Reply #17: I understand your point... [View All]

[southlandshari]

...and believe me, all of this occured to me when I first saw this movie. It stayed with me so deeply that I did some research on the game itself, and whether or not the conversations on venue and the composition of the referee team were accurately depicted, and I believe they were.

One of the most powerful scenes of the movie, IMO, was the scene at halftime of the final game that flashes back and forth between both teams holding hands in their respective locker rooms and reciting the Lord's Prayer. There was absolutely no difference between the kids on both of those teams at that memorable moment in the movie.

While the Carter players and coaches weren't the central figures of the movie, I didn't find them to be unlikable at all. I liked the coaches from Carter better overall than those from Permian - I thought they were far more inspiring to their players than Gaines and his assistants were depicted as having been that 1988 season. And I don't think the behavior of the Carter players was based on negative stereotype at all. These were inner city kids who made up an absolutely untouchable football team that year, and they earned the right to be cocky, IMHO -- to depict them as otherwise would be disingenuous.

In fact, I actually found the Carter coaches and players to be more likable and less flawed than those involved in the Permian H.S. program, perhaps because the movie gave a deeper look into the Permian program, perhaps not. As I have said in previous posts, there are no heroes in this movie, in this story.

I really felt the movie simply gave as objective as possible a view of everyone who entered a frame of the film, and left it to the viewers to judge history. It would be too easy, to me, to try to see this story as a commentary on race relations - it goes far deeper than that, and actually illustrates how much alike we all are where it counts, deep down. Everyone wants to be a winner, and far too many of us, regardless of race, are quick to make decisions based on short term goals that may well have destructive repurcussions in the long term...

Sports metaphors and the meaning of life - someone shut me up if I'm getting ridiculously cliched here!