Stereotypes In Hoop Dreams

One of the reasons people fell in love with Michael Jordan, aside from his skills, was his friendliness and openness. He would never boast of achievements nor put anyone down because they lacked skills. If anything, Jordan was hard on them in order to improve their skills and knowledge of the game so that they can outperform their past selves. He didn’t feel any entitlement to his superiority. He just worked extremely hard to achieve what he did.

For as long as the world has existed, there have been a number of stereotypes labeled upon people all because of their race. A stereotype is an oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Racial stereotypes should not exist. We should not assume things about people that may not be true. I have a dream that racial stereotypes seize to exist.

Hoop Dreams, directed by Steve James, is an outstanding documentary that gives the viewer a perspective on several different elements on the life of a teen basketball player. The film follows Arthur Agee and William Gates, two basketball stars, who live in the rough Chicago area. The inner-city boys get noticed for their skills, and they are recruited to play for dominant team. The audience follows the boy’s journey with basketball, school, and general life matters. The film dives into the reality of living in the hood and chasing a dream of playing professional basketball. The corruption of the school system and sports are examined throughout the film. The audience follows Agee and Gates through their triumphs and failures in their chase to the top. The director, Steve James, uses the film genre of documentary for the story of Arther Agee and William Gates because it highlights the raw moments of their lives.

In the collegiate world of sports, basketball has become an increasingly recognized sport among African Americans, predominantly males. The hope of any young basketball player is that one day a scout will come and recruit them into stardom The question that presents itself as a problem to the lucky few who are chosen to go professional, is whether or not an education is more important than a million dollar shoe deal, “The NCAA's (1998) annual six-year study reported that only 33% of Black male basketball players graduated, (Chronicle of Higher Education, 1999). Individually, basketball reported the lowest graduation rate in all divisions,” (Robinson, 2004:1). Basketball players have become so idolized in the eyes of young

The selected piece “Hoop Dreams,” movie review by Robert Ebert is part of the review

Basketball, football, and hockey are considered the most popular sports in America as of today. However, sports in the early 1950s were not as popular as they are now. According to “An Exercise in Subtleties and the Transmission of Racism: An Analysis of Sports Illustrated Covers” by Eric Primm, Summer DuBois, and Robert M. Regoli, they stated that American love their sport and that “each year they would spend billions of dollars on sports-related items and activities.” The media help promote the popularity of the sports in America. Consequently, sports media “plays a key role in perpetuating the types of racial stereotypes about minority athletes in sports” (Ismond, 115). The thesis of this writing project is with some racial stereotype reinforcement

Instead now, fans look in and establish relationships with players, who become icons. Jordan, of course is the perfect example. Not only was he successful in the NBA, Jordan won two gold medals in the Olympics, the global games and even retired from basketball to pursue a baseball career in the minor leagues affiliated with the Chicago White Sox (49, 126). These brought more and more fans outside of the NBA and the country to Michael Jordan and the brand he had become, establishing this relationship on multiple

Agee, both from Chicago became a professional basketball player to escape the life of poverty. Hoop Dream is a great example of how sports can get you out of poverty. In the movie it showed how the two inner-city boys had all odd against them, and how the system kept knocking them down. At a young age, thy both had the same dream, and were willing to work harder than anyone else to give their family a better lifestyle. Both young men lived on the north side of Chicago, in housing projects. They were limited to where, when and who they can hang with or around, because it was so easy to get caught up in all different gangs, violence and drugs that was in the community. The time that they did spend outside they were playing basketball, playing little pickup games. Scout from St. Joseph High School seen how talented they were and wanted them, and that he did. Even though the boys’ families wanted, the best for them they could not afford to move closer to the high school; so the boys had to wake up at five in the morning and make that hour and forty minutes commute to school every day.

