Following the shocking reveal that a big chunk of the supposed true story told in 2009’s The Blind Side was, reportedly, a lie, some people are calling for leading lady Sandra Bullock to give up her Oscar. Bullock played Leigh Anne Tuohy, the white woman who, in the film, but apparently not in real life, adopts Black teenager Michael Oher and, with the help of her family, turns him into a football star.
The Blind Side won Bullock her one and only Academy Award in 2010, before being nominated again in 2014 for Gravity. While the accusations against the Tuohy family made by Oher via a petition filed this week were damning, if the Academy was to listen to enraged Twitter users about the matter, then the precedent would be opened for more films than one might realize getting their Oscars snatched away.
The conversation about the white savior narrative of The Blind Side and why Bullock would choose to take on that role in the first place is entirely valid. The debates on whether the actress’ Oscar should have gone to Precious‘ Gabourey Sidibe instead, and what her win says of the racist bias that has plagued the Academy for the better part of a century, are just as warranted. What does not make any sense is saying that the 59-year-old actress should give up her trophy for the misdeeds of people who probably deceived her just as successfully as they did audiences.
In his petition, Oher alleges the Tuohys never adopted him and instead tricked him into entering a conservatorship, which allowed them to profit off of his story and name. The 2009 movie, as well as the 2006 book by Michael Lewis it is based on, are only some of the examples of this. Oher says he never received a penny from the film’s box office proceeds.
Martin Singer, an attorney for the family says, in a statement released to People, that “the idea that the Tuohys have ever sought to profit off Mr. Oher is not only offensive, it is transparently ridiculous.” Singer also calls the lawsuit “ludicrous” and “a cynical attempt to drum up attention in the middle of [Oher’s] latest book tour.”
Bullock has not commented on the situation as yet.