Media analysis essay

Senquetta Brittingham

Writing workshop

Prof. George

April 8, 2014

​The blind side is a movie about a young boy who is homeless and traumatized who is then adopted and cared for by a Caucasian family. In watching this film it appears that this boy has some sort of learning disability even though this isn’t identified in the film. In the code of the freaks they touch on a topic called “relief of anxiety for the viewer” in the way that they describe it they are saying that this is more apparent in horror films but as a viewer I noticed this in the Blind side which is in no way a horror film.

​In the film Sandra plays Leigh Anne Tuohy plays a mother who takes notice in the young boy when her and her family are headed home. She is judged in the film by her peers because Quinton Aron as Big Mike the (young boy) is a African American male. Her peers are intimated by him and feel that he is a threat to her and her family.  She disregards everyone and their judgment about big mike. Throughout the movie shefocuses on getting big mike proper schooling. When he finally got to school after haven’t been in a classroom since he was a child it was depicted in the film that his academic level was far below where he was supposed to be. After the football team seenBig mike they wanted him to become a player because of his size and height. In the film they focused on getting his academic level improved so that he could play on the team.  Sandra block kept encouraging Big Mike to go to college during the film. He later got scholarships to go to scholarships for football. When I watched this movie I felt a since of sorrow for Big mike. I believe that that is the appeal that the audience was trying to capture. As a viewer I wanted Mike to be able to excel and be successful regardless of his circumstance of growing up in a drug infested neighborhood and being the child of a drug addicted parent. In the end of the film when Big Mike finally gets a scholarship to college as a viewer I felt a sense of relief because this is how I hoped the movie would end. This directly connects with the theme of feeling sense of relief that is described in the code of the freaks.

​In the code of the freaks they depict a series of different movies that are stereotypical in the representation of people who have disabilities. In one of their movie depictions there is a women who is sick in the hospital who appears to be dying. When they describe this scene they use the term “relief of anxiety for the viewer.” When they use this term they are basically exemplifying the fact that the viewer is terrible or is left in suspense of hoping that the main character gets help or is relived of whatever their trying to obtain throughout the film. When describing this they said this is more apparent in horror films but I noticed this in The Blind side. Throughout the film I hoped he would go to college. He had such a hard life that as a viewer you hopefully that the film ends on a good note with him ultimately succeeding. That’s why I believe that the term that they use closely relates to that theme in The Blind Side.

​In this movie they are trying to display Big Mike as a less fortunate African American male and this Caucasian family is represented as the heroes who rescue this boy from a violent and destructive neighborhood. This is family is displayed as compassionate caring and attentive. Big Mike on the other displays actions of someone who has a disability because of his social skills he displays the interllexual capacity of someone much younger than him. He displays a certain social awkwardness which lead me to believe that he had some sort of learning disability.

​There was one scene in particular where the coach of the football team was trying to get Big Mike to run a play but he wasn’t responsive in the sense of him appearing to have retained the information