cheating – Colin McMahon

Oh to be a child of the nineties and have opinions grossly clouded by nostalgia. I grew up during this strange and magical time of Pokémon, Gushers, and DZ: Discovery Zone. Being a kid back then was awesome, it’s no lie. We had a lot of great things to entertain ourselves with. Sadly, there are some not so great things that some of us also remember fondly. I speak, of course, of Space Jam. Most all of my friends (also children of the 90s) love Space Jam. As a kid, I remember really liking it in the theaters. I mean it was Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes, how can you go wrong?

It was very wrong.

Unlike the best childhood movies, Space Jam (or the poor man’s Who Framed Rodger Rabbit) is full of really horrible life lessons. This is not a movie that teaches you to learn from the past and take responsibility for your life (The Lion King), or to be yourself (Aladdin) or that true beauty is found within (Beauty and the Beast).

Nope, none of those are here. Let’s look instead at what is presented in this film forgotten largely by anyone not between the ages of six and ten in 1996.

Kidnap Your Friends

Let’s start with something that’s really pretty big in the movie: Bugs Bunny and the other Looney Tunes never ask for Michael Jordan’s help (even though they easily could have – as it is established later in the film that they have no problem going to the “real” world). What do they do instead? Just toss a rope around him at a golf course and drag him over. Sure, once in Looney Tune land, Michael may have the opportunity to say no… maybe. Just keep in mind, if he did – he would have said no in a land surrounded by thousands of angry cartoon characters… oh and no one from home knew where he was so they’ll never find his body.

This guy is the villain and he only ever TALKS about kidnapping people. Let this be a lesson kids: Winners let their actions do the talking.

Women exist to be Sexualized in All Forms

Even bunnies.

Holy crap, who designed Lola Bunny? Speaking as someone who saw this movie at seven, Lola Bunny gave me some confusing thoughts that would not be explained for the next few years. Once they were explained, it left me with one question: who designs a children’s cartoon rabbit this way? She has human breasts! Lola is sexualized in a way that is frankly disturbing. Since no one other than Bugs (who is another rabbit) is attracted to her, why was she drawn with different appeal. Just why – what was the conversation that lead to her creation?

It's like someone turned Natalie Dormer into a rabbit. — It’s like someone turned Natalie Dormer into a rabbit.

“Hey we got that Space Jam movie coming out, are we going to get the teenage crowd?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Better add breasts to the bunny just in case.”

Remember kids, if you’re going to have a woman in your movie, she had better be a sex symbol – even if she is a rabbit.

Bully the Fat Guy

Wayne Knight exists in Space Jam for one reason: to be made fun of. This wouldn’t matter so much if all the jokes weren’t targeted at one aspect of his character, namely his size. Sure, Stan (Knight’s character) is presented also as a dork, but why is he a dork – because he’s fat.

Haha! His shape is round! By the way - man do those effects not hold up. — Haha! His shape is round! By the way – man do those effects not hold up.

Forget the fact that he offers to help out in the big game against the Monstars, or that he sacrifices his health for the good of the team, or that he is the one to discover the Monstar’s plot, or that he generally tries to be a nice guy in general (the only one to really try to find Michael after the Looney Tunes kidnap him) – the movie doesn’t care and treats him only as a punchline. F*ck him, he’s nothing but a big old fattie. Yeah, he gets to announce Michael’s return to humanity at the end of the movie, but how about an apology – how about the “thanks for helping out, we were really lucky to have you with us, sorry we were kind of total dicks to you.”

No? Only Bill Murray gets told he can play basketball? Okay.

… Oh! And also bully short people, like the Looney Tunes were doing to the Monstars before they got tall. That’s the whole reason they picked basketball in the first place!

Succumb to Peer Pressure ALL the Time

Why does Michael agree to help the Looney Tunes? Does he feel truly sympathetic to their cause? Or is it because he gets insulted, and then goaded into joining by Tweety?

“You’re not scared of them, are you Michael?”

"Kill them, Michael. Kill them all." — “Kill them, Michael. Kill them all.”

To which Michael, being the mature, responsible father he is, agrees to risk never seeing his family again in order to help out the cartoon characters who kidnapped him. Awesome.

