Sandra Bullock’s ‘The Blind Side’
long criticized for its ‘White savior’
view of a Black athlete
East Bay Times [Walnut Creek CA],
by
Martha Ross
Original Article
Posted By: NorthernDog,
8/16/2023 1:50:25 PM
Not all Americans fell in love with Sandra Bullock’s inspirational football movie “The Blind Side” when it was released in November 2009. Sure, “The Blind Side” made $309 million at the box office and Bullock won her long-awaited Academy Award, but many Black viewers “never cared much for it” according to The Root. Discerning critics also saw the movie, based on a best-selling book by Berkeley author Michael Lewis, as another Hollywood project that uses “White savior” tropes. Now, critics of the movie have more ammunition in the wake of bombshell court documents filed by Michael Oher, the Black athlete
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Cindiana 8/16/2023 1:58:16 PM (No. 1535576)
But she adopted a black baby! Don't know if it was before or after the film.
5 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 8/16/2023 2:10:02 PM (No. 1535584)
The only "white" Savior is, Jesus Christ. Every other act of "helpfulness" to others is termed, "compassion."
Once he left that Guardianship with his "family" he owed them nothing and they asked for nothing.
"Blacks" can trust me on this, they don't want a world without compassion. If they need an example of that world they can take a flight to Nigeria, or Congo, or Equatorial Guinea, or any other African country.
13 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Starboard_side 8/16/2023 2:11:49 PM (No. 1535586)
#1, that's not true, and part of his recent desire to be removed from the conservatorship.
What's likely the reason people (Liberals) don't like the movie, it's not promoting some new or existing government program.
The funny thing about many of those same Liberals is they find they can't afford the same massive government they voted for, and have to leave to another State where it's less expensive to live.
5 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
SALady 8/16/2023 2:12:34 PM (No. 1535587)
Yeah, because no white person ever helped a black person out?!?!?!?!?
Even if the movie took a lot of "theatrical license" to make it more entertaining, ultimately, if the Tuohy's hadn't taken in Michael Ohr, he probably would have ended up in a gang and either been dead or in prison for the rest of his life at this point in time.
And, for the record, the Tuohy's are very rich. They made their money on fast food franchises, and eventually sold them for over $200,000,000. Nothing they got from anything that happened with Ohr was even a tiny percentage of their net worth. They were just good people who took in a poor and troubled black kid, who went on to play college football and play in the NFL because of his talent and the opportunities they gave him.
35 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Cindiana 8/16/2023 2:20:42 PM (No. 1535589)
To add to my Post #1 (apologies for second post):
https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/culture/story/sandra-bullock-opens-mother-black-children-81484772
4 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Newtsche 8/16/2023 2:24:05 PM (No. 1535590)
No white savior then no reparations, no affirmative action, no Western culture with its science, medicine and infrastructure, you get the idea. Here's a tough question, who needs who?
15 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Skinnydip 8/16/2023 2:39:21 PM (No. 1535599)
This wouldn't have anything to do with that new lawyer he "hired", would it?
10 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
JackBurton 8/16/2023 2:44:38 PM (No. 1535602)
Wow.
They only see skin color.
16 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Knotwyrkin 8/16/2023 2:48:01 PM (No. 1535606)
More recent reports have revealed that Oher tried to extort $15,000,000 from the Touleys under the threat of revealing secrets of the family. Hoping to cash in on the $213,000,000 Mr. Touley got for selling his fast food franchises?
14 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
faceincrowd 8/16/2023 2:57:20 PM (No. 1535611)
Totally agree. My fellow whites do not offer any assistance to minorities going forward. It is a no win situation.
12 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Vaquero45 8/16/2023 2:58:05 PM (No. 1535613)
When this story was posted yesterday, one astute L-dotter observed that Oher got married last year. The poster surmised that perhaps his new wife is behind all this. I think they’re onto something.
21 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Albatross 8/16/2023 3:01:13 PM (No. 1535614)
This article is written as though Mr. Oher's claims have merit. That is yet to be determined.
Also, as for "Black viewers" and "discerning critics" not liking the movie, the NAACP has its own show business awards program called the Image Awards. The Blind Side was nominated for 4 Image Awards in 2010, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Bullock), Best Actor (Quinton Aaron), and Best Writing (John Lee Hancock).
18 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Ruhn 8/16/2023 3:13:01 PM (No. 1535621)
The bottom line in all of this: Michael Oher has blown the $34 million from his time in the NFL. He has nothing left to spend. Now, almost 14 years after the movie, lawyers representing Oher are using the pretext that the Tuohys allegedly exploited Oher in order to shake the Tuohys down and use them as a cash cow for a myopic ingrate. The sad part in all of this is that the lawyers are the only ones making money off of this court petition.
From another article by Jason Whitlock, titled "Michael Oher is every bit as broken as the media members selling his Blind Side lie.":
The 2009 movie “The Blind Side” does not state or imply that the Tuohy family adopted Michael Oher. Neither does Michael Lewis’ 2006 book that inspired the film that won Sandra Bullock an Oscar.
