The Blind Side Archetype

The book , The Help by Kathryn Stockett, is about a women named Aibileen who is a black maid. She is taking care of her 17th white baby now. She works for a woman named Miss Leefolt. Aibileen has never disobeyed an order in her life and never intends to do so. Her friend Minny is the exact opposite. When she is around her boss, she has to hold herself back from sassing them all the time. Skeeter Phelan is different than the rest of the white ladies. She thinks that blacks aren’t all that bad. She decides to write a book about the lives of maids for white ladies. Otherwise known as the Help. She with the help of Aibileen and Minny hope to create a book that starts a revolution about what white people think about blacks.

The Blind Side is a movie based on a woman, her family and a boy she took in. The movie shows the struggle and differences of people from different nationalities and the way their race reacts to certain circumstances. This review is going to describe the Storyline, how it held the audience’s attention; the Characters, wither they were believable or not; and Conflicts in the story, what they were and how they were resolved. This is a family movie that can be watch and made memoires with. The movie captured multiple audiences and appears appealing to multiple audiences across the life span. The movie is very moving and touching to many people.

The Blind Side depicts the story of Michael Oher, a seventeen year old African American homeless boy from a broken home, taken in by Leigh Anne Tuohy, a wife and mom of two living in a well to-do neighborhood. Repeatedly running away from the group home after group home, he was placed in after he was taken from him drug addicted mother, he happens to run into the exceedingly accepting family. Only after the catholic high school football coach sees his size and agility he is accepted to the privet school, despite a 0.7 GPA and lack of a place to sleep Leigh Anne Touhy, along with only one of his teachers, take a special interest in him. The families give him

The movie The Blind Side was released in 2009. It is about a young man, named Michael Oher, who grew up in a poor environment. In the beginning of the movie, Michael was homeless and not currently attending school. All of that changed when a woman, named Leigh Anne Tuohy, offered Michael the chance to stay with her and her family. The Tuohy family was well off, unlike Michael, so it was an adjustment for both the family and him to live together. However, the family was very warm and welcoming to Michael, which differed from many of the other people Michael encountered. In the movie, Michael experienced racism, discrimination, and prejudice towards him from a variety of people.

The movie The Blind Side is based on a true story about Michael Oher, first round draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens in 2009. Oher grew up in the projects in Memphis to a drug-addicted mother and an absent father. Michael was eventually taken by family services and was placed in a number of different foster homes. He ran away from each home placement and eventually became homeless. Michael is taken in by Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy who helped him to attend a private Catholic school, which is where their children as well received their education. Prior to school here Michael had little education or skills to be successful in life. While attending Wingate Christian School, Michael began to play football. The Tuohy family provide the nurturing environment that Michael needed to show his true potential. Leigh Anne and Sean eventually become Oher’s legal guardians and help him become successful in school as well as excel with his interest in football. This movie story into Oher’s life display social issues, obstacles, and triumph was overcome by Oher in order for him to achieve his dream with the guidance and stability provided from the Tuohy family.

Mrs.Skeeter’s story could be a strong supporting plot to the journey of the two black maids, Aibileen and Minny, but instead her story is the main focus of the movie. This simple fact makes the film seem to almost downplay the racist attitudes towards black people in the 1960s. The movie could've gone down a much more horrific and revealing plotline if they had made Aibileen or Minny the main character. If the director had gone down this path the movie could have communicated a much deeper message and would have allowed the watchers to be revealed to some first hand accounts of racism. Although the movie does tell some stories of the two black maids quite well with some of their perspective shown, throughout the entire movie there seemed to be a “sugar coating” over everything. It was as if the producers wanted to “protect” their audience from how far the racist attitudes went and the horrific fallout from those attitudes. Also, parts of the movie seemed almost irrelevant to the main message and goals of the protagonists. Take for example the sub-plot of Skeeter finding a man. Despite it doing a good job of incorporating a secondary plot, this entire section could have been removed for something that better related to the theme of the movie. They could've put in more about the pasts of either Aibileen or Minny to further communicate how society viewed down upon black people and saw them as little better than rodents. Within the movie, the fact that Skeeter is the main character at all almost seems to take away from the other two protagonists, Aibileen and Minny. A lot of the time in the movie the heavier parts are broken up by the lighter more bright plot line of Skeeter. An example of this within the movie is when a black person is shot by a member of the KKK, and Aibileen has to run back to Minny's house and compose herself with Minny. This entire scene is extremely tense and is wonderful at

The Blind Side was released on November 20, 2009 by Warner Bro. Pictures, and directed by John Lee Hancock. The film is based on a book, “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game” and a true story. The Blind Side is a semi-biographical sports drama film about a neglected and troubled African-American boy named Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) growing up in the ghetto with his drug addict mother. Due to his mother’s drug abuse problem, Michael is forced into the foster care system. Michael would always run away from his foster home leaving him homeless. One night, while Michael is looking for a warm place to sleep, Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) an upper class Caucasian female finds Michael and decides to give him a place to sleep in her home. Although many of her friends and family judged her for her decision of taking an African-American child into her home, Leigh Anne provided Michael with an education, home family, food, and clothes. She gave him the opportunity to have a future and to become his own person. Adults from the age range of thirteen and older will enjoy The Blind Side because of its cast,

