Hollywood’s portrayal of sport in the African American
culture varies respectfully with that of the Hoop Dreams documentary. While
media serves as the ultimate source for falsely portraying the African American
culture as a whole, it is inexcusably evident that media holds a sense of
negative representation of African American athletes in society. Hoop Dreams is a documentary featuring
the struggle of two young inner city boys from Chicago simply battling the
various challenges they faced while trying to become college basketball players
for a ‘ticket out of the projects’. This seems to be a recurring story in
Hollywood sport films that largely feature African American athletes. For
example, The Blind Side is a newly
popular film based off of the true story of a current NFL player’s life. This
movie serves as a prime example of a Hollywood film that has significantly and
stereotypically portrayed the life of an African American athlete. Although the
story is based off of a true story, Hollywood dramatized his story and
ultimately worsened his backgrounds and upbringing. Hollywood succeeded in
creating the typical film about an African American athlete growing up in the
projects and solely counting on success in sport as the only way out of his
harmful upbringing.
Because money and power run today’s society, money and power
are ultimately measured through an individual’s success. In Hollywood, an
African American athlete’s success is mainly measured through their
accomplishments in effort to escape the harmful areas of their
upbringings. In Hollywood films, racism
is terribly evident both in effort to prevail and exemplify what racism was
like in the past, and in order to show that racism still lives in society today.
While I do not believe sport is damaging or diminishing the Black
American, I do believe that critical analysis of stereotypical opinions can
essentially prove to be negatively representing the African American culture
through sport. Sport is not preserving the myth of race. I believe that current
sport is becoming blind to color. While racism was once an order of daily
functionality, today, some of the most respected and famous athletes are African Americans, and
their legacies are certainly not being diminished!