In 2011, when Michael Oher published his first memoir, “I Beat the Odds,” he stated directly that the Tuohys secured a conservatorship when he was a senior in high school. He wrote that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy insisted that he maintain a relationship with his biological mother and 11 siblings. Oher wrote that his mother participated in the procedures necessary for the Tuohys to become conservators.
Why on earth is Michael Oher pretending he only recently discovered that the Tuohy family didn’t adopt him? Why are members of the media going along with Oher’s effort to shake down the Tuohy family for cash under the pretense that they lied to him and exploited him for profit?
Yesterday, Oher, a former NFL offensive lineman, filed a petition in a Tennessee court arguing that the Tuohys earned millions of dollars from “The Blind Side” and the false belief that they “adopted” him. He claims that he earned nothing from the movie and that the Tuohys owe him millions. This made headlines across corporate and social media. Twitter feeds overflowed with allegations that the Tuohys had profited from Hollywood’s love affair with the “white savior trope.”
11 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Birddog 8/16/2023 3:24:37 PM (No. 1535628)
ya Ohr just got married last year, but...to a woman he already had four kids with, and had met his 1st year of College, at Ol Miss.
It does sort of sound like He...or some "advisors" around him...are upset that he didn't get a "Share" of his adoptive fathers windfall , from the massive numbers of restaurant franchises he had owned since Looooong before Ohr crossed their path.
The same group bewailing "White Savior" films, also bemoans "Black Savior/Messiah" films...where the wise council , training, support. and redemption comes from the Sole Black Character.
What Sharpton called a "Magic Negro" role...and claimed that was what Barack Hussain Obama was being cast/pawned off as in politics.
5 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 8/16/2023 3:49:58 PM (No. 1535649)
White savior?
What were his options without their help?
Turn into a drug addict, end up in prison, get killed by a gang banger, or at best spend a lifetime doing menial jobs as janitor or something of that kind.
No, he got a hand up from a family who helped him. Now he's biting the hand that fed him.
7 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/16/2023 4:04:51 PM (No. 1535654)
The Tuohys didn’t “save” anybody. Ober was a friend of their two kids in high school and visited the family home with them. He was already doing werll in school and a fine athlete. Even Mrs Tuohy admits that he would have succeeded in life on his own. That smart,that motivated.
It was their idea to take him in and that is what they did. They quite literally took him in. Defrauded him by making him believe he was being adopted when they were actually taking control of is life. The only counsel he had was a lawyer friend of the Tuohys…
I’ll be very interested to see how this comes out in court.
4 people like this.
Total shakedown. Offer to settle for some amount to make him go away. If he can't live on say $1mil (and tell his lawyer to pound sand) then he has a lot more problems than whatever he is alleging
7 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
buckeye1 8/16/2023 5:21:48 PM (No. 1535690)
I remember reading years ago the Other had said the movie did not reflect the reality of his life. Well...no duh, Hollywood messes up everything to fit a story they want to tell.
7 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
Subsuburban 8/16/2023 5:57:27 PM (No. 1535704)
But what about all those "Black Saviors" out there? You know, all the black people who have gone out of their way to invest their lives, money and effort into saving poor white kids. Oh, wait. Never mind.
6 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
DVC 8/16/2023 6:25:37 PM (No. 1535740)
So, being a nice person to someone in a bad situation is now a bad thing.
Yeah, right. Not buying it. Help out a person, and that is a good thing. PERIOD.
2 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
WWIIDaughter 8/16/2023 7:39:47 PM (No. 1535788)
All Persons of Color who have been the recipients of organs transplanted from White people should demonstrate that they refuse to have White "Saviors" by having the offending organs removed immediately.
0 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 8/16/2023 10:01:43 PM (No. 1535845)
I am guessing that Oher is broke now and has found a sleazy ambulance chaser to try to extort a few million to get the lawsuit to go away. I spent 43 years in the insurance business and know how it works. Settle a false claim because the litigation costs would cost the insurance company more than the settlement itself. My best friend is a corporate attorney but I have told him (jokingly) that it’s only 98% of the legal profession that give them a bad name. Look at our government...almost all weasel attorneys. A horde of litigious locusts, producing nothing of value but costing each and everyone one of us thousands of dollars in increased costs of everything we buy every year.
0 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
watashiyo 8/17/2023 5:13:38 AM (No. 1535998)
I told my parents don't ever adopt a fat, desolate, poor, and smart 6'5" black kid. They'll eventually bite your hands.
1 person likes this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
franq 8/17/2023 5:54:58 AM (No. 1536017)
I suspected what #13 has put forth. Yeah, the movie had a lot of critics.
They gave Sandra Bullock an Oscar and pushed the movie gross to over $300 million.
My wife has a copy we watched several years ago. Decent film.
The current hoopla has George Floyd written all over it.
0 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
tearza 8/17/2023 12:02:32 PM (No. 1536280)
Blacks have destroyed pro sports....
0 people like this.
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I wasn't aware until recently that liberals despised the movie. Not sure why it's called a 'white savior trope' since the film is largely based on actual events.