I do wish both The Blind Side and, especially, Precious illuminated the circumstances of poverty. With Precious, all the evils that surround her are centralized in her mom, an interesting character, but the thing is, she is as much a product of the impoverished culture rather than a cause.

With regard to Medicine for Melancholy, besides Obsessed and Tyler Perry films, there haven't been that many major representations of well-to-do black characters in film in recent years. Yes, because The Blind Side and Precious are both about poverty, they don't fit in the same category of comparison, but its difference is what was so refreshing. I really have never seen these types of characters, or the subjects they speak about, addressed in such a straightforward, unpretentious, and even real way. It does something none of these films do in that it addresses old and new ideas of how race relations operate in our culture. And finally, unlike The Blind Side, Precious, Obsessed, Tyler Perry's films, et al., it doesn't seem like Medicine was tailor-made for a specific audience/demographic.

Thanks for the amazing feedback!

I agree that Remember the Titans is a damn entertaining film with solid performances, especially Denzel's. But as a reflection of a time in history it's pretty worthless. It wants to depict a time in which racism took place in an overtly oppressive fashion, and in the process has nothing to say about post-Civil Right racism, thus implying that this problem was somehow “solved” by Civil Rights. At the same time, because it's a Disney movie, it deals with the Civil Rights era with kids' gloves, depicting an era of overt racism without having the balls to really show the ugly and toxic extent of that racism. The “n” word, for instance, seems to not exist in this version of the Civil Rights south (though the word was introduced in writing, not dialogue, in the similar Disney-produced Glory Road six years later). Once again, this is just regarding the discourse within the film, and doesn't directly disparage its quality or entertainment value. Remember the Titans is a wonderful work of historical fantasy.

I do wish both The Blind Side and, especially, Precious illuminated the circumstances of poverty. With Precious, all the evils that surround her are centralized in her mom, an interesting character, but the thing is, she is as much a product of the impoverished culture rather than a cause.

With regard to Medicine for Melancholy, besides Obsessed and Tyler Perry films, there haven't been that many major representations of well-to-do black characters in film in recent years. Yes, because The Blind Side and Precious are both about poverty, they don't fit in the same category of comparison, but its difference is what was so refreshing. I really have never seen these types of characters, or the subjects they speak about, addressed in such a straightforward, unpretentious, and even real way. It does something none of these films do in that it addresses old and new ideas of how race relations operate in our culture. And finally, unlike The Blind Side, Precious, Obsessed, Tyler Perry's films, et al., it doesn't seem like Medicine was tailor-made for a specific audience/demographic.

Thanks for the amazing feedback!

I agree that Remember the Titans is a damn entertaining film with solid performances, especially Denzel's. But as a reflection of a time in history it's pretty worthless. It wants to depict a time in which racism took place in an overtly oppressive fashion, and in the process has nothing to say about post-Civil Right racism, thus implying that this problem was somehow “solved” by Civil Rights. At the same time, because it's a Disney movie, it deals with the Civil Rights era with kids' gloves, depicting an era of overt racism without having the balls to really show the ugly and toxic extent of that racism. The “n” word, for instance, seems to not exist in this version of the Civil Rights south (though the word was introduced in writing, not dialogue, in the similar Disney-produced Glory Road six years later). Once again, this is just regarding the discourse within the film, and doesn't directly disparage its quality or entertainment value. Remember the Titans is a wonderful work of historical fantasy.

I also have a problem with Quinton Aaron's performance. Silent brooding is hard to pull off for an actor, but I never got the sense from his performance that anything was going on beyond or beneath his shy demeanor. He became kindof a blank slate to me and never fleshed out as a three-dimensional character. it is in this respect that Oher, like Precious, becomes an object of sympathy rather than empathy (remember the excessive “aww”s directed at him during our screening,a s if he were a teddy bear). He is a blank slate, so rather than become a three-dimensional character in a narrative, he takes on the status of a symbol, an empty vessel for audiences to project on him what we will, and as the only significant African-American character in the film, he potentially takes on the unintended weight of broad representation. Had he come across more as an autonomous character–like Bullock's character–than maybe he could be a part of the character study you mentioned. But in the final film he comes across more as a vessel towards a message than a character in a self-sustaining story.

While I didn't read the book not do I know much about the story beyond the film, there is a stark difference between the story of The Blind Side within the book, within the story told through media, from its portrayal on film. In seeing the true story in media, in hearing the protagonist's story and actually watching him get drafted to the point where he plays pro football in reality, his story directly coincides amidst a great deal of competing stories/media objects. And with books or news stories, the printed word simply doesn't take the same weight as a moving image.

