Symbolism In The Blind Side

The Blind Side is an award-winning Hollywood film and a perfect example of yet another white saviour film created by Hollywood. Though it is important to acknowledge this movie is based on a true story, the movie revolves around the experience of the Touhy family, specifically Leigh Anne Touhy rather than the experience of Michael Oher. Michael is a homeless black boy that gets adopted into the Touhy family and becomes a football star yet in this film, is overshined by Leigh Anne’s character. In addition to this, the movie also fails to address the issue of race directly and creates a binary within white people, creating only the good and the bad. The good ones are the Touhy family that accept a young black boy into their home and the bad ones

Not only is Leigh Anne the most complexly written character she is also the narrator of the movie. As Janeelle James writes in her article, “Viewers perceive the white character as smart, kind and dedicated to helping underprivileged POC [people of colour]. As a result, characters of color become secondary in their own stories”. This notion of creating a white protagonist, which in this case is Leigh Anne, forces Michael Oher to become a side character in a film based on his own story. Throughout the film Michael seems to never get his own limelight and remains a secondary character throughout the film. Though Leigh Anne remains the dominate protagonist in the film, the white characters predominantly remain as the main focus in the film. As Michael trains hard to become the football star that every university was interested in the movie failed to showcase all the hard work and dedication he put into training. The film botched those clips and repeatedly showed Michael being trained by S.J, who is Michael’s younger white step-brother. Even though S.J is a lot younger than Michael he remains the dominant character in training scenes throughout the movie whether it be through comical relief or his role as a coach figure in Michael’s