Take Steroids and Cheat to Win

Oh my god, this is totally in the movie. Remember Michael’s “secret stuff” that helps him win every game? Sure, in the movie it is just water and the effects are purely placebo but holy crap! This comparison is really spot on to the steroid scandal that was (and still is) going on in the professional sports world today. Actual quote from the movie:

Daffy: “You know, this goes against everything they taught me in health class.”

Michael Jordan (role model to a generation): “You want to win or not?”

Sure, it makes Bugs all muscle-y, but I bet he also has anger problems and a smaller carrot as a result.

If Tom Brady said those words (even in a kid’s movie), people in New England would never hear the end of it, just saying.

Don’t Talk to Your Significant Other/Family

The whole time Michael is doing this potentially enslaving act for the Looney Tunes, never once does he send a message to his family. His kids only find out because they catch Bugs and Daffy robbing their house.

Michael’s wife, the woman he wanted to share his life with: she’s not important enough to know. Maybe he would have told her if she was more sexualized.

So there you have it. Keep in mind, I have not seen Space Jam in quite a while so I may not be remembering everything that happened in the movie. There could be more instances of life lessons that would have scared every child watching the movie.

Who knows? As I said, Space Jam has been largely forgotten. If only they could get that sequel off the ground:

Maybe they can promote racism and adultery in this new movie!

The New England Patriots are worse than Hitler. That is, if you believe the overwhelming negativity directed at the Patriots within the past week. The reasoning behind this: after last Sunday’s AFC Championship game against the Colts, reports surfaced of an investigation against the Patriots with regards to ball inflation. This basically means that the Patriots are being ACCUSED of cheating. Not a game-determining cheat mind you, nothing as serious as that, but still – cheating is cheating and the integrity (scoff, excuse me) of the NFL sport must be protected. I don’t mean to undermine what the Patriots MIGHT have done. Cheating is cheating and, IF found guilty – they should face appropriate consequences. “Deflategate” as it has come to be called, has called back into question much more serious issues of integrity, however, in my mind at least. The integrity of major sports journalism is under question… and it might be doing worse than the Patriots.

Even with the ball deflated, players (Colts and Patriots) agree that it had little-to-no impact on the game.

This article will focus primarily on ESPN and Sports Illustrated, two of the larger and more trusted sources of sports journalism in America – and specifically their handling of the DEVELOPING Deflategate situation.

The Patriots are not liked around the nation. One does not have to look far to find evidence of this. Part of the hatred has foundation. In 2007, the New England Patriots were found guilty in Spygate, essentially cheating by recording more signals than they were supposed to from the other team. Were they the only culprit of this: probably not, but still – cheating is cheating and I, as a New England Patriots fan, found the punishment fair. No one is above the rules.

The New England Patriots cheated 8 years ago. This does not make all current and future allegations against them immediately true.

Part of the hatred comes from something else though: the Patriots are a good football team. No, that’s an understatement. They are a great football team. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady might be the best coach-quarterback combo in the history of the game. I don’t say that just as a fan, there are numbers to support this.

Okay, cool – the Pats rock, how does this matter? Well, sports journalism is made up partly of former players: people who have played largely within the past ten years… also known as: a lot of people the Patriots beat. If you think this does not matter, if you think that athletes and former athletes do not have huge egos – you are fooling yourself. So right away, the POTENTIAL exists for bias. I am not going to accuse anyone of anything without evidence…

Want some evidence?

Let’s talk about Jerome Bettis, an excellent former player who now does analysis for ESPN. I have zero issue on Bettis reporting facts. Here is a link to his video discussing the Ray Rice incident, which occurred at the beginning of the season. Wow, okay – he is very supportive. Granted, all the facts were not known at that time but he appears to be approaching the situation with an open mind. Cool…

Here he is on the Deflategate INVESTIGATION:

Holy f*ck. What happened to the calm, thoughtful, contemplative Bettis that we saw earlier? Patriots are known felons? Sir, even by the loftiest of standards: the Patriots have never broken the law. Rules, yes – but not law. These are both videos taken from (at the time) ongoing investigations. One is about balls being properly inflated, one is about a woman being beaten unconscious. Excuse me for saying but: your passion appears misplaced.

