Of course America loved it. A possible dream, the 2009 film about a hapless and homeless black teenager who is rescued from a bleak future by a wealthy white family. It was based on the true story of the Tuohy family, led by Sean and Leigh Anne, who welcomed future NFL player Michael Oher into his home and proudly raised him through college and beyond.
It’s the kind of story we’re used to in sports, one that supports our beliefs about the power of sport to create lifelong bonds, help its participants overcome difficulties and build character. It is also a simplified representation of race in America, revolving around the thematic motif that whites can magically redeem themselves by coming to the aid of a black character.
The public bought the story. The film grossed over $300 million and Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy, the empowered beautiful woman of the New South.
But A possible dream, based on the bestselling book by Michael Lewis, presents a complicated reality in the most digestible format. This week the startling news of a lawsuit filed by Oher against the Tuohys prompted many to reconsider the film, seeking answers to the questions raised by the legal claim and obscured by the film’s comfortable and uncluttered narrative.
Oher is suing the couple for a complete account of their relationship. He claims that when he thought they were going to adopt him at age 18, the Tuohys urged him to sign a conservatorship that gave them control to enter into contracts in his name. He says that the family bond, warmly portrayed in the film, was a lie and that the Tuohys grew rich at his expense.
The Tuohys have defended their actions, arguing in a statement that the guardianship was a legal necessity for Oher to be able to play football at the University of Mississippi without jeopardizing his eligibility.
In a story with at least four versions—Lewis, the movie studio, Oher, and the Tuohys—it’s nearly impossible to tell who’s telling the truth.
I must admit that, until this week, I had never seen A possible dream. He had avoided her on purpose. I’m wary of movies that rely on simplistic racial clichés, a fatigue that started when I was a kid and many of my black heroes died at the end of the movies so the white heroes could live.
News of Oher’s lawsuit convinced me that it was time to lie on the couch and watch the movie, with the benefit of 14 years of hindsight: 14 years in which race and sports have re-emerged as essential platforms for examining the United States problems.
My assumptions proved correct early in the film, as Oher’s character was taking shape. As the story unfolds, she is shown to be a lost cause before meeting the Tuohys and attending a thriving Christian school in Memphis. The film portrays him in simple terms: as a body, first and foremost, a gigantic black teenager whose IQ, we’re told, is low, and who has no idea how life works in worlds that aren’t awash in poverty. and despair.
The Oher in the film, particularly early on, has little will and no dreams of his own. When I saw that, I felt like a punch in the stomach. “What?” I mumbled. “There is no way that this characterization is true.”
The Baltimore Ravens selected Oher in the first round of the NFL draft. No one gets that far in sports without a foundation of years of motivation and training, which lends credence to Oher’s criticisms of how he was portrayed in the movie. And again he has insisted that he is an intelligent person, and was a skilled soccer player long before he met the Tuohys.
He wasn’t someone who needed the Tuohys’ diminutive little son, Sean Jr., to teach him the game in the simplest of terms: using condiment bottles to show formations and plays. We see Sean Jr. in a park, taking delight in forcing a clueless Oher to practice various exercises.
The film also shows the Tuohys using sports as a vehicle for Oher to build confidence, enter a world of prestige and wealth, and ultimately attend Ole Miss, the couple’s alma mater, where Sean Tuohy was a basketball star. .
Oher protects Leigh Anne Tuohy when they dare to go to the neighborhoods where he grew up. “That horrible part of town,” she says. He saves Sean Jr.’s life when the two get into a car accident by using his huge arm to protect the boy from the force of an airbag. When Oher has trouble on the practice field while learning the game, Leigh Anne Tuohy jumps in from the side and coaches him with firm instructions: She must protect the quarterback the same way he protected her and her child.
“Protect the family,” she insists.
A lesson taught to Oher by a feisty white woman, as if he were a first grader (or a servant), causes a turning point in his life. Oher begins to transform from a street-raised football neophyte to an offensive lineman with the strength of Zeus, the agility of Mikhail Baryshnikov and the size of an upright piano.
Soon, we see him playing in a match, enduring aggressive and racist taunts from an opponent who initially gets his way against an inexperienced opponent.
Suddenly, Oher reacts. He doesn’t just block the opposing player: Enraged, he picks him up and drives him across the field and over a fence.
“Where were you taking him, Mike?” his coach asks as Oher runs off the field of play.
“To the bus,” Oher says deadpan, in an innocent, childish tone. “It was time for him to go home.”
By the end of the movie, the transformation is complete. We learn that, under the watchful eye of a wealthy white family, Oher’s IQ has improved to an average level! We see him become a high school champion! We see a parade of coaches (real coaches, playing themselves in the film) fawning over Oher as they try to persuade him to play for his team.
It’s hard to decipher, from the film’s narration, Oher’s motivation, or his intelligence, because he keeps being portrayed as a prop: calm, docile, a young man who, for the most part, does what his new family says. This, by the way, now makes it difficult to discern the truth of his demand.
What we do see in the film is that he shines in college and in the professional leagues. There he is in the NFL, in his Baltimore Ravens uniform. He had arrived in the Promised Land of sports and, at all times, the Tuohy family was by his side.
This movie had it all.
The distorted image on the issues of race and class in the United States that Hollywood has always sold.
The simplistic narrative that uncritically hails the sport and its purity, the way it can change lives – always for the better – by transforming diamonds in the rough into jewels. The shadowy side of sports—the cheating, the lies, the broken promises that, in this legal dispute, could come from anywhere—never invade the fairy tale.
Copyright: c. 2023 The New York Times Company
2023-08-21 22:31:11
#side #sports #stories #Hollywood #doesnt
