I see a difference, at least somewhat, with the new Reese movie in that its really not about the black experience in America. Its about refugees in a post-conflict migration. Yes, being from S. Sudan and being black does inform the narrative, but its hard to conflate this entirely with narratives like The Help and The Blindside. I would venture to say their stories, their 'saving' is more in line with Cambodians in the early 80s than black Americans.

But I come from a place of studying/interest in post-conflict states which are often in developing nations in the last 30 years- its part of my job at a local university- so maybe that colors how I see this example.

As an aside, I do find it very, very funny that John Coffey (character) was confused with John Candy were confused. That's gotta count for some post-racial progress...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brad Pitt in "12 years a slave", they were acting out a biography, events that really happened in the 1800s.

Nope. The sanctimony of Pitt's character was creatively derived. The actors and creative team made choices in how they portrayed the story. His delivery was particularly heavy-handed. It took me out of the moment. Yes, it was annoying.

The Reece Witherspooon vehicle had me gawping at the screen as I viewed the trailer. Ugh. A total reframing of a black experience to fit a single white woman's personal journey. Okaaaay.

Thank you -- some people are deliberately OBTUSE.

Anonymous wrote:You are the only person that I know that is annoyed by The Blind Side.

I also thought of it as how Michael Oher overcame so much.

You are probably a glass half empty person.

You should watch hotel Rwanda to sooth your white guilt.

She is not the only person it annoys

http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/The-Real-Michael-Oher/f766f1ad-4104-479d-a379-c3eeb82d9e17

WAKE UP PEOPLE -- JUST BECAUSE IT'S IN A MOVIE DOES NOT MEAN IT IS ACCURATE OR EVEN TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous wrote:Brad Pitt in "12 years a slave", they were acting out a biography, events that really happened in the 1800s.

Blind Side was also a biography, but the story as TOLD IN THE MOVIE was inaccurate and played up the family/mother "rescuing" the poor black boy.
Don't be naive enough to think that 'based on a true story' makes it accurate

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are the only person that I know that is annoyed by The Blind Side.

I also thought of it as how Michael Oher overcame so much.

You are probably a glass half empty person.

You should watch hotel Rwanda to sooth your white guilt.

Here's what I found annoying about The Blind Side. Sandra Bullock goes to the projects to look for Oher or Oher's mom (can't remember which) and is confronted by a gang leader type who threatens to come across town and rape her white daughter if she doesn't leave Michael alone (so he can be recruited into the gang). I read the book which was followed fairly closely in the movie except for this scene. It's true that some guy on his football team made a rude comment about the girl but it was obviously a rude comment and Michael made him pay for it. In reality, the gang leader didn't behave this way at all.

Earth to Hollywood: When middle class white women venture into poor black neighborhoods, gang leaders don't walk up to them and threaten to rape them. But you might find that strangers on the street will say "hello," because that's the friggin' neighborly thing to do!

Earth to clueless white woman... I delivered pizza at the UMCP and yes... People threatened me and eventually the manager stopped delivering to those areas. I am middle class white woman and these were open air drug markets.

Michael also injured a boy in a rage and they left tht out of the movie.

Earth to clueless pp: I have lived next door to a big public housing complex for over a decade. I've also entered public housing complexes in order to meet folks I knew there. Not one person has ever threatened to rape me or my daughter but plenty of people have said "hello" on the street.

I'm sorry about your experience delivering pizza but I suspect the central reason for the way you were treated was that you were delivering pizza, not that you were a white woman. Now, it is possible that you got treated worse because you are a white woman but I suspect that anyone delivering pizza to that neighborhood would have a problem. Or did you find that African-American guys who delivered pizza did not run into trouble there?

White guys did not have a problem. There were no black delivery guys at the time. They thought they could intimidate me but I was raised in a crime ridden neighborhood and I was not intimidated. The manager was worried about being liable.

I'm impressed that you weren't intimidated. Sorry to hear that you had a hard time.

I should add that I'm not saying white women never have a hard time in low-income black neighborhoods but the scene in the movie didn't even happen in the book. The author reported talking to a gang leader who told him that they would leave a kid like Michael Oher alone until he got through school. Gang leader never even talked to the Sandra Bullock character, let alone threaten her. And as I've noted above my experience has been completely different and I've tutored a kid in public housing for years. I've never heard of any of the white tutors being threatened so that their kids could work for a gang leader. Not saying it has never happened and obviously a lot of young kids get caught up in crime in my neighborhood (eg, there's one kid I had a run in with who turned out to be very bad news years later) but it bothers me that the movie perpetuates this fear of the inner city as if any stray white woman going to public housing will be threatened with rape immediately -- and it didn't even happen!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are the only person that I know that is annoyed by The Blind Side.

