The problem with The Blind Side is not in its representation of whiteness. I actually think it did a fairly good job with that. Leigh Anne's friends are casually racist, while considering themselves good Christian philanthropists. A school official assumes a black family won't be able to pay tuition. Leigh Anne herself is ambivalent about her feelings towards a poor, black kid even as she wants to help him. When she first invites Michael to sleep in her home, she does so instinctively--then later wonders to her husband whether he'll steal something. She tells off her friend for suggesting there's something inappropriate about having a "large, black boy" sleep in a house with her teenage daughter, then goes home and asks her daughter if …show more content…
Although it is ostensibly a story about a black man, Michael Oher, no one could claim the movie is about the character of Michael. That would be a difficult story for Hollywood to tell, while the story of white people doing charity by helping the so very destitute uneducated black people is an easy story to tell. As the Dallas Observer puts it, "Blind Side the movie peddles the most insidious kind of racism, one in which whiteys are virtuous saviors, coming to the rescue of blacks who become superfluous in narratives that are supposed to be about them." Michael is never a fully realized character. Many of his actions make little sense, and we never see things through his perspective or understand his emotions. Throughout, he's treated as a child, not just an under-educated teen. His white tutor tries to scare him off from going to Tennessee by telling him a ghost story. He doesn't understand football until Leigh Anne explains it in dumbed-down metaphors. Really? Is this what Michael Oher is like? Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for mirroring Leigh Anne Tuohy drawl for drawl, but did anyone even try to represent Michael Oher believably? In addition to this infantalized portrayal of what should be the main character, we're treated to a revealing look at the white vision of blackness. We get scenes of Michael's crack addict mother, of gang-bangers drinking 40s, of newspaper headlines of kids killed in
Media such as movies, video games and television, in general, are all created to support some form of social context. This helps with generating popularity because people are able to relate to the form of media. In Greg Smith’s book What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss, he describes 6 different representational strategies that justifies people’s way of thinking. The trope that I will be amplifying is the white savior tactic. In addition, I will connect this strategy to the movie The Blind Side. There are clear examples throughout the film where racism and low-income cultures exist in which the white family is there to help. The Tuohy family from the movie “The Blind Side” serves as the white savior for the progression of Michael
The Blind Side is a heartwarming and compelling story of the NFL player Michael Oher, who is adopted into a family that is a significantly higher social class than he. The story is a true account of a boy that went from rags to riches and depicts eloquently the social stratification in the United States.
All through time, the world has been racist and intolerant of people different from themselves. Countless millions have suffered due to the bigotry of people that couldn't understand change or differences among one another. There was a time when any soul that wasn't blue eyed and blonde haired in Germany, anyone with darker skin where immediately classed as inferior and not human. Even now, when you are not aware, racism is still a considerable problem. But sometimes it isn't one person being racist against another, but rather one person being racist against them self. The movie crash shows good examples of how racism against oneself, caused by fear and misunderstanding, is just as malevolent and evil as racism against another person. Fear is what makes people act racist. Farhad is one of many examples in the movie of a person who recognizes his own race and paralyzes himself through his own fear. Farhad believes that since he is Persian he is immediately being persecuted against and cheated. He flips out at the gun shop when the owner was insulting him which just furthers his fear of Americans. After the events on 9/11, which are referenced a lot in the movie, Farhad thinks that anyone who is Middle Eastern isn't welcome in America. Even after the gun shop owner was rude; his shop was destroyed by racist people who hated him. It is this same fear of being cheated because of his race that makes him very untrusting to people he doesn't know. He calls a lock smith to come fix his door because it won't lock. He immediately thinks that Daniel is trying to cheat him and steal money from him just because of his past endeavors.
Black face, in itself, makes a mockery of black people. It makes us look ridiculous and like clowns. By the end of the movie, the actors hate themselves and feel guilt for what they have been doing to their people because of money. They were being “nigga” puppets and coons for entertainment, not realizing how it made the rest of our race look. They had lost their dignity and integrity because of money and fame, but didn’t know what they were doing until it was a little too late. Everyone wanted to be a nigga because it was popular, but no one wanted to deal with the history that comes with it. Being a nigga shouldn’t be a goal nor should it be uplifted because it is demeaning, racist, and belittling. “People love Black culture, but don’t love Black people” is a phrase that is all too familiar and it’s sad that it’s one of the most accurate phrases I’ve heard. That phrase basically means that at the end of the day, to white people, we are still considered subhuman, less than, and inferior. They are always going to constantly make a mockery of us unless we change the image that they have set for us and even then, we may still always be the butt of their
not be their fault, it may be the way they were brought up, or perhaps
Before we get into the movie specifically, we should first talk about representation and how race is represented in the media in general. Representation is defined as the assigning of meaning through language and in culture. (CITE) Representation isn't reality, but rather a mere construction of reality and the meaning behind it. (CITE) Through representation we are able to shape how people are seen by others. Race is an aspect of people which is often represented in the media in different ways. Race itself is not a category of nature, but rather...
Around 12,000 B.C., human beings in Asia moved north in search wooly mammoths and made their way across the Bering Straight to Alaska. Over the next several hundred years, they made their way to the Great Plains where they hunted huge mammals to the point of extinction. During the Archaic Period (9000 B.C. 1000 B.C.), bands of hunters moved constantly from one area to another in constant search of a suitable food supply. By 1000 B.C. the first sedentary communities were developed near rich fishing areas along the coasts and large rivers. Sedentary people created complex mound communities along the Mississippi River and in the Ohio Valley. When improvements in corn reached the land north of the Mexican desert, there was a marked boom in sedentary city development. Corn cultivation influenced peoples' religions and improved their health, helping to spawn a population growth after 800 A.D. These urban centers declined in the 13th and 14th centuries because of warfare, soil exhaustion and the disruption of inter-regional trade. In Europe, forces of social change were creating unrest; unrest which would prompt hundreds of people to explore the Atlantic Ocean and reshape the relationship between peoples of the world.
