Leslie

Read the wiki on Michael Oher and you get a little more realistic take on what actually happened. It's too bad because it would have been an even more interesting story if they hadn't sanitized it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Oher

Toontje

I had never heard of Michael Oher before.

Has the wiki entry been sanitized, or the movie? I'm not quite sure what you're refering to.

Leslie

The movie.

Englishtart

I watched the movie (a couple times) and I don't recall anything about her being snubbed by the junior league in the movie?

The thing that pissed me off really is the way that Vanessa Williams made it sound like the Mom only took in the boy because he was black (as if she were 'saving' him, she said it's yet another story of whites saving black people!!)and that didn't come through in the movie in any way, nor in any of the interviews I have seen with the Mom or Sandra Bullock. It just smacked of reverse prejudice to me

Leslie

I didn't see it that way. The point that Williams was making was that it was another movie about black people needing white people to "save" them. The way the movie was slanted was not exactly as it actually happened - the tone of the film being that he would have never made it without them. Truth be told he had something they wanted and they had something he wanted. It was a mutually beneficial relationship where both sides came out of it better off (on many levels) than when they went in. In reality, they didn't take him in just because he was black. They took him in because he was a football protege with a really shitty home life. Football was his ticket out of the ghetto and their schools needed his talent. Win/win.

Another point made by other critics (not Williams) is that every other black character in the movie was demonized.

It is a real life "feel good" story that got changed in subtle and insidious ways to make one group look more benevolent than they really were and the other group to look more evil than they really were. Why not leave it as it really was?

Anyway, not everybody agrees with Williams and I, the NAACP nominated the movie for several awards.

Englishtart

Well she is obviously more enlightened on that subject than I am...

Sally Redux

I think people often like stories about one lucky person getting 'saved' from a bad situation, but I'm not keen on them. They seem to send the message that we don't need to change the crap things about society because there are guardian angel types who will intervene.

Leslie

I agree. I dislike this particular one because it actually minimizes all of his hard work and exceptional talent and maximizes their savior role. They wouldn't have been nearly as interested in saving him if he had be the talentless son of a crackhead. I'm okay with that but apparently Hollywood wasn't.

Sally Redux

I can't comment further without actually seeing it but my feelers cried 'Hollywood schmaltz'.

Leslie

I know what you mean. It's hard to boycott a movie and bitch about it as well.

Sally Redux

ironporer

A great book on the subject is Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream.
As I heard from native Texans, in places like Dallas, Odessa, Houston etc, it was not uncommon for star players from other cities or schools to suddenly receive a job offer in a different area of the state or city just to get the kid to play there. Of course, when he was injured or crippled for life, the dad was quietly let go. I seem to recall a 60 minutes, or 20/20 story on the same type of abuses.

Leslie

Oh absolutely. Families will also uproot and relocate (at their own expense) if for some reason or another their kid needed to play in a different school district for whatever reason. It's nothing for a kid to just go live with a another family either.