by JOANNE LAURIER
For her performance in The Blind Side, Sandra Bullock won this year’s Oscar for Best Actress. An argument could be mounted in support of Bullock’s accomplishment, but the serious consideration of John Lee Hancock’s banal film by the Academy voters indicates how distant they are from American realities and how wedded, moreover, the Hollywood establishment is to identity politics.
Although not offering so noxious a portrayal of the oppressed African-American population in the US as Precious does, Hancock’s (The Rookie) movie is largely a fantasy about working class life and social relations in general.
The film is based on the true story of Michael Oher—now a member of the Baltimore Ravens professional football team and once a downtrodden homeless black teen from a Memphis housing project—but its real focus is the figure of Leigh Anne Tuohy (Bullock).
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