But the two-hour running time of a film takes on its own unquestioned authority at least until the film is finished. Yes, in reality this was just a story of a man finding a family and achieving success, but projected unto a twenty-foot tall screen these images and depictions have the potential to take on more weight than intended, even if the message comes across in direct contradiction to intention. I believe that representation of minority characters in Hollywood filmmaking, and especially in films like this where there is (arguably) only ONE black character in a “white” landscape (and The Blind Side does go to great lengths to contrast these worlds and portray him as a fish-out-of-water), these representations can illicit greater meaning or more meaningful impressions than were originally assigned by the filmmaker. I do not believe The Blind Side to be “poverty porn” in the same way I would reluctantly ascribe such a term to Precious, but as uplifting a story as it is, I see major problems with The Blind Side's portrayal of social mobility. Yes, the story in the film follows events as they played out in reality, but because a film projected in a darkened theater contains a certain special type of authority not available in, say, a newspaper article on the same subject, for these two hours the film posits its narrative as how social mobility operates in American culture. When the veil is lifted, I see some flaws in it.

This all depends on your viewing of the films as a piece of the social framework. I haven't seen Precious, so I won't pretend to know how great or hamfisted the delivery is, but I have seen The Blind Side, and while some of it is a little too saccharine, it's a strong film on the whole without making me want to go save everyone. The reason is because it's just the story of one man.

Granted, the story focuses on his mother more, but if you'd like we could call it the story of the family. It might seem obtuse, but I don't assign any cultural significance to it whatsoever, and I probably wouldn't even if it was pure fiction. I see it as character study and nothing more.

We get into a difficult world in assigning meaning to the harsh realities that exist off the screen. It seems like in invoking race or poverty, the filmmaker is already at a disadvantage because he or she needs to deliver seemingly contradictory traits. 1) Something realistic (embedded in that harsh reality) and 2) something “non-exploitative” (completely separate from it). Showing poverty at all could be considered “exploitative,” but I don't think that just because a movie shows one black man's journey from desperate poverty to football stardom via his loving, rich, white, well-to-do, large-housed foster family that it necessarily gives any insight into the black experience as a whole.

This may be because I know nothing of the black experience, as I am, as you can tell, hopelessly pale.

Here's where you get into asking whether its the filmmakers intent or choosing how you want to see the film, but for The Blind Side at least, I choose to see it as a person's story. Not as allegory, not as synecdoche for black America, but just an insight into how one dude got drafted into the NFL.

Also, I'd argue for Remember the Titans any day of the week mainly because in that movie Denzal didn't need all the other people's help. As opposed to The Blind Side where he succeed because of the white family's help, Denzal succeeds despite it. He wins their respect through his hard work, as does the team itself. Perhaps it's unintentionally racist in a different way (oh, so now you need the blessing of white people to be successful?) but not in the way you stated. Plus I love that movie. Seriously, it's a great sports film.

I really liked your take on both films. I haven't seen The Blind Side yet but my friend wanted to see it after being so emotionally distressed by Precious. I think grouping them together was wonderfully strategic on your part, because they are both sides of the same coin. Granted, they elicit different reactions – distress as opposed to that warm fuzzy “whole” feeling, but in either case there is a lack of a desire to really address the social problems and systems that allow injustice to happen. The villain for Precious is her family, and though the system is to blame, there is no acknowledgment of how race/racism is operative in that system by which she is poor and will remain poor.

It's also interesting that Daniels wanted to make this for a privileged white audience. I don't get that. Seriously, as if not enough things are marketed and tailor-made for a privileged white audience. Though like you said it is important to represent not just the “inspirational true story,” I don't get that why when you have a film based on a book by a black author and about black people you would not want to address the audience that it is about. I am not saying that white people should not watch it, but seriously, how many WHITE Hollywood films have I seen? Yeah, I'm not white and I still got it. People should be able to step out of their comfort zone, otherwise all the horrors of poverty and racism are still going to be addressed from that location of detached privilege.

Medicine for Melancholy is a great counterpoint! But I do think it is tricky with comparing it to these films that entertain melodrama a bit. Though the two protagonists don't have that much in common as far as politics go, they both do have some relative class privilege as they live on their own – perhaps in small apartments or mooching off partners – but it's still an expensive city. The world they inhabit seems somewhat distanced from the dire situation in Precious. It's complicated, and unlike that WHITE Nancy Meyers film that's going to come out – which I HAVE to see – it actually IS. I would love to see more films like it, but in a way that still wants to render complex images of people and not create racist stereotypes like blipsters – which are just cycles of appropriation anyway.

You da best Landon!