"Blindsided by more Disney crap"

Tragically the Hollywood video store two blocks from my house will be closing its doors for the last time tomorrow Friday night. Although it saddened me to see that (mostly because of all the times I tried to rent rated R movies as a young lad), it ignited another feeling in me, the sense of “JACKPOT!” because as anyone knows when a store closes everything most go! Me and my sister Piper swooped in raking the shelves, trying to feed our immense cinematic adventure hunger. And just that we did, my sister selected “The Blindside”, which I thought fitted this week’s topic of race in film quite nicely. “The Blindside” is the story of Michael Oher, a homeless African-American kid from a broken home (doesn’t know his father and his mother is a crack head), is taken in by the Touhys, a well off upper class white family who help him get going in school as well as on the football field. As a football player and student, Oher works hard and, with the help of his coaches and adopted family, becomes an All-American offensive left tackle. The film is a Disney production and a true story so you know they had good intentions but to my eyes and ears the movie just reinforced dark themes of young African-Americans not only in cinema but also in real world everyday life.

Young African-Americans face a lot of hurdles here in modern day America. There’s racism everyday in there quest to happiness, and success. It’s in our streets, schools, and our movies! Yes I said it, why do I think this? Because lately films directed at America’s black youth have a repeated underlying message and I swear to god it’s either learn how to play ball, rap, or gang bang your way to success or get ready to spend your life in poverty. For example in just the title of Jim Sheridan’s 2005 film “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” (the story of Curtis Jackson’s life aka 50 Cent), you already know the young black main character will indeed be shooting and gang banging his way to anything he desires in life, instead of what it should be like say hard work in school. In “Boyz n The Hood”, the character Ricky gets a scholarship freeing him from his ghetto situation, meanwhile his brother Doughboy guzzles 40’s all day, to me this suggests that without Ricky’s athletic talent Doughboy is hopeless just another casualty of a poor neighborhood. And that Ricky is blessed (kind of messed up that only a sport could bless him that way), with one of the few (that they show in these kind of movies) gifts that could save him. Why do I bunch these next to “The Blindside”? Simple because “The Blindside”, also shows another rare form of escape from poverty for young blacks, that is an upper class (in this movie and most commonly in others as well they’re white) person or organization taking pity on them. Am I saying it’s wrong for upper class people to offer help, or for this help to be accepted? Of course not, I just hate that these films all make it seem like every black youth’s future is grim and out of their control. Have I escaped a poverty stricken situation? Am I saying it’s easy to? No and no, I’m just saying lets give these kids role models that are comparable to them (and their situations), who succeed with hard work, it couldn’t hurt and it might even help.

My biggest bone to pick is with how the movie portrayed Michael Oher. In the movie Michael is timid, scared, and doesn’t have a clue how to play football. Are you serious? I’m creating my own movie stereotypical character that is a cross between two classic African American stereotypes in American film, the coon, and the wild buck. The coonbuck hybrid redeems qualities like strength, and abnormal size (from the wild buck), but is also foolish (or scared to be foolish) thus taking no risks and not getting involved (like the coon).A character that that fits this mold perfectly is Lennie from John Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men”, in other words my coonbuck must be a mountain of a man with limited mental abilities. Does this character have to be black? Not at all, perfect example is Chief from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Essentially a big dumb lovable oath, who doesn’t really know how to use his size to his advantage. I hated how they basically made Michael into a big teddy bear, which reminded me of our “animalization” discussion in class. Would audiences have been less into the movie, if they’d given Michael more intelligence? Sadly I think it would’ve, Disney your pissing me off, why would you make the main character so dim witted before his contact with white people?

Although the film bugged me, as you can clearly tell, I still suggest checking it out, because Disney has done very little on poverty and it’s interesting to see their message to kids on the topic. I’d also like to add that Tim McGraw has won me over with his performances in two football films, “The Blindside”, as well as “Friday Night Lights”. Also doing a great job was Sandra Bullock (who I normally can’t stand), won many awards for her role. Her role would’ve been a solid blog topic but I was focused on race. Do you like my coonbuck idea? Is there already a name for that character type?

race, ethnicity, and race in film