Michael Oher from the Film 'The Blind Side': Character Analysis

In this essay paper I will discuss and analyze Michael Oher’s personality. This essay paper is based on true events from the film ‘The Blind Side’ inspired by Michael Lewis’s best seller.

Michael Oher is an African American who grew up as an extremely impoverished child in the ghettos of Memphis Tennessee. Oher was from a place called Hurt Village, a housing project in North Memphis, where he was one of twelve families growing up in broken homes and low socio-economic neighborhoods. Michael witnessed violence, poverty, drug use, and gang activity every day. This essay paper will examine Oher’s childhood and family and learn more about Oher’s life.

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Oher’s Family Life

Oher’s biological mother was a drug addicted with a neglecting uninvolved parenting style. At times she seemed to forget that she had children and would leave for long periods of time, leaving Oher and his siblings to fend for themselves. Michael had no accountability for schooling; he had very little education and a handful of skills. There were no books in the home and no one there to read to Michael, literacy and encouragements were not supported in the home. “Oher had been in 11 schools in 9 years and often skipped class”. This was due to his mother who was never around and later he was taken from her and put into a foster home, where he moved around from one home to the next. Oher’s mother did not enforce any rules and provided no emotional response to anything, and never said I love you. Oher’s father was absent from Oher’s life and later as a teen discovered that he had been murdered and thrown from an overpass on the Westside of Memphis. Oher and his siblings shared a strong bond of being neglected and consistently having to look out for themselves and each other. They feared being split up and placed into separate foster care homes. Michael and his siblings felt that the representatives from the state government – child protective services were the people who were going to separate them and break the bond they. Eventually the state had enough evidence of neglect, endangerment, and abuse that they filed an order of protective custody to put Oher and his siblings in foster care. Michael was tired of letting other people make decisions for him, so he became a runner and would regularly run away from his foster home, back to his mother’s house. Due to the running he was moved around from one foster home to another. With every house change there was a school change. Once in the system Oher thought there were too many rules, and none of the foster parents cared or could love a kid after being dumped on their doorstep. Oher had problems with trusting people, because of so much experience with neglect over the years. Oher felt betrayed because no one asked him what he wanted or how he felt. Oher now a teen took it upon himself that he would rather be homeless. The Tuohy’s Oher eventually started a new school Wingate Christian School (Briarcrest Christian School), in which a man named Tony Henderson (Tony Hamilton) helped Oher get into. Michael had to complete a home study program to bring his grades up prior to being admitted. Henderson ran an athletic program that mentored teens in the neighborhood. Hamilton recognized that Oher had an unstable home life and took him in. Hamilton noticed that Oher was very quiet and pretty much stayed to himself. He is shown to have a kind of childish personality, because he tries to play with kindergarten children who reject or ignore him. Michael is befriended by SJ Tuohy, the youngest Tuohy, whose connection to Michael starts the ball rolling. One of his teachers seen that Oher had been struggling with his education, his teacher noticed that Oher did not know how to read. Mrs. Boswell (Mrs. Beasley) Oher’s biology teacher found potential in Oher after giving Oher a verbal test. Mrs. Beasley noticed that Oher did much better in school when he was given tests orally. This is where he met the family that would eventually adopt him, the Tuohy’s. The Tuohy family is a rich white American family that saw Oher struggling and homeless. The Tuohy’s offers Oher help by buying him clothes and giving him a place to stay. The Tuohy’s are very compassionate family that seen something in Oher. This is when things for Oher started to change in a good way. When the Tuohy’s adopted Oher into their family Oher mentioned that he felt like a part of the family, he felt loved.

Oher’s Personality

In the film Oher seems shy, quiet, and uneducated, but Oher is a very smart young man who knows a lot but just cannot read. Oher did have some personality problems, but once Mrs. Tuohy and his teacher started to work with him, it seemed Oher started to open and be the person he was meant to be. Oher seemed to have abandonment issues, due to moving around from home to foster home. It seems Oher may have had neurotic personalities, which were maladaptive and counterproductive ways of dealing with relationships. According to Dr. Heffner (2002) in reference to Horney K., there are three ways of dealing with the world that are formed by a person’s upbringing, in Oher’s case it would be moving away from people. In this neurotic household the possible consequences are a personality style that is considered a social behavior and an almost indifference to others. In Oher’s case if he does not get involved with others, he cannot be hurt by them. With Oher moving around so much, he never got close to anyone. Maybe he thought by getting close to other people they would just disappoint him again and again. While this protects Oher from emotional pain of relationships, it also keeps away all the positive aspects of these relationships, and left Oher feeling alone and empty. Another personality that is seen in Oher’s life is self-reflectiveness Oher seemed to evaluate himself and, reflects on his life, and what his purpose is and the meaning. He tried to use self-schemas to figure out who he was and make sense of it. “Schemas are knowledge structures that we use to bring order to what otherwise might be a chaotic jumble of stimuli” (Cervone, 2010, pg. 464). Oher tried to make sense of his experiences by interpreting events or preexisting ideas in the mind (Cervone, 2010). This goes along with borderline personality disorder, in which a person lacks a sense of self, and experiences feelings of emptiness and fears of abandonment. In Oher’s case he had some outburst of violence, patterns of unstable relationships, and emotional instability. With Oher having neurotic personality, borderline personality seems to go hand in hand. On the other hand, it can also be that Oher just has antisocial personality disorder, which is commonly found in men with neurotic anxieties. When it comes to the Big Five personality factors, Oher seemed to have agreeableness; he was very friendly and kind to others. Oher also shows signs of neuroticism, because he is insecure, and shows maladaptive behaviors, and shows signs of distress. Oher shows signs of all five factors at some point in the film, some as he progresses and learns to adapt to his new family and others from past experiences. As Oher begins his journey with the Tuohy’s he begins to find himself, and where he belongs.

Conclusion

Michael being adopted by the Tuohy family is an example of how development is a combination of nature and nurture. The idea that development is impacted more by social interaction and culture is portrayed in Michael Oher’s character development. Michael Oher’s personality changes throughout the film based on his social context. Eriksson’s theory on attachment emphasizes a critical stage as a child of trust and mistrust. It was clear that there was a lot of mistrust in Michael’s childhood.

Michael Oher had many obstacles that he overcame throughout his life with the Tuohy’s. Michael went on to college and was selected as the 23rd pick in the first round of the NFL draft in 2009 by the Baltimore Ravens. This film was inspiring, and it goes to show others how they can overcome some of the same obstacles as Oher and his personality issues. Oher became more open to new things and his personality became brighter just as his future did with the Tuohy’s. Michael Oher demonstrated great strength and had the guidance of his new family the Tuohy’s, not to mention all the help from teachers, and coaches. By analyzing Oher’s personality and seeing the change she has made can give others a better understanding. Oher went on to write his own book and how his life has inspired others in his same situation. Oher is considered a role model for the youth today. Oher learned how to control his personality difficulties and with the right mind set anyone can.