the odd title.

The storyline follows Sarah Daniels (portrayed by Sarah Jessica Parker), who is the new Dean of Students at “Belmont College“ in Vermont. In the initial scene she calls Patrick Chibas, a “Newyorican“ (a New Yorker of Puerto Rican heritage as he calls himself), into her bureau and persuades him to call himself a Puerto Rican to receive a scholarship which is especially for “minority students“ and does not list his contrived ethnicity.

On the same day, a note saying “Little Black Sambo“ is found on the door of an African-American student called Simon, which is the first incident of a series of racial discrimination he has to suffer from. The school board takes these incidents very seriously and they hold an assembly in the college‘s church but want to conceal the worrying occurrences from the public. Dean Catherine Kenney especially wants to keep the name of the college clean. Sarah informs the police not knowing about the board‘s agreement.  The press gets wind of the whole affair and the African-American reporter Aaron Carmichael, who is known to Sarah, picks up the story. Sarah and Aaron become friends.

The racial incidents, which get more and more threatening, and the effectless strategy of the board become the number one topics on campus and as tension grows, Patrick refuses the scholarship because he feels discriminated by the ethnic category “Puerto Rican“ and Sarah starts to splutter failing to use politically correct language. The student body splits into two camps: the whites and the minority students, who accuse each other of being responsible for this whole affair. The dialogues become shorter and more frequent and seem to blur - just as the tigers of the cartoon did.

Sarah confides in Aaron when she‘s assigned to find “ten points to solve racism“: In her past, race has already been a topic in her life. She was working at a school in a black part of Chicago when she developed a certain aversion against African-Americans because she‘s got to know “rude, lazy and stupid ones“ whom she can‘t forget.
She knows that she‘s doing wrong. Sarah and Aaron team up to find the one responsible for the incidents and when they visit Simon, the victim, he confesses that he had been his own plaguer: He felt unusally kindly treated by his fellow students and his teachers and interpreted that as covert and subliminal hatred. By his actions he wanted to provoke them to enunciate what - in his opinion - they thought of him as - as a “nigger“.

Sarah quits her job because she can‘t stand the attitude of the board towards coloured students and how the overextended board has handled the situation and treated Simon. She accuses them of only being interested in the good name of the school and of being racists themselves. The only reason why the school would take coloured students was to get an open-minded and international tag, she claims, but acutally the board regarded them as troublemakers and would like to keep the college white.
She moves back to Chicago. The movie ends with a shot of a street of Chicago and its multi-ethnical inhabitants. Then the traffic light turns green for Sarah - symbolizing a new beginning of a better and brighter future.

The first 70 minutes of the movie - except the cartoon, of course - follow the stereotype of a racial drama: There is a racial incident, the community splits and a good person tries to communicate - something everybody has seen before and - even if the actors have done their job well, which they did - nobody can get excited about it anymore.
But then the viewers learn more about the apparently good and ordinary person - Sarah in this case.  Sarah has got racial prejudices even though she isn‘t a staunch racist as her friendship with Aaron indicates.
I think this is a very important aspect because it reminds people that racism didn‘t just occur in the past  and that it isn‘t something that is practiced  by obviously “bad“ people only but that sparks of it can be found in almost everyone. Only if people are aware of that they can observe, control and rid themselves of their own prejudices. The movie shows how Sarah loses hers and indicates the right way to go.
The next surprise is the revelation of the “racist“ and his motives: It is the victim himself who felt unusually kindly instead of rudely treated as one may expect. One of the messages of the movie is that people should be treated equally - not better, not worse.

All in all to me the movie shows a slightly different perspective on racism than most of its kind and it encourages you to think about racism once again, but somehow it is not gripping enough to be watched by a wider audience.

(S.K. Semester 2, June 2011)