I also thought of it as how Michael Oher overcame so much.

You are probably a glass half empty person.

You should watch hotel Rwanda to sooth your white guilt.

Here's what I found annoying about The Blind Side. Sandra Bullock goes to the projects to look for Oher or Oher's mom (can't remember which) and is confronted by a gang leader type who threatens to come across town and rape her white daughter if she doesn't leave Michael alone (so he can be recruited into the gang). I read the book which was followed fairly closely in the movie except for this scene. It's true that some guy on his football team made a rude comment about the girl but it was obviously a rude comment and Michael made him pay for it. In reality, the gang leader didn't behave this way at all.

Earth to Hollywood: When middle class white women venture into poor black neighborhoods, gang leaders don't walk up to them and threaten to rape them. But you might find that strangers on the street will say "hello," because that's the friggin' neighborly thing to do!

Earth to clueless white woman... I delivered pizza at the UMCP and yes... People threatened me and eventually the manager stopped delivering to those areas. I am middle class white woman and these were open air drug markets.

Michael also injured a boy in a rage and they left tht out of the movie.

Earth to clueless pp: I have lived next door to a big public housing complex for over a decade. I've also entered public housing complexes in order to meet folks I knew there. Not one person has ever threatened to rape me or my daughter but plenty of people have said "hello" on the street.

I'm sorry about your experience delivering pizza but I suspect the central reason for the way you were treated was that you were delivering pizza, not that you were a white woman. Now, it is possible that you got treated worse because you are a white woman but I suspect that anyone delivering pizza to that neighborhood would have a problem. Or did you find that African-American guys who delivered pizza did not run into trouble there?

White guys did not have a problem. There were no black delivery guys at the time. They thought they could intimidate me but I was raised in a crime ridden neighborhood and I was not intimidated. The manager was worried about being liable.

I'm impressed that you weren't intimidated. Sorry to hear that you had a hard time.

I was young and stupid... and use to it from my neighborhood. Typical nothing will ever happen to me syndrome.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are the only person that I know that is annoyed by The Blind Side.

I also thought of it as how Michael Oher overcame so much.

You are probably a glass half empty person.

You should watch hotel Rwanda to sooth your white guilt.

Here's what I found annoying about The Blind Side. Sandra Bullock goes to the projects to look for Oher or Oher's mom (can't remember which) and is confronted by a gang leader type who threatens to come across town and rape her white daughter if she doesn't leave Michael alone (so he can be recruited into the gang). I read the book which was followed fairly closely in the movie except for this scene. It's true that some guy on his football team made a rude comment about the girl but it was obviously a rude comment and Michael made him pay for it. In reality, the gang leader didn't behave this way at all.

Earth to Hollywood: When middle class white women venture into poor black neighborhoods, gang leaders don't walk up to them and threaten to rape them. But you might find that strangers on the street will say "hello," because that's the friggin' neighborly thing to do!

Earth to clueless white woman... I delivered pizza at the UMCP and yes... People threatened me and eventually the manager stopped delivering to those areas. I am middle class white woman and these were open air drug markets.

Michael also injured a boy in a rage and they left tht out of the movie.

Earth to clueless pp: I have lived next door to a big public housing complex for over a decade. I've also entered public housing complexes in order to meet folks I knew there. Not one person has ever threatened to rape me or my daughter but plenty of people have said "hello" on the street.

I'm sorry about your experience delivering pizza but I suspect the central reason for the way you were treated was that you were delivering pizza, not that you were a white woman. Now, it is possible that you got treated worse because you are a white woman but I suspect that anyone delivering pizza to that neighborhood would have a problem. Or did you find that African-American guys who delivered pizza did not run into trouble there?

White guys did not have a problem. There were no black delivery guys at the time. They thought they could intimidate me but I was raised in a crime ridden neighborhood and I was not intimidated. The manager was worried about being liable.

I'm impressed that you weren't intimidated. Sorry to hear that you had a hard time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are the only person that I know that is annoyed by The Blind Side.

I also thought of it as how Michael Oher overcame so much.

You are probably a glass half empty person.

You should watch hotel Rwanda to sooth your white guilt.

