How does this show not have more likes ??? Here in Canada i had to dig deep to watch this amazing show. Another amazing critique. Keep it up. People will watch !!! This channel is too good not to watch !!! I think Mr. West looked gr8 in this series. Humble, angry, and wants to win. Isnt this most gr8 men ??? I think its a sign of an amazing man.
I like your commentary. Great analysis. Difficult subject with well considered remarks. He and Elgin Baylor had two of the most frustrating careers even though both were great players and celebrated at the time. I was not so familiar With West's subsequent career. I like how you show how he is actually portrayed more sympathetically than most others in the series.
Thanks for the DEEP dive. I missed this show when it aired. It sounds like they took some huge risks with the surreal aspects of storytelling and characterization. Sometimes people don't like that.
This video, and Being There, are generally excellent. I can’t help but feel that you are missing how Jerry West might be hurt, legitimately, by seeing himself portrayed not as himself but as a means to heightened entertainment. Isn’t the show, as fun as it is, also an easy creative choice to be outlandish, and also an economic decision to be engaging, and rewardable, not a moral attempt to portray characters with complexity. It’s disingenuous not to acknowledge that West’s image is hurt by this portrayal. The deeper question is what is his recourse if the cartoon offends him.
Thank you, Sebastian. I appreciate your well thought through comments. You raise an interesting point and I will try to address it, by going through my thoughts when I made the video. Having said that, however, I must admit to being somewhat amused, since I was initially concerned viewers might ‘read’ this essay as me trying to have things both ways: that is, that I was (1) overtly sympathetic (to Mr. West’s dilemma, such as it is, as in the beginning of the video) as well as (2) dismissive (of Mr. West’s feelings), especially in light of his honest and truly open assessment of his own life in his book. Certainly your final question gets to crux of the matter. I guess I have strongly held views on art, in a way, and that the courts can’t always address the things in life that matter. I want there to be a place for new and different ideas and that the courts are already too much of a cudgel, in my view. I know that wanting this is irrelevant, but it is what I wish existed. I guess I wanted, overall, to defend the program’s originality, because it has mostly taken a beating by critics. It’s kind of like that old thing in political science about the “limited utility of force.” An army can protect or destroy, it is true, but it can’t really create a society or find your raison d’être or create justice. So too, the courts can’t do too terribly much about feelings, I suppose, though perhaps we wish it were otherwise. It is also true that I felt Adam McKay was doing something fascinating and very different, to the point that the critics were kind of missing the point-oftentimes treating Winning TIme like it was a 1980s gross out comedy, instead of something much more unique, a program to make us reconsider the history we already knew-through a hilariously exaggerated approach. I think I would not have paid the show too much more attention, except for the articles I saw about lawsuits, which drew my attention. I was honestly surprised, not so much that someone had hurt feelings, but that it was Mr. West, since I watched the show and kind of felt he was vaguely heroic, whereas Buss and Jack Kent Cooke and certain others seemed creepy and self-serving in the extreme-though of course they are dead and I’m fairly certain that a dead person can’t be libelled. In the analysis of literature, a lot of times critics aren’t sure how to ‘read’ a phantasmagoria. If they treat it as fantasy only, they might entirely miss the point, whereas if they look at the literal end, they seem to be treating a deliberate cartoon as if it were a biography or a history text. In the case of Winning Time, they largely evaluated it like it was a straight interpretative historical novel or biopic. I guess I feel it should be permitted a little latitude, to find its own voice-sort of like a cubist painting. People may not get it at first, but there is something fascinating going on. It is certainly true that Mr. West feels wronged, no question. My problem is that it ‘reads’ so much like an over the top and cartoonish absurdity that I feel he has not been wronged in the manner of a person, for example, falsely accused of assaulting another on the front page of the New York Times. It feels like Mr. West is even admitting that, in a way, demanding an apology, which he might well get, but my question is what does it accomplish? They are making a second season of the program, so Mr. W. might be in for more of the same. Please keep in mind that this is an opinion, that I came to admire and even look forward to seeing the fictional Jerry W. each week, and that I found the show so original that it stuck out as important (despite the fact that it was released in the same year as the Apple show Severance). I know it comes back to West’s feelings and I truly do see how it would be painful to be portrayed in fiction (really and truly), but it is also about what the cartoon is saying about him: for me, it doesn’t quite seem like a simple case of libel-in this instance, it feels like something harder to pin down. Still, I imagine the honest answer to your query is that it will be decided by his legal team, who will certainly proceed with things and he will get that day in court he wants, probably. It may well not be what he expects, since the damages here are unclear and frankly, iffy, and courts are tough to predict, but he will get that day. What was I driving at, then? I believe it is that one should take a longer view of the final product. Does the show wrong West and if it does, how much does it wrong him? Isn’t this a matter of degree? Where do we draw the line? I realize others will certainly see this differently and that to some people, there is never any recourse, but court. I just feel that sometimes, as with Paul Simon and DiMaggio, things kind of work out on their own and that what first seemed like a terrible wrong, didn’t exactly rise to that level. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to clarify, assuming this answer did so.