Now let’s talk about Michael Rosenberg, a New York journalist who writes for Sports Illustrated. Rosenberg has a past of putting things in perspective. He fairly called out and condemned the handling of the Adrian Peterson situation from earlier in the year. Rosenberg has struck me as an intelligent and thoughtful journalist, but one of his articles goes much too far. I would bother to tear apart the piece he wrote on the Patriots after INITIAL REPORTS of Deflategate surfaced, but someone else beat me to it. Journalism is not about reporting thoughts, or rumors, or making wild accusations based on what you read on the Internet. That’s what blogging is for. Journalism is about reporting the facts. Judgement is left to others. There is not one fact in Rosenberg’s list of wild accusations against New England, and yet this was posted on a very reputable sports site.

The rush to judgement has caused many Patriots' fans to tune out the allegations, or make fun of them completely. — The rush to judgement has caused many Patriots’ fans to tune out the allegations, or make fun of them completely.

Okay, back to ESPN. Over the past week, I have seen headlines like “Don’t Believe Brady” (later changed to “Hard to Believe Brady”). Again this gives the impression that the Patriots have already been found guilty. The have not. In fact, if you’re wondering why I haven’t gone more into the facts of the case, it is because they keep changing. I will get to that in a sec, but I wanted to draw attention to one more fun article from ESPN first.

This one.

Let me be beyond clear: truth is not an opinion. It never has, nor never will be influenced by the common consensus. So why does this article exist? Maybe to show that around the world, people are not taking the Patriots at their word? Hard to believe that ESPN readers wouldn’t trust them after reading headlines like those I just mentioned.

The point is that the coverage has been horrible. Want the facts of the case? Colts defensive player D’Qwell Jackson DEFINITIVELY started the investigation into the possibility of deflated balls… until he didn’t. Bill Belichick was DEFINITELY the mastermind behind the cheating… until it was (and currently is) DEFINITELY Tom Brady. With all this disbelief going around – against the Patriots, against the NFL, it seems that no one is levying it against the people who are reporting the news. What is going on? How do we even know there was ever a scandal and not some accident?

During his press conference, Tom Brady denied all involvement in the SUPPOSED scandal. He was then asked several times if he was sorry. HE JUST SAID HE DIDN'T DO IT! — During his press conference, Tom Brady denied all involvement in the SUPPOSED scandal. He was then asked several times if he was sorry. HE JUST SAID HE DIDN’T DO IT!

Let’s say (and this is just a scenario based on known facts): 36 balls were inflated for the game, 11 of them came out below the guidelines. Tom Brady, being the hometown quarterback gets first pick. Brady, who has already stated his liking of under-inflated balls, chooses those he feels least inflated (not knowing that it is below league regulation). Then Andrew Luck chooses, then the remaining 12 go to special teams. Saying this happens is admitting that NFL officials made a mistake (hard to believe I know, especially in this playoff season). But it is just that: a mistake. Doesn’t sound nearly as sexy as a cheating scandal, but this may be the truth.

“Things are going to be fine — this isn’t ISIS, no one’s dying.” Tom Brady said this and it is a fair point. This isn't even Baltimore or Minnesota: where actual crimes happened. — “Things are going to be fine — this isn’t ISIS, no one’s dying.”
Tom Brady said this and it is a fair point. This isn’t even Baltimore or Minnesota: where actual crimes happened.

The truth that does not appear to matter since the Patriots were found guilty by the media on day one. Come on guys, we get that you don’t like us. I don’t like the Yankees, the (New York) Giants, or either of the Manning brothers – but I would never call any of them cheaters without all the facts.

For anyone wondering: the NFL is currently finding a hard time linking the deflated balls to any purposeful wrongdoing. Doesn’t matter, ESPN and Sports Illustrated have already ensured that the Patriots reputation has suffered. Guilty until proven innocent… and if innocent then conspiracy. Hey journalists, I know you might take offense from a Patriots-fan and internet blogger telling you this… but do your jobs.

The appropriate punishment, as long ago determined by the NFL, is a $25,000 fine by the way… in case anyone was wondering. Rules should not ever be broken… but you can kill someone or you can go 5 miles over the speed limit. This is the latter.