Left-wing columnists are back on the attack against the movie The Blind Side, calling it racist and an example of “white savior” syndrome as the recriminations between ex-NFL player Michael Oher and the Tuohy family continue to echo in the press and soon in the courtroom.
The renewed attack by liberals on the 2009 film came after ex-NFL player Michael Oher, who is black, filed a lawsuit alleging that the Tuohy family, who are white, withheld an unknown amount of money from him in profits from the film as well as lying to him about adopting him as a member of the family. He additionally claims they misled him into signing away his rights to carry on his own financial affairs.
Baltimore Ravens #23 draft pick Michael Oher poses for a photograph with his family at Radio City Music Hall for the 2009 NFL Draft on April 25, 2009, in New York City (Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)
For their part, the Tuohy family has denied the accusations, claimed that Oher received the same amount of money from the film as they all did, and added that they wanted to adopt him into the family, but state law precluded that since Oher was already over 18 and the conservatorship that gave them the rights to govern his finances was their only choice.
Liberal columnists, though, are taking this fight as their chance to push their race-baiting agenda, Fox News reported.
For instance, Robyn Autry, a professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University, wrote a story for MSNBC blasting the film as “typical Hollywood White savior nonsense, that unsurprisingly made hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Autry added that the movie is a “dishonest, condescending and emotionally manipulative” portrayal of what happened between the Tuohys and Oher.
He added that the story starring Sandra Bullock “excites a White imagination that longs for contact with the Black other and simultaneously fears that contact” and slammed the film as racist.
“The White person is the hero, without whom the Black characters, we’re left to believe, would never have been anything. The Tuohys are portrayed similarly. And movie audiences would rather believe such a dream than engage in the difficult work of fighting for the kind of structural social change that would benefit everyone, even those a heroic White person never encounters,” Autry added.
Leigh Anne Tuohy celebrates on the field after her adoptive son Michael Oher #74 of the Baltimore Ravens and the Ravens defeat the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 during Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on February 3, 2013, in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Owen Gleiberman also blasted the film in a piece for Variety and called the film “fakery.”
Vox also jumped in, hinting that the “white savior” theme was “built on a law.”
The Guardian also jumped in to claim that the whole “white savior” story the film was based upon was “always built on shaky ground.”
The extreme, left-wing The Nation also attacked the film, saying it was “always trash.”
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