The film “The Help” (2011), is a story based on the daily lives of prominent white women and the relationships with their African-American housemaids in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s Civil Rights movement in America. A well-to-do white woman and central character in this film, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, aspires to be a journalist and decides to write and publish an exposé of the stories of the housemaids in Jackson to achieve this goal, however, only two maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson are willing to discuss their experiences with her. The other maid’s in Jackson resist telling Skeeter their stories, fearing the punishments they would endure if the authorities were to find out. In spite of this, after the malicious arrest of one of their befriended maids, all of the maids begin to share their experiences, which consist of racial hostility and being treated as intrinsically subservient to white people. The story Skeeter publishes entitled The Help, creates a disturbance among the white families in Jackson, by exposing the racism the maids are faced with, forcing the white families to reflect upon how they have treated their maids. The storyline represented in The Help exhibits examples of the primordial approach to race and ethnicity, as well as numerous sociological concepts including segregation, internalized oppression, and white privilege, which will be exemplified in this paper in order to uncover the race relations evident within this film.

The final scenes of the movie illustrate the racial injustice Aibileen receives when she exposes The Junior League Women’s Society with the book. Hilly, the president of the Junior League, is outraged at the disrespect she believes Aibileen displays in revealing the true character of the white women of Jackson. Hilly accuses Aibileen of stealing silverware, and makes naive Elizabeth fire her on the spot. However, Elizabeth fails to take into account the needs of her daughter who is dependent on Aibileen for nurturing and compassion because Elizabeth herself fails to provide motherly affection. Aibileen begs Elizabeth not to fire her for the sake of the toddler, but to no avail.

The treatment of black, female domestic servants living in Jackson, Mississippi illustrates the race intensity between the black and white community during the 1960's. Skeeter, a young journalist that comes from a wealthy, cotton plantation owned family has to write a novel of her choice for her job. She chooses to write about the black servants that work for her childhood friends. In order to this successfully, they must meet in secret because both blacks and whites that are against segregation during this time could be shunned or killed. The story is told from three alternating perspectives, so the protagonists are: Skeeter, Minny, & Aibileen. Those 3 are trying to change the world's perspective on black people by writing the book. Antagonist:

“The Blind Side” is a movie based on a true-life story of how Michael Oher goes through the difficulties in his life before he becomes one of the best defensive players of the NFL football team. Growing up in a broken family; where he had a drug-addicted mother, the father being in the prison and he, himself was always going in and out of the foster homes, as the audience, we all probably have already expected what will happen to this young man.

The Help brings light to this idea of domestic victims being very mistreated and ultimately being dehumanized because of the color of their skin. “I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the negro side of town. I want to stop that moment from coming – and it come in every white child's life – when they start to think that colored folks are not as good as whites.”(Stockett 80) This passage brings up how children are born with prejudice thoughts and how it is taught by the older generations. Aibileen tries to keep Mae Mobley's mind from being polluted from these horrible thoughts. Critics argue that the maids should not teach the child this because they are not really their parents it still seems as if it is their job to teach the child this because they are so affected. Kathryn Stockett does a great job of demonstrating the racist and prejudice thoughts that affected these innocent

“The Help” is a movie about African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi. The two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, tells their side of the story to a young white woman, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, who is a journalist who decides to write a book from the maids point of views. Skeeters intention for writing this book is exposing the racism they receive while working for white families in Jackson. Aibileen Clark takes care of white children and helps raise them and cleans around the house, while her best friend, Minny Jackson, is an outspoken black maid but has a quick short temper which gets her into trouble later on. Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a white single independent woman, she earned a double-major

Leigh Anne Touhy is the fictional representation of the real life Leigh Anne, famed adoptive mother of Michael Oher from the 2009 film The Blind Side. Leigh Anne is a white interior designer, living in the south with her husband and two children. The family is considered to be part of the upper class, and made their money from owning a string of fast food chains. Leigh Anne and her family take in a black homeless boy, Michael, and throughout the film experience a growing love and bond. They eventually adopt Michael and the Leigh Anne becomes a fiercely protective mother. Very little is revealed about her upbringing

Although the maids were struggling and going through a difficult time in 1960’s, The Help portrays that their family members were too. Segregated society against the backdrop of the growing US civil rights movement in the 1960’s has an impacted. “Race also determines who has access to educational, occupational, and economic opportunity. Racial tensions are high as white community members employ violence and coercion to try to keep the Civil Rights Movement from sweeping into their Mississippi town” (Shmoop Editorial Team). The white community in the movie continue to keep the black women as their servants throughout their lives. As Skeeter the white lady, who writes a book about The Help and portrays through the book that the African American women go through. As the white women of Jackson, Mississippi read the book they began to act more violent to the black women. The book is away as the black women to make a statement about the civil rights they have.