The Blind Side of Sports Storytelling

Of course America cherished “The Blind Side,” the 2009 film a few homeless and hapless Black teenager rescued from a bleak future by a rich, white household. It was primarily based on the true story of the Tuohy household, led by Sean and Leigh Anne, who took the longer term N.F.L. participant Michael Oher into their house and raised him proudly as he made it to varsity and past.

It’s the kind of story we’re used to in sports activities, one which undergirds our beliefs about sport’s energy to create lifelong bonds, assist its members overcome hardships, and construct character. It’s additionally a simplified rendering of race in America, one which hinges on the trope that white folks could be magically redeemed by coming to assistance from a Black character.

Audiences sucked it up. The movie took in over $300 million and Sandra Bullock received an Oscar for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy, self-possessed belle of the New South.

But “The Blind Side,” primarily based on the best-selling ebook by Michael Lewis, renders a sophisticated actuality in essentially the most digestible format. This week, shocking news of a lawsuit filed by Oher towards the Tuohys spurred many to rethink the film, looking for solutions to questions raised by the authorized declare and obscured by the movie’s comfy, tidy narrative.

Oher is suing the couple for a full accounting of their relationship. He claims that when he thought he was being adopted at 18, the Tuohys urged him to signal a conservatorship that gave them management to enter into contracts on his behalf. He says that the familial bond, warmly portrayed within the film, was a lie and that the Tuohys enriched themselves at his expense.

The Tuohys have defended their actions, arguing in an announcement that the conservatorship was a authorized necessity so Oher might play soccer on the University of Mississippi with out jeopardizing his eligibility.

In a narrative with not less than 4 variations — that of Lewis, the film studio, Oher and the Tuohys — it’s virtually unattainable to discern who’s telling the reality.

Until this week, I need to admit, I had by no means seen “The Blind Side.” I’d purposefully prevented it. I’m leery of films that lean on easy racial clichés — a fatigue that started as a baby, when so a lot of my Black heroes died on the finish of movies so white heroes might reside.

News of Oher’s lawsuit satisfied me that it was time to plop down on the sofa and take within the movie, with the good thing about 14 years of hindsight — 14 years wherein race and sports activities have re-emerged as important platforms for the examination of America’s troubles.

My assumptions have been proved appropriate early within the movie, whereas Oher’s character was taking form. As the story unfolds, he’s proven as a misplaced trigger earlier than assembly the Tuohys and attending a well-to-do Christian faculty in Memphis. The movie portrays him in simple phrases: as a physique, initially — a gargantuan Black teen whose I.Q., we’re advised, is low, and who has no thought by any means about how life operates in worlds that aren’t swamped in poverty and despair.

The Oher of the movie, significantly early on, has little company and no actual goals of his personal. When I noticed that, it felt like a intestine punch. “What?” I muttered. “There’s no way this characterization is true.”

The Baltimore Ravens chosen Oher within the first spherical of the 2009 N.F.L. draft. No one makes it that far in sports activities with out a basis of years of motivation and coaching, which provides credence to Oher’s long-held criticism of his portrayal within the movie. He is an clever individual, Oher has mentioned, many times, and he was a talented soccer participant effectively earlier than assembly the Tuohys.

Not somebody who wanted the Tuohys’ younger, pint-size son, Sean Jr., to show him the sport within the best of phrases — by utilizing bottles of condiments to point out formations and performs. We watch Sean Jr. at a park, delighting in placing a clueless Oher by exercises.

The film additionally exhibits the Tuohys utilizing sports activities as a car for Oher to develop confidence, enter a world of status and riches — and finally to attend Ole Miss, the couple’s alma mater, the place Sean Tuohy as soon as starred in basketball.

Oher protects Leigh Anne Tuohy once they dare to go to the neighborhoods the place he’d grown up — “That horrible part of town,” she says. He saves Sean Jr.’s life when the 2 are in a automotive crash by utilizing his huge arm to defend the younger boy from the pressure of an airbag. When Oher struggles on the apply area as he learns the sport, Leigh Anne Tuohy bounds from the sidelines and drills him with agency instruction: He should defend the quarterback the identical manner he guarded her and her son.

“Protect the family,” she insists.

A lesson delivered to Oher by a feisty white girl as if he have been a first-grader (or a servant) is a turning level. Oher begins reworking from a soccer neophyte raised on the streets into an offensive lineman with the energy of Zeus, the nimbleness of Mikhail Baryshnikov and the scale of an upright piano.

Soon, we watch him play in a recreation, enduring aggressive and racist taunting from an opponent who initially has his manner with an inexperienced rival.

Suddenly, Oher snaps. He doesn’t simply block the opposing participant: Enraged, Oher lifts him and drives him throughout the sector and over a fence.

“Where were you taking him, Mike?” his coach asks as Oher stands on the sidelines.

“To the bus,” Oher deadpans, his tone harmless and childlike. “It was time for him to go home.”

By the movie’s finish, the transformation is full. We study that beneath the watch of a rich white household, Oher’s I.Q. has improved to a mean degree! We see him change into a highschool champion! We watch a parade of coaches — actual coaches, enjoying themselves within the movie — fawn over Oher as they attempt to persuade him to swimsuit up for his or her faculty.

It is difficult to determine, by the film’s telling, Oher’s motivation, or his savvy, as a result of he continues to be portrayed as a prop — quiet, docile, a younger man who, for essentially the most half, does as his newfound household says. This, by the best way, makes it exhausting to even determine, all these years later, the reality of his lawsuit.

What we do see within the film is that he shines in school and the professionals. There he’s within the N.F.L., in his Baltimore Ravens gear. He had made it to the sports activities Promised Land and thru all of it, the Tuohy household was at his aspect.

This movie had every part.

The dumbed-down trope about race and sophistication in America that Hollywood has at all times peddled.

The simplified narrative that uncritically hails sport and its purity, the best way it may well change lives, at all times for the higher, by shaping diamonds within the tough into jewels. The shadowy aspect of sports activities — the dishonest, the lies, the damaged guarantees, which, on this authorized tussle, could possibly be coming from both aspect — by no means encroach on the fairy story.