Africa Is a Country

'Soccer movies about poor, brown people'

'Soccer movies about poor, brown people'

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKyxDm_lCFQ&w=600&h=369]

This semester I co-teach (with journalist Tony Karon) a media politics class on Global Soccer, Global Politics at The New School. It is turning out to be the best thing I’ve done in a while. It also means watching lots of football-themed films. Some good ones and not all of these are good films. The latter includes a number of films with depressing themes. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against films that focus on the ugly side of football. Like Current TV’s 30 minute “Soccer’s Lost Boys” (this is a link to the film; that’s the trailer above) about football factories in Ghana. Instead it is part of a pattern when it comes to African football: It’s mostly gloom and doom.  When European football appears on film, at worst it will get the hooligan treatment, otherwise it is all about greatest hits and childhood wonder. (Recent examples include “A Night in Turin” about the England team–with Paul Gascoigne at its heart–that crashed out in the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup; or just check the trailer for the new film about Liverpool’s 2005 European Champions League final triumph.)

Which is I could recognize The Offside Rules‘ anger in a recent post on his blog:

I’m sure someone will find a way to twist the following statement to make me look like a prick or self-hating negro but here it is anyway: I’m tired of seeing soccer movies about poor, brown people.

Documentary makers, you know we’re not a monolith right? There are well-to-do brown folks that play soccer as well. Bring your cameras down to a youth game in [Prince George County, Maryland], MD or Cascade Heights, [Georgia] if you don’t believe me. Also there are disadvantaged Europeans and Asians who play soccer as well, give them some shine from time to time.

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be films about underprivileged brown kids and the uplifting power of soccer. Not at all. But the frequency with which these things have dropped over the last few years is just ridiculous and extremely disproportionate. Here’s a list of the titles that I can think of without Googling:

Chasing the Mad Lion

The Anderson Monarchs project.

Dreamtown

The Day Brazil Was Here

Africa 10

Bush League

And that’s just in the past year.

Seriously y’all we’re dangerously close to “Magical Negro” territory with these types of films. Why do they keep getting made? At this point it is certainly not original and I’ve yet to see a follow up film where it shows some drastic improvement in the lives of the subjects since the original film. Come on y’all, we can do better.

Further Reading

Not exactly at arm’s length

Despite South Africa’s ban on arms exports to Israel and its condemnation of Israel’s actions in Palestine, local arms companies continue to send weapons to Israel’s allies and its major arms suppliers.

Ruto’s Kenya

Since June’s anti-finance bill protests, dozens of people remain unaccounted for—a stark reminder of the Kenyan state’s long history of abductions and assassinations.

Between Harlem and home

African postcolonial cinema serves as a mirror, revealing the limits of escape—whether through migration or personal defiance—and exposing the tensions between dreams and reality.

The real Rwanda

The world is slowly opening its eyes to how Paul Kagame’s regime abuses human rights, suppresses dissent, and exploits neighboring countries.

In the shadow of Mondlane

After a historic election and on the eve of celebrating fifty years of independence, Mozambicans need to ask whether the values, symbols, and institutions created to give shape to “national unity” are still legitimate today.

À sombra de Mondlane

Depois de uma eleição histórica e em vésperas de celebrar os 50 anos de independência, os moçambicanos precisam de perguntar se os valores, símbolos e instituições criados para dar forma à “unidade nacional” ainda são legítimos hoje.