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

[WriteThinking]

Then, there's this: Alcon Entertainment producers disputing Oher's claims, regarding both the amount of money paid out for the movie, and any argument that it was done to the detriment of Oher. The producers say the Touheys, and Oher, each received about $767,000.

At the end is the full statement released by the producers. It's interesting, and cites their own working relationship in making their points. (The link below is different than a previous one I had inserted, because I realized there was a problem with the prior link. This one is from The Hollywood Reporter).

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...-side-movie-company-defends-deal-1235574235/#!

 

[qtlaw]

Then, there's this: Alcon Entertainment producers disputing Oher's claims, regarding both the amount of money paid out for the movie, and any argument that it was done to the detriment of Oher. The producers say the Touheys, and Oher, each received about $767,000.

At the end is the full statement released by the producers. It's interesting, and cites their own working relationship in making their points. (The link below is different than a previous one I had inserted, because I realized there was a problem with the prior link. This one is from The Hollywood Reporter).

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...-side-movie-company-defends-deal-1235574235/#!

Note the liberal use of "presumably ". Presuming doesn't mean factual.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

A cancelled check or a deposit receipt could solve all of this. Presumably, as conservators over Mr. Oher's finances, the Touhys have access to this key evidence that would exonerate them.

 

[SFIND]

David Straithairn, who played Oppenheimer in the awesome PBS doc.

FIFY because I am a PBS docs nerd. He was also in the powerful Remember This and has also done voice work in some Ken Burns docs, most memorably as Thomas Jefferson.

 

[Azrael]

Liz Spiers, pretty good:

Opinion | I Have a Pretty Good Idea Why Michael Oher Is Angry

As the lawsuit states, Mr. Oher wasn't technically adopted, but the Tuohys' story is that he might as well have been. By welcoming him into their family, "The Blind Side" suggests, they rescued him from an inevitable life of prison and poverty.

But the route the Tuohys chose to legalize their relationship was unconventional and raises questions about their motivations. The Tuohys had a close relationship with the University of Mississippi; they are boosters and co-chairs for its fund-raising campaign. If Mr. Oher chose to go to Ole Miss, the fact that the Tuohys had provided him with food, clothes and shelter could be perceived as violating the N.C.A.A. recruitment rules. (This would have been a nonissue if Mr. Oher had gone anywhere else.)

The Tuohys say they chose a conservatorship, which gave them control over Mr. Oher's affairs, because Mr. Oher was 18 at the time and could not be adopted. But according to Abby Rubenfeld, a civil rights and family law attorney in Nashville, adult adoption in Tennessee requires nothing more than the adoptee's consent and relatively minor paperwork.

Because Mr. Oher wasn't actually adopted, he's not entitled to the privileges or potential inheritances the Tuohys' biological children enjoy. Mr. Lewis did write that Mr. Oher's "share in the Tuohy estate came to millions," but even amid all this negative publicity, neither the Tuohys nor Mr. Oher has given any indication that that is indeed the case. The Tuohys, via a lawyer, declined to comment. This month, a lawyer representing them told The Washington Post that the couple "have always been upfront about how a conservatorship (from which not one penny was received) was established to assist with Mr. Oher's needs." Mr. Oher's lawyer did not respond to an inquiry.


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As an adoptee myself, I can take a pretty good guess at why Mr. Oher is upset, as well as why he waited this long to come forward. It's insulting to be told that you'd have amounted to nothing were it not for the people who took you in. It's a common perception, though, and people don't hesitate to convey it to you.

I am often told that I am lucky, that I got a "second chance" and that I should be grateful my adopted parents took me in. People who say these things are often well intentioned, but what they're saying is patronizing and wrong.

I am not particularly lucky, or I wouldn't have needed to be adopted in the first place. And no one has ever asked my two younger brothers, who are not adopted, if they feel grateful to have parents. For adoptees, there's a downside to voicing how insulting all this is; we don't want to be viewed as ungrateful or entitled, even if we think the expectation of gratitude is unwarranted. We also have to reconcile speaking about our resentment that we're expected to be grateful with the way we feel about our adoptive parents and not wanting to hurt them because they, too, often have those expectations. Because of these things, Mr. Oher probably wrestled with whether to say anything for a very long time.

It is often in the interests of adoptive parents and the adoption industry to imply that adoption is charity work, rather than something that benefits the adoptive parents as well.