The Post's Ann Hornaday has a nice feature today about the persistent -- and conspicuous -- absence of Hollywood movies that tackle the civil rights era.

I asked the same question a few years ago, focusing in particular on Martin Luther King Jr.

Hornaday homes in on the financial excuses typically proffered by studio executives: the expense of period movies with large casts; the tepid international appeal of historical dramas; the outdated assumption that movies with black stars can't open big. It's not surprising that such execs would reach for anodyne risk-speak; it's understandable, if not, as Hornaday points out, dispositive.

At least in the case of King, I think there's another aspect that they'd be hesitant to broach: his personal life.

"He was a real human being," the writer Shelby Steele told me. He added that a truthful biopic, one that dealt with, say, marital unfaithfulness -- one that "showed us the human being, not just the legend" -- would demand a filmmaker who's "not afraid of being politically incorrect."

This is hardly the proverbial elephant in the room -- just one of a host of reasons why Hollywood can't get its act together and tell these stories.