Posts Tagged ‘black boy’

I’ve been vaguely aware of both the plot of The Blind Side (homeless black teenager from broken family is adopted by wealthy white family and goes on to play pro football) and the critiques of its racial politics for some time, and despite its unexpected box office success, I’ve had little desire to see it. I’m currently in Florida visiting my grandmother, though, and she wanted to see The Blind Side, so see The Blind Side we did.

I don’t much care for Sandra Bullock, but she’s exactly as good as everyone says she is as the loving, no-nonsense matriarch of a wealthy Southern family. And the movie in general is pretty much what you’d expect: cutesy, saccharine, uplifting, and formulaic. It’s good for what it is though, with a remarkable story, quick pace, witty dialogue, and genuinely likable characters.

As for the film’s racial politics, I can’t say that I entirely agree with most of the critiques I’ve seen, though I do have a few of my own. A. O. Scott’s review for the New York Times encapsulates the most common criticism of Blind Side:

To the extent that Michael represents a social problem (or maybe a whole bunch of them, including poverty, drug addiction and family dysfunction), the solution depicted is individual, charitable and, at least implicitly, faith based.  Read the complete post...