I was sitting at my kitchen table the other day, looking at an ad for the new film, The Blind Side. It was an engaging graphic, with two people walking away from the viewer across a football field. The one on the right is a huge African-American man, dressed in black and white, almost identical to the small blond woman on his left. Their hands and arms are synchronized, the only difference being the turn of her head and the sun shining on her light hair and white face. Interesting.  

I drove to the mall to see Blind Side because my wife said I could not skewer it without watching it first.  So I did, but went to an early show, so I would not have to pay $12 for a movie I hated. I love the cheaper tickets, except for the fact that it’s too early to pop fresh popcorn, so the teenagers at the snack counter serve the stale stuff popped the day before.  

The Blind Side is based on a true story of Michael Oher, now a professional football player who grew up in a terribly dysfunctional home in Memphis, Tennessee. He was on his own at a young age, but then was essentially adopted by a wealthy white family. They took him in, bought him clothes, and put a roof over his head. 

What made me nervous about the film were the two potential stereotypes that seemed to lurk at the center of the story. One: black people need white people to overcome their poverty, or as A.O. Scott writes, “the movie’s curious moral, which is that the best hope for a poor black child in America is to have rich white parents.” And two: professional sports are a viable way out of the poverty black men are too often raised in.  

I don’t believe either of these two fables. But after watching the film, I don’t think the real-life people that the story is based on do either. While it’s true that you could watch the film and walk out annoyed by racial bias, it’s softened by the uniqueness of the story and the reality of both families’ issues. Sandra Bullock is not just a pale crusader in pumps; she’s a determined mom blindsided by the reality of poverty, from the other side of town, appearing in her living room.  

The heart of the film is developed as hardship becomes human. Statistics that somehow grow skin and appear in your school/office/home. We all face a choice on a daily basis. We can write off the story of the shooting in the Bronx as bad kids gone wild, or we can acknowledge the real story behind the poverty and engage the human beings who can become easily dismissed statistics.  

As I walked out into the vast parking lot, I wondered about my own choices. My own relationships and the stereotypes I have developed that allow me to ignore the reality of Harlem, or India, or the neighbors down the street. And in that sense, it’s a dangerous movie, because we all play a part in continuing the suffering of others when we write off the reality of human lives, content to replace them with a statistic.