We live in a liberal society, not a liberated one. We have developed the ability to live with those biologically and culturally different from us. But the concept and effects of race remain. Race is not merely a characterization of phenotypes. Race is also a cultural definition imposed on us by historical context. Race, in essence, is an idea. It is the classification of others within realms of their single story and living within the confines of our own single story. Racism is fear of that idea. Racism is power.
Racism has taken on many forms in America over the past several hundred years. The most substantial or well known is the plight of the African American slaves and the injustices they suffered. Today, a new form of racism is developing; one that has always been around but has now entered the forefront of most Americans minds. This new racism is against members of the Middle Eastern culture and religion. The actions of September 11th did not create a new problem, they just shed light on a problem that we have had for some time. Racism is everywhere in one form or another. To understand it, I think it is necessary to look at the history, causes, and ways to resolve it.
It certainly has some underlying tones of racism, but the novel itself does not focus on it, but instead has racism as a backdrop, occasionally pointing out some of the racial difficulties of the time. The first reference to racism in the book is when Nanny is telling her story to Janie; "Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out… So de white man throw down de load and tell de n***** man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De n***** woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.” (Their Eyes Were Watching God) While not an example of racism, it sets the tone of the story and gives the reader a view into the mind of an African American at the time; black people do what the white men tell them to do, and in the end the one in the worst spot is the African American woman. Later on in Nanny’s story, it’s explained that both Janie and her mother were born due to racial victimization. Later in the novel, after Jody and Janie had moved to the all African-American town, Lee Coker issues one of the most interesting quotes of the entire book; "Us colored folks is too envious of one ‘nother. Dat’s how come us don’t git o further than us do. Us talks about de white man keepin’ us down! Shucks! He don’t have tuh. Us keeps our own selves down." (Their Eyes Were Watching God) He suggests that it isn’t just white people who
One of the more prevalent themes of this movie is racism, and how prejudicial mindsets ultimately lead to one’s own demise. The movie outlines how racism, among other things, can adversely affect someone’s judgment. After the father died, we see how the family gradually deteriorates financially as well as emotionally after Derek (the older brother played by Edward Norton) turns to a neo Nazi gang for an outlet, which eventually influences his younger brother Danny (played by Edward Furlong) to follow down ...
The opening scene of the novel introduces the theme of blindness. As the narrator says, “When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination-indeed, everything and anything except me,” (Ellison 3). This quote shows how people do not see the narrator. The narrator says that people “refuse” to see him. An example of this is when he bumps into a white man at night. The narrator says, "…when it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually, that he, as far as he knew, was in the middle of a walking nightmare!” (Ellison 4). This quote is an example of how people are blind and do not see the narrator. The narrator realizes that the man had insulted him because he did not see him. Blindness is a recurring theme in the novel, and shows how people refuse to see the truth in their community. Another example of blindness in the beginning of the novel is the battle royal that the narrator is forced to take part in. All of the fighters are blindfolded, and therefore are blind to see how the white people are taking advantage of them. Blindness is shown as a negative theme in the novel.
The Blind Side by John Lee Hancock intended to idealize the social rejection which tensions the perception on how people are sighted “different” or “other”. The first hindsight depicts the acknowledged tourist of a black, homeless teen (Michael Oher) impacted disconnection of environmental surroundings despite his structure of aggression and primal instinct capability on the football field. Hence, his absolute value contradicts the endured hardship on unity within the white community established in the Long Shot provokes the impulsive grouped teachers in the table whilst Michael is isolated on his own. Michael instigates himself to question presiding his alienation from lost disaffection signalling symbolic gesture from the direct speech of the teacher’s opinions on “I don’t think….” reveals the reputation of Michael considered an outcast. The sarcastic tone when “he writes his name…. barely” socially rejects him. His supplementations of childhood obstacles ratify the contradiction of freedom and equality in contrast to the Civil Rights Movement based on colour discriminating the repetition of the word “white” effectively speaks “I look and see white everywhere, white walls, white floors and a lot of white people” optimizes his vain separation and feelings of isolation to project his empathy. The director plays an authentic appreciation to
In the blockbuster movie The Blind Side, director John Lee Hancock brings to light an emotionally charged and compelling story that describes how a young African American teenager perseveres through the trials, tribulations and hardships that surround his childhood. The themes of class, poverty, and also the love and nurturing of family encapsulate the film mainly through the relationship that Mrs. Tuohy and Michael Oher build during the entirety of the movie. This analysis will bring together these themes with sociological ideas seen throughout the course.
...help. The Blindside had similar characteristics of white privilege, the Sandra Bullock character appeared to be headstrong, passionate, capable, and effective while Michael Oher was perceived as emotionally stunted, and unable of helping himself. The White Savior syndrome as we have seen has the tendency to render people of colour lacking the capacity to seek change, and erasing their historical agency (Cammarota, 2011). Any progress or success is from the aid of a white individual, which suggests that escaping poverty, or ignorance, is thanks to the intelligence of the White Savior. Freire calls this “false Generosity” (1998) a white person may provide help to a person of colour yet help comes in the form of saving, the emphasis on saving instead of transforming fails to acknowledge the oppressive structure and in turn maintains white supremacy. (Cammarota, 2011).