My overall felling about the movie we watched on friday was positive. Some people, I've heard, have had an issue with the story about a white family coming in and playing savior to a less fortunate black teen. I don't see a problem with it. It happens in real life. My father got a football scholarship to Syracuse partly because a white family in West Virginia went above and beyond to help him out here and there. Not to the extent that Michael Ore got helped but they were a tremendous help nonetheless.
The other thing is that this movie is a true story. So if Michael Ore really got helped out by this white family, who are we to criticize that? In no way does the movie imply that every black teen who gets helped out by white people will turn out as good as Ore did. This story is just what happened to him. This movie have been getting compared to "Precious" by some people, I guess. I don't see much similarity. Precious was in a much tougher situation, living with her real mother who was abusing her and holding her down in every way possible. At least Michael's mother was willing to step aside so that more capable people could do the job that she couldn't do. Precious wasn't involved in sports and really didn't have anything going for herself, thus her story had a much worse ending.
The Blind Side was meant to tell Michael Ore's story and make the audience feel good and be inspired, possibly, in the process. And I think it succeeded.
Howard Womack
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