The Blind Side is the movie adaptation of the book titled The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. Both the movie and the book follow Michael Oher’s journey of becoming a football star with the help of the Tuohys, a white family who adopts Oher in the movie. The movie is fairly popular and has been marketed as an uplifting and inspiring story. However, it is critiqued as being a white savior movie. According to Colleen Murphy, “The White savior complex, also known as White saviorism, is an ideology that a White person acts upon from a position of superiority to rescue a BIPOC—Black, Indigenous, or person of color—community or person.”

On August 14, 2023, Michael Oher filed a fourteen-page petition, claiming that he was never adopted but tricked into making Sean Tuohy and Leigh Anne Tuohy his conservators. According to Will Kenton, “Conservatorship generally refers to the designation of a conservator by a court to manage the financial and personal affairs of an incapacitated or incompetent individual, minor, or older adult with limited capacity.” To make matters worse, the Tuohys used the conservatorship to make royalties off of the movie, while Oher received nothing. Fortunately, according to one of the Tuohys’ lawyers, they are planning on ending the conservatorship.

People seem to believe one of two things about Oher’s situation: either Oher is lying to get more money from the Tuohys, or the Tuohys have been using Oher for years and taking money that should have been his to begin with. The situation is still developing, and I’m sure more information will emerge as time passes. But just based on the current evidence, I am more likely to believe that the Tuohys have been using Oher. When you look at the definition of what a conservatorship is, it just seems wildly unlikely that the Tuohys didn’t know what they were doing.

One of the Tuohys’ attorneys said, “‘The notion that a couple worth hundreds of millions of dollars would connive to withhold a few thousand dollars in profit participation payments from anyone – let alone from someone they loved as a son – defies belief.’” But I don’t think that it does, especially because it’s not like adult adoption is impossible in Tennessee. Additionally, the fact that Oher was portrayed as unintelligent in the film and has actively critiqued that portrayal of himself for years seems to align with what the Tuohys might have wanted. If they portrayed him as unintelligent in the film, then suddenly the conservatorship makes sense, even if he’s actually both intelligent and capable of being in charge of his own finances.

After learning more about the real Oher and Tuohys, I think people would be even more likely to agree that describing The Blind Side as a white savior movie might be one of the most accurate descriptions. Teju Cole, the creator of the term “White Savior Industrial Complex,” said, “there is much more to doing good work than ‘making a difference.’ There is the principle of ‘First do no harm.’ There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that concern them.” Although the story seems super inspiring on the surface, when the layers are pulled back, Oher was not consulted enough about both how his life was portrayed in film and what legally was happening to him in real life.

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