Nick Wass/AP Photo
Michael Oher is seen in this photo as a player for the Baltimore Ravens during an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills in Baltimore, October 24, 2010.
When the movie The Blind Side came out in 2009, it was a verifiable hit. The “feel good” film grossed $300 million worldwide, ten times its budget, and earned Sandra Bullock multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, for her co-lead. The social impact the movie has had in many areas is wide-reaching, but the deeper human impact is only just now being investigated thoroughly, 14 years after the film’s release.
In August, Michael Oher, the subject of the movie, filed a claim against Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, who were depicted in the film and the book on which it was based as his “adoptive “ parents from his teen years. In his suit, Oher alleged that he was never adopted—a cornerstone of the picture’s narrative—but instead placed into a financially binding conservatorship; that he was tricked into signing away the proceeds from his name and image for the past 19 years, and that he received no money from The Blind Side’s global success.
As ESPN reported, the 14-page petition that Oher filed in Tennessee states that “the couple tricked him into signing a document making them his conservators, which gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name.” Oher alleges that the Tuohys then struck a deal to pay themselves and their children from the movie’s royalties, and that they completely excluded Oher from this deal. The Tuohys have stated, at various times, that they made either no money or very little from the film. Whatever they received, Oher is contending that he got nothing for his own story.
Oher went on to become a decorated offensive lineman at the University of Mississippi and later on with the Baltimore Ravens, on whose 2013 Super Bowl championship team he played. Now, he wants the conservatorship struck down. But he is also asking the court for an accounting of all the money the Tuohys made off of his name, and for the court to bar them from using it any further.
In their response to the filing, which Entertainment Tonight reported on, the Tuohys “vehemently deny” any deception, and frame the conservatorship as the key to Oher’s future with the University of Mississippi. The Tuohys’ response argues that they “never intended” to adopt Oher, and that Oher was always aware of the true legal nature of their relationship. The Tuohys have also accused Oher of attempting a $15 million “shakedown” (read: blackmail) of them before filing his court petition.
The Blind Side is centered around the Tuohy family and their relationship with Oher, and is particularly focused on Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, a wealthy white couple from Memphis, Tennessee, who took in and supported Oher at a critical moment for his burgeoning football career.
This is how The Blind Side presents the situation: Oher, an academically challenged but physically gifted Black student with a rough home life, garnered the attention of the Tuohys. Oher was portrayed as a “gentle giant,” and the representation of his intelligence is questionable at best and calling him stupid at its worst.
The movie wants the viewer to believe that Leigh Anne was compelled by his gentle nature, and that she saw potential in Oher that no one else did. In the context of the movie, Oher’s career is a direct reflection of the support (particularly the financial support) and stability the Tuohys provided him as a high school student. In other words, Oher would never have gotten as far as he did without them.
The reality is, as always, more complicated. But it is worth noting that even in 2009, there was reason to be concerned about the narrative of The Blind Side. It is a classic example of the “white savior complex” (or “white saviorism”), of which the Black community is all too aware. A literal example would be instances where white Christian missionaries travel to Kenya to spread the religion and “save” the poor Black children, but The Blind Side is no less clear an example. Even if Oher’s allegations had never come out, the Tuohys’ motives and the overall message of the movie were always worth scrutinizing. Pedantically, the film is about a wealthy white family pushing a “stupid” Black boy to sell his body as a career.
Oher alleges that he was actively deceived into believing he was a legitimate member of the Tuohy family, but that he was instead essentially used as a cash cow. He has taken issue with the portrayal of his intelligence, publicly, since at least 2015, when he told ESPN, “People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie … They don’t really see the skills and the kind of player I am.”
It is true that Oher had a rough home life, and probably did need support in various ways. But he was always a skilled athlete, including in football, before the Tuohys entered the picture. He is now the author of two memoirs, and his NFL career is not something to sniff at. The film makes it seem as though Oher knew nothing about the game, and that the family had to teach Oher football and basic academics.
The film also seems to posit that Oher would not have gotten into Ole Miss without the Tuohys, but he had other scholarships. It just so happened that the Tuohys were alumni (and donors) at the school.
It’s not just the Tuohys who have profited off of Oher’s life story. If it is true that, as the Tuohys alleged in their response, the NCAA said Oher had to be a part of the Tuohys to play there, the NCAA is just as guilty as the couple for pushing Oher into an unnecessary conservatorship. Michael Lewis, the author of the 2006 book the film is based on, needs to take responsibility for the film’s framing of the story; so, too, do Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove, co-founders of the movie’s production company, who instead defend the narrative.
Whether the Tuohys made money off of the film is actually a secondary concern to all but Oher himself; the fundamental scandal is that they hijacked his story. They gained nearly two decades of unquestioned fortune and fame. They bolstered the reputation of the University of Mississippi, went on speaking tours, and wrote books on the selflessness of charity work.
For his part, Oher went on to a respected football career, but he was still missing the one thing that they had promised him—a functioning family. Now, under scrutiny, it turns out that he was their son only in a “colloquial sense,” not the legal sense the world has believed for years. Oher’s pain, his sense of betrayal, is unlikely to be erased by a payout.
Now, Oher’s lawsuit shines light on how his story can be inspirational for so many reasons distinct from the Tuohy family. It refutes the notion that the marginalized should be grateful for the crumbs and attention they get from the privileged.
The public may have never known that story—Oher’s real story—had he not stood up for himself. The Tuohys may have hijacked his achievements, but Oher is taking them back. May we all have that tenacity in the face of racist assumptions and deeply set white supremacy.