He kept hearing a thumping sound outside. He went outside to find a small, young Isaiah shooting basketball alone. He told him he was friends with his younger brother, Curtis, so Jason went back inside. ““Then it’s like 10 p.m., and I hear it again,” Terry recalled, his voice rising. “I go back out, and Isaiah is still out there shooting all by himself”” (Rudick). There are people that are closer to Isaiah that can tell stories like that. There was a time that James Thomas was contacted by Isaiah’s teacher because Isaiah was refusing to go inside after fourth-grade recess. He explained that he could only improve his game if he could play against the sixth-graders. In middle school, he rode city buses to find good games to get involved in, even if it were in a gym that required membership. He used his small size to sneak into those gyms. By the ninth-grade, he realized he was not going to grow anymore, so he decided he wanted to be the best under-six-foot player there ever was.

In the documentary “hoop dreams” the director uses a variety of techniques to attract the viewer. In the beginning scenes we meet william gates and arthur agee to boys with high hopes of playing high school and college basketball both coming from poor neighborhoods which appeals to pathos create a sympathetic feeling in which you want the 2 main characters to succeed in their dreams. William gates and arthur agee live and play basketball as part of their everyday life, which can be reflected from their family arthur father played in his earlier years and william's brother curtis talked about his carrera the director uses a voice over narration with photos of him playing at high school and college level, curtis dropped out of college after being unable to keep up his academics. The director uses a point of view shot when a small recruiter finds arthur and william playing in local courts, he takes them to tryout at St. Joseph's a private school. The director uses a small pause when telling the viewer if william or arthur made the team, they announced william makes varsity and narration of

What is a stereotype? In my definition it can be a term used to classify an object or thing, maybe even a person. A stereotype can be a person who has little knowledge of something or none at all. There are a lot of different stereotypes out there. For example, “White men can’t jump” is one used in sports such as basketball. This can be a stereotype to people who have never witnessed a white man dunk a basketball. Larry Bird was arguably one of the best basketball players in the history of the NBA with many awards and achievements to prove it. He was indeed a white man therefore, counterpointing the stereotypical phrase, “white men can't jump.” Just like this one, there are many stereotypes out there with a broad range of phrases or

Also, Lebron James had the desire to make his high school basketball team, however, he lacked the money to afford the bills that came with the sport of basketball.

The documentary, “Hoop Dreams” depicts the structural, psychological, and environmental issues that perpetuates poverty in America through a cohort of individuals, Arthur Agee and William Gates. Agee and Gates’s lives are chronicled through a longintudinal study of four years, from the summer they enter high school, to their entry into college. Both African-American teenagers are recruited from different parts of Chicago, but they came together to begin their freshman year at St. Joseph’s High School, the institution that built Basketball superstar Isaiah Thomas. Both Arthur and William begin their journey in a similar manner, but were exposed to the complexity of their dream, their education, and negative societal factors that ultimately change the course of their lives.

Stereotype- a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Stereotypes show up everywhere, and the stories The Outsiders, a realistic fiction novel by S.E. Hinton, and the short story “The Athletic Snob” by Sam Barnes are no exceptions. In The Outsiders, the town Ponyboy Curtis lives in is divided in two: the rich, wild Socials, or Socs, and the quiet, tough Greasers. Throughout the course of the novel, Ponyboy, his brothers, and his friends start to realize that not all Socs and Greasers fit into people's ideas of who they are. The main character of “The Athletic Snob”, Joe Ricardo, also encounters false stereotypes when he meets an overweight boy named Piggy who doesn't play sports at

Walter needed his money, and William and Arthur needed more talent to be good enough to make it the NBA. All three of them had the same attitude towards the dreams, "No matter what this dream is going to come true." The Worst part of it is that all of them let the dreams take over their lives. The harshest reality of all is that neither of their dreams come true. And each one of them had the chance to have their dreams come true, Walter had his money stolen, and neither William or Arthur had enough talent to make it to the NBA. The last deciding factor in making difference in dreams, William had a mature dream, in that of owning a liquor store, and it's a normal everyday dream. But, William's and Arthur's dreams were immature and not very thoughtful. They both wanted to be in the NBA, and that was all they were going to do, they didn't even care if they had their education to fall back on, they both were so certain that they were going to make it in basketball that all they had to do was play. Luckily William realized that he needed something to fall back on in case of not being good enough to make it, so when he finally realized he wasn't going to make it to the NBA, he had an education. Arthur on the other hand, all his life was, was basketball, he ate, drank, and slept basketball, didn't care much about school.