SEEING FROM THE BLIND SIDE

Number 11 – March 2010

The Academy Award nominations for Best Movie for 2009 included three films dealing with teenagers coming of age: An Education, Precious and The Blind Side. All three are excellent movies each receiving numerous nominations and awards. Two of these films have themes dealing with race and poverty – especially with race and poverty as an aspect of growing up.

Sandra Bullock received the Best Actress Award for her role as Leigh Anne Touy in The Blind Side – perhaps her best ever performance. It is a film, based on the book THE BLIND SIDE: EVOLUTION OF A GAME by Michael Lewis, about the real life story of Michael Oher.

The movie follows a young Black teenager who escapes the slums of impoverishment and drugs. He receives help from people he hardly knows and, even with failing grades and an incomplete transcript, enters Wingate Christian Academy (the fictional substitute for Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, Tennessee). He is a large kid who struggles to play football and at left tackle learns to protect the “blind side” of the quarterback.

The name of the movie comes from this image. Protecting the blind side of the quarterback is a parable for those who protect Michael’s blind side as he struggles to maturity.

“Big Mike,” as he’s called, is a Black student in an all white school. His situation is described as “a single fly floating in a large bowl of milk.” Michael is tempted to return to his former drug dealing and drug consuming friends, gets discouraged about not being able to understand academic lessons and is slow learning the concept of the game of football. But through out this journey Michael’s blind side is protected by Leigh Anne and the Touy family.

Michael graduates from high school, is sought after by university coaches from all over the country, chooses to go to Mississippi State (the school of his acting parents), earns recognition as an All American and enters the pros drafted by the Baltimore Ravens and becomes a football legend.

The Blind Side is a movie doing very well at the box office. Reviews are generally positive and it is considered one of the best movies of 2009. However, criticisms of the movie have come from leaders in the Black community and from some film critics. Criticisms are not concerned about the technical aspect of the production: acting and filming and staging. The concern: a film portraying a white family rescuing a Black boy is condescending and self-serving for the white community. One of the commentators on The View (March 7th), an early morning television talk show on CBS, has one of commentators say that the impression the movie left with her is that poverty and race can be solved by the largess of some wealthy, white, liberal family. The movie doesn’t address the systemic problems of poverty and race and leaves such matters in the hands and hearts of a few well meaning individuals.

Barbara Walters, in rebuttal, comments that it is a story of one life and one family not a documentary on the social ills of a community. Other critics suggest that the movie would have been very different had a Black family taken in a white youngster and protected his/her blind side. AND, they add, this is exactly what Black families have been doing for decades without public recognition and accolades.

These critiques are, of course, on point and should be taken very seriously. But those of us who are white might learn some life enhancing lessons.

We can learn that our fears of teenagers of color are out of proportion. Though menacing looking on street corners most youngsters gather with friends for no intended harm. Many youth of color, like their white counterparts, are looking for chances and opportunities to grow up in a secure neighborhood and we may be precisely the ones available to protect their blind side. Our fear or indifference deprives them of the support we could offer. There are many who can benefit from our interest but by not being available to them we rob ourselves of the joy and fulfillment such opportunities offer. It is, of course, important to discriminate between charity and support that encourages youth opportunities for growth and self-reliance.

Secondly, we see mirrored in the movie people like us for whom race is a barrier dividing category. Leigh Anne Touy’s luncheon with women friends exuded racism as they chided her for her humanitarian project – her public welfare activities relating to “big Mike.” The admission’s committee questioned whether “big Mike” should be admitted to Wingate Christian Academy because of his low grades. Racial overtones were reflected in their comments that “he’s not like us.” All of us could certainly benefit from a self-examination that would reveal how we participate in a culture of systemic racism.

And third, Barbara Walters’ comment is on point: it is not a documentary, and indeed, it is a story of one family and its support that is responsible for one young man becoming a successful professional football player – even a hero. But we dare not ignore the power of artistic images used to create or maintain cultural stereotypes. Studies have shown our biases are formed and are continually reinforced by the cultures within which we live.

Dr. Gina Miranda Samuels has published one such study. In her article “Building Kinship and Community: Relational Process of Bicultural Identity Among Adult Multiracial Adoptees,” in the March 2010 issue of FAMILY PROCESS, she shares the results of research focused on transracial adoptees and foster youth. Dr. Samuels is herself a biracial adoptee and writes from both her research and personal experience.

She points out that Black children adopted by white parents struggle to understand themselves as members of two distinct cultures. Black children being raised by white parents are included in the white community through participation in their adopting families learning all its values, mores and life styles. They also suffer the experiences of racism suffered by Blacks of their same age but without the community supports to help them deal with such systemic assaults on their personhood. Besides this their peers of color find it hard to relate to them because they sound white, act white and simply have little in common with other youth of color.

Is it fair to say that “The Blind Side” as a movie and a piece of cultural art does not deal adequately with this “blind side” of Big Mike’s (Michael Oher) growing up experiences?

So the question to ask: Does this movie, as a piece of public art, challenge old destructive stereotypes or does it reinforce them by making us whites feel good and entertained?

Films are not neutral in their power effecting public images and values.

So, what do you think? Enter into conversation with us by writing to us:
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