The Blindside Analysis

The visual text ‘The Blindside’ directed by John Lee Hancock, is about a young homeless teen named Michael Oher who gets a second chance at life when he is welcomed into the loving arms of the Tuohy family. Based on a true story, it revolves around the societal issues of cultural capital, stereotypes and belonging. The first `overcoming challenges’ theme was shown when Michael was walking through his hometown or what we like to call ‘the hood’, and gets flash backs of who we may assume to be his mother getting arrested by the police. This connects with another scene, when Michael's case worker says to Coach Cotton “his father’s gone and his mom is a crackpot, the poor kid has nobody else”. This is a challenge Michael faces because it would have meant his mother was not able to teach him things that most young kids
White walls, white floors and a lot of white people. The teachers do not know, I have no idea of anything they are talking about. I do not want to listen to anyone especially the teachers. They are giving homework and expecting me to do the problems on my own. I have never done homework in my life. I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror and say “this is not Michael Oher””. This is another challenge Michael faces because he hasn’t adapted to the environment around him, leaving him to question who he is. This highlights the purpose, we become so limited to our own way of living we remain ignorant to how big the world really is. Overall I think the idea Michael teaches us is that we have the power of choice and that it is up to us if we let our upbringing become the influence of how we live and treat people but sometimes we can’t help but live by the influence of our cultural capital because we have grown so used to living by one perspective. I also think Michael Ore teaches us the idea that ‘where we come from shouldn’t determine how we live and see