Was The Blind Side’s white savior narrative built on a lie?

The 2009 film The Blind Side tells the story of a white family on a heartfelt mission: to save the life of “Big Mike,” an unhoused Black 17-year-old who attends the local school with their son in Memphis, Tennessee.

As many critics would later note, the tale was a classic “white savior” story that served to praise the goodness of white people and erase the nuances of a Black kid’s story of resilience. But audiences at the time heralded The Blind Side, which was based on a book of the same name, as a...