Secure Immaturity

When I sat down to watch The Blind Side, I had managed to put the hype for ‘how good it was’ (I’ll be the judge, thank you) from everyone on planet Earth (and the Academy Awards apparently) and saw it without any expectations, which I consider a positive, not a negative. I wanted to go into a successful movie with a clear mind and see it for what it was. What I did expect, despite my best efforts, was Disney-esque Schlock. . .something manipulative and sappy. It isn’t hype’s fault or even the movie’s fault really. . .it is the Disney-like brand (because the Blind Side is perhaps the most Disney like movie ever made by a non Disney company; we’ll dub it Warner-Disney). I can’t take a Disney movie seriously and since The Blind Side was situated in dangerous territory as a non-kid’s sports movie, I was worried.

But thankfully, The Blind Side doesn’t pander (too much) to it’s audience. All the Disney Schlock conventions are there on the surface but somehow the movie defies them and ignores them. Or if they embrace them, it is only for a little while and the movie realizes, ‘hey, this shit is really fucking annoying. . .let’s cut it out of the movie’. If you were thinking I was talking about the little obnoxious son of Sandra Bullock. . .you were right. When the inevitable dramatic moment came when the boy is in a serious car accident, I found myself surprisingly indifferent on his chances of survival. But alas, he was a Warner-Disney kid and found the whole thing funny.

Just when I thought the movie was going towards familiar territory it managed to simply wade in the pools of cheese as oppose to dive head first into it. And I am thankful for it. . .The Blind Side is a mostly positive experience and a film that made me smile. I question it’s Best Picture nomination because it still is mired in general Disneyesque racial/social archetypes and it never really dragged me on it’s emotional freight train. I thought the main kid, Michael Oher (played by giant Quinton Aaron), was someone you cared for but I never really got ‘into’ him. I felt like any emotion I had for him was dictated by the director, not the actors, and that’s fine. It did it’s job. . .but not a Best Picture job.

I do fear for kids that did watch it and not because there are some tough moments for kids to see (a gang fight, racial slurs, and lots of language that rhymes with Kits and Renis) but also because this Disney mentality still lives in that nice dimension where rich white families will make ethnic groups benefit from their seemingly unstoppable wealth. Michael Oher’s story is amazing but it is a once in a lifetime thing that, rightfully, was judged harshly by the NCAA. This kind of thing doesn’t happen all the time. . .though Warner-Disney doesn’t want you to know that. Owning hundreds of Taco Bells and having nice cars is the American/Disney dream and the poor black kid is benefiting from it; it’s kind of like a mild White Man’s Burden morality play or something.

But Warner-Disney also attacks their questionable stereotypes by, at some point, challenging the same stereotypes they are enforcing. At one point Sandra Bullock comes to realize her friends are all snobby, racist, whorebags and has to give a civics lesson to them (and the audience). There are also moments when a random white character will shout something mildly racist and the white folks have to come save the day. I suppose I just have an issue with glorifying the white man’s deeds as opposed to the black man’s skills. The movie is about Sandra Bullock bringing the skill out of Oher as opposed to Oher finding it within himself. And if Bullock can’t do it, Bullocks white bread husband (played by country singer Tim McGraw no less) and white kids (oh and a white tutor) can help him out. And nothing defeats gang violence like the scorn of a white woman’s tongue.

I wouldn’t place so much racial heft on this whole thing if the film wasn’t billed as the ethnic Hoosiers of the 2010s. It’s just hard to find a film company to be both mildly insulting and mildly influential at the same time. The film, when focused, is fun but it is offensive only to a small level (as to not be mind bogglingly insulting) but preachy on the most minimal of levels, thus being ineffective. A story like The Blind Side, which I assume the book covers in a more technical, less mass-public-dramatic fashion, could be quite inspirational. The Blind Side just kind of ‘is’ with a heart string pulled here or there. The film didn’t make me want to go out and be a better athlete, let alone a better person.

Sandra Bullock, pulling this year’s version of Eddie Murphy’s Dreamgirls/Norbit fiasco and Anne Hathaway’s Rachel Getting Married/Bride Wars debacle, but to the nth degree, is actually quite good and, dare I say, deserving of her Best Actress nomination at this year’s Academy Awards. She manages to, like the film itself, slip off the hokey, predictable parts of the characterization and make the role her own. Her character is even, at times, unlikable and definitely withholding sex from Tim McGraw. She is definitely the soul of the picture and while not legendary is worthy of praise. McGraw has been surprising as an actor and does a fine job here. The little kid actor should suffer. . .horribly. . .

I’d make a recommendation on whether you should see the movie but everyone on this planet has already seen it so what use is it what I say? The general consensus, it seems, is that the book was better and the movie is ‘good’. I haven’t heard ‘it’s awesome’ or ‘it’s great’ from anyone and I found myself feeling the same way. A nice way to spend two hours and a not completely manipulative way to make you smile. The emotional impact may be limited but what’s there is by the film itself, not any sugar poured on the top.

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