Blindsided: Once again, there are no white saviors

Remember that awful 2009 movie The Blindside? The one where a homeless Black teenager is adopted by a white family who helps him get on his feet and eventually helped mold him into a football star…

Turns out, according to a new lawsuit, the central premise of the based-on-a-true-story drama was a lie. As ESPN first reported:

The 14-page petition, filed in Shelby County, Tennessee, probate court, alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, who took Oher into their home as a high school student, never adopted him. Instead, less than three months after Oher turned 18 in 2004, the petition says, the couple tricked him into signing a document making them his conservators, which gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the lawsuit:

The Tuohy’s never actually adopted Michael.

They also lied to him about the meaning of a conservatorship, and abused his lack of knowledge of the complex legal process.

Somewhere in the process, Michael was also tricked into signing away the life rights to his story FOR FREE.

He allegedly didn’t make a dime from The Blindside, while the Tuohy’s are reported to have made millions of dollars.

The awfulness of all of this aside, the success of The Blindside says a lot about the way white America views itself within in its own national narrative. The white savior complex is a beast that needs to be fed by the constant construction and reconstruction of hero myths — like The Blindside — that only serve paper over the horrors of white supremacy.

White Americans need to see themselves as good. But not good to just anyone; good in particular to the people against whom the country’s worst atrocities have been committed.

It’s why films like Blindside, Greenbook, The Help etc. consistently win at award shows and succeed financially. The Blindside apparently grossed over $300 million at the box office, and tens of millions of dollars more in home video sales. It also got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, while Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy. Rewarding white savior narratives not only reinforces how important they are to American cinema canon, but they also incentivize filmmakers to do more. Feed. The. Beast.

On a final, horrifying but important note, the film also portrays Michael as intellectually challenged and this, too, is intentional. Exaggerating his helplessness underscores the Tuohy’s magnanimity, but I’m also willing to guess that it contributed to their ability to secure a conservatorship to begin with.

If we’ve learned anything from the #FreeBritney movement, it’s that these kinds of conservatorships are often abusive, and frequently weaponized against marginalized people who stand to earn the people around them a lot of money. I really hope Michael gets everything he’s owed and more out of this lawsuit.

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Book club stuff

We’re halfway through the month and I’ll have the first book club post up this Thursday so make sure you’re caught up!

Shit you should know

• Scientists have just completed the first ever comparative study of menstrual products that used actual human period blood. Apparently, researchers have been using saline and water this whole time??! Talk about gynaecological misogyny. This has major implications for not just how we market and prescribe period products but even gynaecological conversations like what is considered “heavy bleeding.” 

• Drake And Bobbi Althoff have unfollowed each other, and she’s taken their podcast episode off of YouTube & Spotify. Hmm. I wonder what that creep did now.

• COVID is still very real, and new research is suggesting it could be linked to neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's

• Tory Lanez been sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting Megan Thee Stallion, and the only important thing you need to read this week is Meg’s statement.

• Wealthy landowners are helping with relief efforts in Maui, but why do they own so much of it to begin with? And why on earth do people refuse to stop vacationing there?

• My Guardian column last week was on why Black rappers are aligning themselves with right wing weirdos.

Housewives corner

I started the new season of the Real Housewives of New York and YES!!! THIS IS WHAT WE’RE HERE FOR. Two episodes in, and this might just be the thing that restores my faith in Bravo. I’m enjoying it enough that I’m seriously considering doing weekly recaps of both RHONY (and maybe RHOA if these recaps catch on).

Take the poll below to help me decide!

Till Thursday!

xoxo