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Sportsguy on Sports Movies
'I won't ruin the ending, which features an inevitable rematch between the Rock's team and a preppie team of evil white kids that destroyed them in their first game. But I did find the symbolism interesting. When "Rocky" launched the lovable underdog boom in '76, we rallied around a mildly talented white boxer who nearly toppled an invincible black champion. Two years later in "Rocky II," the white guy finally knocked out the black guy -- I still remember everyone in my theater STANDING AND CHEERING at the end -- quickly followed by Rocky facing an even more menacing black opponent in "Rocky III," a sneering, mohawked wrecking machine who hit on Rocky's wife ("Hey woman … hey woman!"), knocked him out and inadvertently caused Mickey's death. That's just the way it worked in the '70s and '80s, cresting with "Hoosiers," when a team of underdog white kids rallied to beat a team of taller, more talented black kids. There was an underlying lesson, even if we didn't want to admit it: Black athletes are better, but white athletes can beat them if they try hard enough.
Now things have flipped: we don't need the likes of Rocky Balboa, Danny LaRusso, Crash Davis, Lickety Split, Jimmy Chitwood, Henry Steele, Reg Dunlop, Roy Hobbs, Scott Howard, Paul Crewe and Jonathan E. anymore. Inner-city kids, prisoners and juvie kids have become the heroes, blacks are just as likely to play lead roles as whites, and characters become decidedly unsympathetic if they attend a school with enough money to afford uniforms with names on the back. Coaches have emerged as the most important characters, not because they're the most interesting, but because it's the role most likely to attract a major star (and there really aren't any major stars under 40 anymore). If you can find a setting that can be accentuated by the right hip-hop soundtrack, all the better.
Hey, I'd like to tell you that this is progress. I'd like to tell you that most of the classic sports flicks catered to white people to an embarrassing degree, that the current shift of focus was long overdue. I'd even like to tell you that this is a great sign for society as a whole -- 25 years ago, a sports movie with a black star and a mostly black cast probably wouldn't have finished No. 1 in its opening weekend.
But the truth is less stimulating: Hollywood just ran out of sports movie ideas. Switch the color of the cast and it FEELS like a different formula ... even though it isn't. There will always be an underdog player/team that can't get it together, there will always be a coach/manager/team willing to save them, and there will always be an evil/invincible opponent that needs to be toppled. This recipe has been working for three decades now, and it will probably be working three decades from now. One day, I'll stop enjoying it. I just don't know when. There are worse ways to kill two hours.'
Interesting take. I wonder if the point he shoo'd away isn't a bit more legitimate. Is there a new definition of underdog in Hollywood? Are more and more black actors finding work (even if they do have to play gang members and criminals*) because of society's undeniable draw to black culture?
It used to be that whites straight copied black culture and although, in most cases, they weren't as talented, in tune or connected to the culture they were copying, they made the most money. Now, aside from Justin Timberlake, people seem to want the real thing (or at least what they imagine the real thing is). You'll never see a Vanilla Ice again.
I watched The Wire for the first time last night and the writing was authentic and the characters were what I've seen in some neighborhoods I tried not to spend much time in.
I know I'm rambling, but what does all this say about the music and movie industry and its current treatment of race?**
TM
*I guess that hasn't changed much.
**Feel free to read this as a rhetorical question.
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