Copeland's Corner: August 17, 2023

No matter what you think of "The Blind Side," leave Sandra Bullock alone!

I must admit that The Blind Side is one of my favorite feel-good movies of the last 20 years. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a wealthy white Tennessee family (Sean and Leigh-Ann Touhy) who take in a homeless African American kid (Michael Oher) who’s a gentle giant and not very quick mentally. What he can do is play football. The Touhys treat Oher as one of their own kids and they get him into their alma mater, the University of Tennessee, to play football. The film leaves us with the clear impression that the Touhys adopted Oher as their own son. Oher had that impression too, signing papers when he was 18 that he says he was led to believe were adoption papers when in fact, they were conservatorship papers that gave the Touhys control over his finances, likeness, life story and name.

Oher only found out last month, almost twenty years after signing the document, that the Touhys had in fact not adopted him, but were merely his conservators (think Brittany Spears). Oher alleges that the Touhys made money from the sale of the film rights, as well as royalties from its post-release screenings, streaming video, DVDs and other formats. Oher says that they split the money between themselves and their biological children without giving him a dime.

For their part, the Touhys say that it was all a big misunderstanding. They couldn’t legally adopt Oher because he was over the age of 18. The conservatorship was he next best thing. Sean Touhy, a multi-millionaire in his own right, having recently sold his businesses for over $200 million, says that the proceeds of the movie came to around $750,000 and Oher was given an equal share. Touhy says that with his wealth, why would he cheat Oher out of what would have amounted to a few hundred grand when he’s personally worth millions? He says that he and wife Leigh-Ann have always considered Oher their son.

Oher is suing the Touhys in a Tennessee court, requesting that the conservatorship be dissolved and that he receive an accounting of all monies acquired by the conservatorship since its inception almost 20 years ago. It’s a sad story, but not as sad as the film itself.

I rewatched The Blind Side last night after reading about the Oher brouhaha and I came away from it with a different take than I had the other times I saw it. It’s a white savior movie. It’s an old Hollywood trope about a scary black man in dire circumstances until a benevolent white man, woman, or family, breaks through the tough, raggedy exterior and shows the African American’s true humanity. We’ve seen this trope a million times, from The Soloist to The Help to Hidden Figures. The black people are in unenviable positions until rescued by a charitable white person who suddenly realizes, “Hey, they’re people just like us!” When you watch The Blind Side through that lens and the lens of the pending lawsuit, it suddenly stops being a “feel good” movie and instead becomes exploitative. I don’t know how this is going to play out in court, if it even makes it to court. What I DO know is that an innocent party is taking some of the heat from this whole thing.

No matter what you think of the movie, Sandra Bullock is extraordinary as Leigh-Ann Tuohy. She gives the performance of her career and it earned her a much deserved Best Actress Academy Award. Since the Oher story broke, she is being inundated by trolls who claim that she was part of the conspiracy to defraud Oher and that she should return her Oscar because the film was a fraud.

This rancor couldn’t come at a worse time for her. Her partner of eight years died August 8 of complications from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Before all of this Blind Side stuff was in the news, she had asked the public for privacy so that she could grieve. Now she’s on the receiving end of hatred for something she had absolutely nothing to do with. She’s an actress. She read a script, liked it, and played a part extremely well. That’s the extent of her involvement. Why take anything out on her?

As I said, I don’t know how the Oher/Tuohy saga is going to play out. I hope it’s just a misunderstanding, as Sean Tuohy says. White savior movie or not, the film touched a lot of people in a good way. I’d hate to see that destroyed. Most importantly, LEAVE SANDRA BULLOCK ALONE.