Here's what I found annoying about The Blind Side. Sandra Bullock goes to the projects to look for Oher or Oher's mom (can't remember which) and is confronted by a gang leader type who threatens to come across town and rape her white daughter if she doesn't leave Michael alone (so he can be recruited into the gang). I read the book which was followed fairly closely in the movie except for this scene. It's true that some guy on his football team made a rude comment about the girl but it was obviously a rude comment and Michael made him pay for it. In reality, the gang leader didn't behave this way at all.

Earth to Hollywood: When middle class white women venture into poor black neighborhoods, gang leaders don't walk up to them and threaten to rape them. But you might find that strangers on the street will say "hello," because that's the friggin' neighborly thing to do!

Earth to clueless white woman... I delivered pizza at the UMCP and yes... People threatened me and eventually the manager stopped delivering to those areas. I am middle class white woman and these were open air drug markets.

Michael also injured a boy in a rage and they left tht out of the movie.

Earth to clueless pp: I have lived next door to a big public housing complex for over a decade. I've also entered public housing complexes in order to meet folks I knew there. Not one person has ever threatened to rape me or my daughter but plenty of people have said "hello" on the street.

I'm sorry about your experience delivering pizza but I suspect the central reason for the way you were treated was that you were delivering pizza, not that you were a white woman. Now, it is possible that you got treated worse because you are a white woman but I suspect that anyone delivering pizza to that neighborhood would have a problem. Or did you find that African-American guys who delivered pizza did not run into trouble there?

White guys did not have a problem. There were no black delivery guys at the time. They thought they could intimidate me but I was raised in a crime ridden neighborhood and I was not intimidated. The manager was worried about being liable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Couldn't stand The Help for this reason.

Ditto for my and my 80-year-old mom. Both of us are white, and both of us cringed.

Totally agree with OP and with adding the help to the list.

But about the blind side, the white savior theme was only the second most awful thing about that movie for me - the MOST awful thing was the younger brother character, who was the most effing annoying child in a movie in the history of cinema.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm annoyed by it, too -- partly because I think it reflects studios' assumption that white people won't watch a movie unless there's a white person at the center of the story.

Plenty of people were irritated by "the blind side." There was also the movie about Steve Biko that focused on a white journalist rather than Biki himself, or "last king of Scotland," the movie about Idi Amin (w/a powerhouse performance by Forrest Whitaker) that was from the POV of his white doctor.

Compare it with "42," the Jackie Robinson movie - there's no doubt a white guy is instrumental in events, & Harrison Ford does a great job in the role, but he's still clearly secondary to Robinson himself as far as the story is concerned.

FYI the white journalist (Donald Woods) portrayed in Cry Freedom was an integral part of the story. The movie is based on 2 books, one about the journalist and one about Biko, both written by Donald Woods. If Donald Woods had not risked his life to leave the country, you would never have heard Biko's story.

So this does smack of over-sensitivity trumping reality.

However integral Donald Woods was to Biko's story getting out, the fact is it's *Biko's* story. I don't think it's over-sensitive to think maybe a movie about Steve Biko would actually focus on the man himself. It's the difference between a movie about a man fighting apartheid and a movie about a journalist who helped a man fight apartheid. The journalist's story is only the more interesting one IF you're afraid white audiences won't connect with a black main character.

Let's try fixing up the HTML flags that I screwed up...

Anonymous wrote:What about movies with AA leading men who are the heroes?

Eddie Murphy
Samuel Jackson
Jamie Fox
(Whoever else...I haven't been to the movies in a decade)

Add Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Wesley Snipes, Duane (the Rock) Johnson, Lawence Fishburne, Vin Diesel, Ving Rhames and it's one of the more well represented minorities.

Name a movie with a hero who is Latino or Asian (aside from Jackie Chan).

Now these are the under-represented minorities. Aside from the martials artists like Jet Li and Jackie Chan (retired), there are very few Asian men in leading or hero roles. In 1967, it was innovative to have George Takei as a minor heroic character in Star Trek. 40+ years later and it's still one of the few big Asian characters and he's still a supporting character role. John Cho, Daniel Dae Kim are amongst the few Asians that have managed to break into non-martial arts movies and they are still very low supporting characters.

Likewise, there aren't that many Hispanic males that are given significant heroic or leading roles. Antonio Banderas is one of the few that made it out of the supporting character category.

Or name a movie with a female hero.

Sigourney Weaver in "Alien."