The Blind Side
This vehicle for Sandra Bullock isn't just awful and boring. It's actively evil.
“You can’t argue with a true story!” bellowed a colleague and frequent verbal sparring partner after a screening of this seriously unnerving ode to White Privilege, which stars Sandra Bullock, and pushed my outrage buttons in a way like no movie since those Ghetto-bots in Transformers 2 admitted they didn’t know how to read.
I will concede that The Blind Side is, indeed, based on the true story of Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Michael Oher, who lived a downright Dickensian existence of squalor and sadness before being adopted by Leigh Anne Touhy, a sassy, filthy-rich Southern housewife played by a tarted-up Bullock as a pushy know-it-all who looks hot all the time and traipses around town with her abject lack of manners or decorum excused as Leigh Anne “just telling it how it is.”
Look, I have no doubt that Touhy did something great for young Mr. Oher, and I’m sure she’ll be rewarded in heaven for her good deed.
What I object to is that the movie is about nothing more than the coronation and sanctification of Mrs. Leigh Anne Touhy. Oher barely registers as a character in this film—he’s a prop. He has no inner life or story of his own, just an exotic pet adopted by a bored housewife.
Eventually she teaches him how to play football, in the most condescending monosyllabic terms imaginable, and it’s only because she’s instructed the oversized oaf how to “do tricks” that scholarship offers soon start arriving in the mail.
Meanwhile, Bullock channels the most flippant and off-putting qualities as the supporting cast (featuring half of Deadwood, plus Tim McGraw) is required to shake their heads and smile in admiration while she insults them and gloats about what a great person she is for doing all of this.
Inexplicably written and directed by John Lee Hancock, who helmed the fine Dennis Quaid baseball flick The Rookie and penned Clint Eastwood’s A Perfect World—one of my favorite movies of the 1990s—The Blind Side is all about how difficult it is to be kind to the disadvantaged, spending far more time focused on the Touhy daughter’s struggle with bullying racist classmates than Oher’s awful crack-damaged childhood traumas.
Turns out I can argue with a true story. Because there are issues of representation at stake here, and The Blind Side isn’t just awful and boring. It’s actively evil. F
COMMENTS
ADD COMMENT
MORE
Article:
There's No Eye in Madonna's "W.E."
Article:
Liam Neeson Is a Badass Who Fights Wolves in the Wildnerness in "The Grey"
Article:
"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close": It Will Always Be 'Too Soon' for a 9/11 Movie
Article:
Roman Polanski's "Carnage" Is a Delectable & Hilarious Slice of Misanthropy
Article:
The Top 10 Worst Films of 2011
Article:
Newest "Sherlock Holmes" Is Bigger, Louder—and Not as Good
Article:
Siblings Reconnect Over Shared Trauma in "Shame"
Article:
"The Other F Word" Shows What Happens When Men Trade Rock 'n' Roll for Fatherhood
1. John Eidson said... on Dec 17, 2009 at 03:58PM
“Do you have a regular email address? I'd like to forward a email (containing a picture) in reference to your piece about the movie The Blind Side.
Thanks.”
2. Mike Sembrot said... on Feb 2, 2010 at 09:46AM
“Wow... I read this review a while ago and thought not much of it. Pretty typical alt weekly, liberal arts review, white guilt anger type stuff...
BUT I hadn't seen the movie.
Now I know you're an idiot. This movie was amazing and I'm glad it got the best picture nom it deserved. (shouldn't win though, The Hurt Locker was much better)”
3. Nick said... on Mar 21, 2010 at 09:46AM
“I couldn't agree more with your review and actually think you might have carried it a bit further to discuss the film's many falsehoods (The Touhy's taught Michael football, really? The many other people who helped take care of him prior to The Touhy's). When even Mr. Oher has no interest in seeing or helping to promote the film, you know it's crap. It just gave me that same sickening feeling I had after watching Driving Miss Daisy. You'll never lose money pandering to the lowest common denominator.”
4. Step N. Fetchit said... on Mar 24, 2010 at 11:22AM
“I enjoyed the fart that the person sitting in front of me let out about 3 minutes into the movie more than the movie itself.”
5. railman said... on Mar 24, 2010 at 09:55PM
“In a great movie "Idocracy" ,about the dumbing down of our future world, the Oscar winning movie was "Ass", 2 solid hours of only an ass. "The Blind Side" comes close....a movie about Sandra Bullock's ass and a big black guy. Give me a break! An Oscar for that performance? Hollywood has lowered itself to the level of Wall Street....anything for a buck, even 90 minutes of ass.”
6. Anonymous said... on Mar 31, 2010 at 04:52PM
“This movie comes off as extremely offensive to blacks - who are portrayed in a most negative, hateful way. All that was missing was the plantation and the whips. Basically, what bubbled up is how white people see black people - as low IQ dolts or criminal losers. It's a sickening film.”
7. Anonymous said... on Apr 4, 2010 at 06:59PM
“I don't know what is the matter with all of you white people. What, you think African-Americans should only be portrayed as Rhodes Scholars or model citizens? Would any of you cry boo at a movie that portrays white folks as trailer trash riding around in trucks and shooting squirrels for breakfast?
Funny how when a true story comes up against political correctness, the truth loses. I've lived in the inner city. I've seen plenty of the "derogatory stereotypes" in this film in the flesh. I got out thanks to a (white) teacher who took the time to get me interested in my future, in my education, and thanks to people like him, both black and white, I'm out of that hell hole.
Anyone who has a problem with this movie should really take a long, hard look at their own views on race, because the only explanation I can come up with for this baffling presentation on this movie is guilty closeted racism.”
8. pindycat said... on May 5, 2010 at 12:51PM
“As a woman of color this movie makes me sick. I have worked in the inner city for 40 years. How dare this movie portray us as big and stupid and being ever so grateful to the white people who rescued us. Sandra Bullock should be really proud, this Nazii lovers wife. Now she has her own house negro to raise naming him Louie why not stepen fetchit. Yessa mam”
9. MrsSinMemphis said... on Oct 3, 2010 at 12:24AM
“Youch! I finally got around to watching that movie. Let me preface this with the fact that I live in Memphis - and I'm white - and I'm affluent - and I REALLY thought the movie was a horrible piece of racist garbage. Demeaning to blacks. Perpetuating every stereotype that shouldn't even exist. AND - not even really reflecting Memphis. Sandra Bullock got the accent and the body language right. I live among housewives just like her character. Overall, though, I am appalled that people with the means to make a movie would be so ignorant - and that people would watch this movie without getting upset. Hell, if this story needs to be told, let Spike Lee tell it next time!”