The Blind Side is the real-life story of the Tuohys - a white Christian family, living in Memphis, who put feet to their faith and take in a homeless African-American teen who was lost in the system.
Marc Newman: Why do you think it is so hard for Hollywood to capture authentic Christianity?
John Lee Hancock: I think it's stereotypes in general that Hollywood is drawn to, and I think it's just laziness. I think it's one of those things where it's so much easier to put somebody in a box and say that's this type of person; whether it's a Southern conservative, a Christian woman, it's "No, you don't have to say anymore. We got it." No. Everybody's different, everybody's complicated. Everybody's got their own set of problems and issues and personalities. It's no different than saying, "Oh! New York cab driver. I got it." And we do, kind of. Part of the stereotype is always true. But you've got to go deeper than that. C'mon. You know there are a million stories of a million people from all walks of life that lead their lives differently. And I think, in general, just bad storytelling is to blame.
MN: So how did you overcome that?
JLH: It's a constant battle. I find myself doing it as well. With The Perfect World, one of my first scripts that got made, I had this sniper, and he was consistently this tough, mean, bad guy who was going to fell Kevin Costner in the end, and I look back on it now, even though I like the movie, and I think, "Boy, I should have done a better job of that." I'm not saying that he's not going to do what he's going to do, but he has to be more interesting than that. So I think it's just easy, I think it's just sheer laziness, and in some ways it's not helped by the fact that when you're flipping the channels and there's this guy with the big silver wig preaching and they go, "Yup! There he is."
MN: So, in Hollywood you write what you know, and when you don't know, you write what you see?
JLH: Yeah.
MN: So what kind of fine line do you have to walk between authenticity and what some might call moral "preachiness" in order to engage a general audience? I was overwhelmed by how much Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy - played by Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw, but based, of course, on the real people - were like other people I happen to know from my own church. The Tuohy's come across on the screen just like these ordinary people. What did it take for you to strike that balance?
JLH: This didn't have to be a story about a family that was a Christian family. It could have easily been a family with no belief at all, I mean, no religious faith, but a great deal of faith in human nature and who do the right thing. So it wasn't a requirement of the story that they be Christians, but it's a true story, and they are, so you want to be true to that and you want to be true to who they are. And I think that just makes it more interesting. If this were, from a Hollywood standpoint, if this were the story of the liberal, Northeastern family that takes this kid in, then, from a Hollywood standpoint, that's expected, and so it becomes a boring story. So in this one, you stab a little bit at their stereotypes and say, now you have to look deeper. Don't write people off, no matter what, don't look at them and go, "Oh yeah, you're this, okay, I've defined you. I know you." Cause you don't.
MN: I also think the opposite happens as well. The faith, instead of being lampooned, is ignored. I remember watching Spielberg's remake of War of the Worlds, and it struck me as odd that nobody prayed. I think that if my world had been invaded by giant spaceships killing everything in sight, at some point, someone might pray. So I love the scene around the table where Leigh Anne Tuohy had taken Thanksgiving for granted - her family is together, all is well, but she sees Michael sitting at the table wanting to have a Norman Rockwell moment, and she gives it to him. They gather around and say grace.
JLH: I do remember something Leigh Anne said, "Michael, for not having a family, in some ways had a better idea of what a family was than we did. They are a great family. They are fantastic people. But, like everyone else, they're doing their thing, so I tried to visually show that - they're watching football, they're doing this and that and it's Thanksgiving and there's nothing wrong with that. They're a family spending Thanksgiving together, but Michael had this idealized view of what it should be. He loved the idea of family, which is why he is constantly trying to make his way back to his mother after every foster care experience.
Source: Marc Newman, Christian Post
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