NPR

'The Blind Side' drama just proves the cheap, meaningless hope of white savior films

The true story behind the hit Oscar-winner has only gotten ickier — and Hollywood is complicit.
Michael Oher of the Carolina Panthers celebrates with his family after the NFC Championship Game against the Arizona Cardinals at Bank Of America Stadium on January 24, 2016 in Charlotte, N.C.

For nearly 15 years, two things have been unquestionably true about The Blind Side, the 2009 blockbuster inspired by the early life of ex-NFL star Michael Oher: It won Sandra Bullock her best actress Oscar for playing Leigh Anne Tuohy, and it's become a poster child for Hollywood's "white savior" narratives, nestled comfortably alongside maudlin peers like Dangerous Minds and The Help.

But everything else relating to this story is far more complicated. While the movie and Michael Lewis's book of the same name claim Tuohy and her family legally adopted Oher at 18, he recently alleging he was unknowingly coerced into a conservatorship, one he's still under" and deny making money off the film. Somehow, now seems even ickier.

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