Are you blind sided The Blind Side may have been a lie?

That movie gave me the same gross vibe as the Blind Side but the concept was slightly different. The Blind Side was a white savior story. Green Book fits a little more into the equally objectionable "Magical Negro" trope where the Black character becomes a vessel for the troubled white person's personal growth (see Green Mile; Legend of Bagger Vance).

 

Who knows where the truth is in all of this . . . but if he was writing this story instead of in the middle of it, would Michael Lewis just expect readers to accept without question the view of the author taking the side of his childhood friend, who tipped him off to the story that was one of his greatest professional achievements?

 

He didn't care what it meant. To wit: "They explained to me that it means pretty much the exact same thing as 'adoptive parents,' but that the laws were just written in a way that took my age into account. Honestly, I didn't care what it was called. I was just happy that no one could argue that we weren't legally what we already knew was real: We were a family."

This is what bothers me most about the whole situation. The lawyer needed to make clear what such an agreement meant, although, given the fact that the Tuohys seem to have lied, and Oher seems to have lied, I don't think we can know for sure that he didn't.

Clearly, Oher got something from the Tuohys, beyond whatever money he received or didn't receive, and whether he was officially adopted, or not. And what's more, he knew it. By now sounding like a veritable extortionist and trying to demand $15 million (which they surely didn't make from "The Blind Side"), he just seems like someone who knows his guardians are worth a couple of hundred million dollars (again not all because of Oher), and he is now just trying to get his.

He probably would've had better luck just asking the Tuohys for money, and wouldn't have ruined whatever family relationship he had, than having all of them have to go through this.

Does anyone know if the Tuohys were in attendance at Oher's wedding? Were they invited?

 

Don't know, don't care. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

 

Yes, I'm aware of how/when conservatorships are typically used. I mentioned and wondered about as much in an earlier post.

So, that begs the question I've been asking. Why is Oher not going after the lawyer involved? I doubt he didn't know what a conservatorship is usually used for, or the cases in which it is typically utilized.

 

Au contraire mon frère ... not only must you care, you must take a side. And the right side, too. Otherwise the rich, white, southern evangelists are gonna get away with it!

 

Someone is always getting away with something. Both sides have had millions of dollars pass through their hands. Their squabbles are their problem.

 

della-

Streep's performance in Julie & Julia > Bullock's fake Southern sass

 

True story or not, I thought "Blind Side" was just feel-good pablum even before any of this controversy came up.

And, yes, I do think it's problematic from a racial point of view too.

Because of my above feeling, my feeling on the recent controversy ...

 

My favorite sign I've seen at a game was a very simple one at Purdue when Notre Dame came into Ross-Ade in the late 90s.

"Rudy sucked"

Now, now, the story behind "Hoosiers" actually did happen in 1954, but there's an Easter egg in "Hoosiers" that would only be detected by Indiana insiders who know their high school basketball.

The South Bend Central coaching staff in the movie is played by Ray Crowe and Bailey Robertson, Oscar's brother. Crowe coached segregated, all-black Indianapolis Crispus Attucks from 1950-57, including the legendary Attucks teams in 1955 and 1956, featuring Oscar Robertson, that won the Indiana state championship and which is considered one of the great Indiana teams of all-time.

Milan, the school Hickory is based on, did indeed beat Attucks (by 13) in their 1954 championship run when Oscar was a sophomore. (Milan didn't beat South Bend Central, but beat uber-powerful Muncie Central in the actual 1954 title game.)

However, a year later, it became clear to anyone that wanted to pay attention that this sport was going to thrive as an integrated sport. Attucks paved the way for many more black-dominant state champions to come. In some ways, Attucks had to help pave the way for integration in Indiana itself.

I've always thought it was a master stroke to cast Crowe in that movie. It sent a message that "Hoosiers" was the end of an era. A better one was coming.

 

Michael Lewis has written two blockbuster sports books and didn't know a damned thing about either sport. It is what it is.

He also doesn't take criticism well. At all.

 

at least he was well-versed in cryptocurrency