Why Hollywood embraced white savior movies like ‘The Blind Side’

The legal battle between former NFL star Michael Oher and the white Tennessee family who took him in, as portrayed in the fictionalization of their lives in the 2009 movie “The Blind Side,” has renewed conversations about a common film trope: the white savior.

The legal battle between former NFL star Michael Oher and the white Tennessee family who took him in, as portrayed in the fictionalization of their lives in the 2009 movie “The Blind Side,” has renewed conversations about a common film trope: the white savior. 

When “The Blind Side” hit theaters, it was hailed as both a true story steeped in “goodness” and criticized as racism cloaked in a tale about benevolent white people. Now, as Oher claims that Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy misled him and used him for fame and fortune, experts are pointing to the allegations as real-life consequences of white savior films. 

“The fact that this lawsuit is even being talked about is reflective of the central place white savior narratives have in our culture,” said Matthew Hughey, a sociologist and the author of “The White Savior Film.”

Oher filed a petition with a Tennessee court on Monday to end a conservatorship that he alleges the Tuohys tricked him into under the guise of adoption. He has been under the conservatorship since he turned 18, and now, at 37, he said he had only recently learned that the arrangement does not create familial ties. He alleges the Tuohy family made hundreds of thousands of dollars as part of the deal they negotiated for his life story, while he was paid nothing. 

The Tuohys have denied Oher’s claim that he never received any money, and Marty Singer, a lawyer for the family, called Oher’s lawsuit a “shakedown effort.” Another lawyer for the Tuohys, Randall Fishman, said Wednesday that Sean and Leigh Anne will consent to end the conservatorship. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/hollywood-embraced-white-savior-movies-blind-side-rcna100413

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