Thank you for your courteous reply; I rarely comment in these forums, as responses like yours seem as rare as they are welcome. mostly I see emoji replies, or Godwin’s law proofs. I don’t see the courts as ideal either. And agree wholly that they are relied upon too often. But I’m unsure as to the alternative, and West feels this is his option, after being hurt. I am the last person who’d propose restricting an artist’s options, but as a critic I can’t help but feel the art is weaker when it diminishes those it portrays, when it leaves real people as cartoons. And, to stretch the thought, there’s a kind of cunning and avarice in an artist giving the people what they want in this cartoon age: to seek reward for more of the same. Like Wolf of Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, the disruptive fourth wall techniques make the show savagely entertaining; they don’t make it thoughtful, or deeply insightful about the people it (ab)uses to sell the entertainment. West isn’t wrong not to want a cartoon to eclipse what he has fought for in his life, to not be ground into more food eaten at the circus.
![โรงเรียนห้ามรัก โดนจับได้ตาย...!! [เอิร์นไดเม่]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4u02Sbr556Q/mqdefault.jpg)
How does this show not have more likes ??? Here in Canada i had to dig deep to watch this amazing show. Another amazing critique. Keep it up. People will watch !!! This channel is too good not to watch !!!
I think Mr. West looked gr8 in this series. Humble, angry, and wants to win. Isnt this most gr8 men ??? I think its a sign of an amazing man.
I like your commentary. Great analysis. Difficult subject with well considered remarks. He and Elgin Baylor had two of the most frustrating careers even though both were great players and celebrated at the time. I was not so familiar With West's subsequent career. I like how you show how he is actually portrayed more sympathetically than most others in the series.
Thanks for the DEEP dive. I missed this show when it aired. It sounds like they took some huge risks with the surreal aspects of storytelling and characterization. Sometimes people don't like that.
This video, and Being There, are generally excellent.
I can’t help but feel that you are missing how Jerry West might be hurt, legitimately, by seeing himself portrayed not as himself but as a means to heightened entertainment. Isn’t the show, as fun as it is, also an easy creative choice to be outlandish, and also an economic decision to be engaging, and rewardable, not a moral attempt to portray characters with complexity. It’s disingenuous not to acknowledge that West’s image is hurt by this portrayal. The deeper question is what is his recourse if the cartoon offends him.
Thank you, Sebastian. I appreciate your well thought through comments. You raise an interesting point and I will try to address it, by going through my thoughts when I made the video. Having said that, however, I must admit to being somewhat amused, since I was initially concerned viewers might ‘read’ this essay as me trying to have things both ways: that is, that I was (1) overtly sympathetic (to Mr. West’s dilemma, such as it is, as in the beginning of the video) as well as (2) dismissive (of Mr. West’s feelings), especially in light of his honest and truly open assessment of his own life in his book. Certainly your final question gets to crux of the matter. I guess I have strongly held views on art, in a way, and that the courts can’t always address the things in life that matter. I want there to be a place for new and different ideas and that the courts are already too much of a cudgel, in my view. I know that wanting this is irrelevant, but it is what I wish existed. I guess I wanted, overall, to defend the program’s originality, because it has mostly taken a beating by critics.
It’s kind of like that old thing in political science about the “limited utility of force.” An army can protect or destroy, it is true, but it can’t really create a society or find your raison d’être or create justice. So too, the courts can’t do too terribly much about feelings, I suppose, though perhaps we wish it were otherwise. It is also true that I felt Adam McKay was doing something fascinating and very different, to the point that the critics were kind of missing the point-oftentimes treating Winning TIme like it was a 1980s gross out comedy, instead of something much more unique, a program to make us reconsider the history we already knew-through a hilariously exaggerated approach. I think I would not have paid the show too much more attention, except for the articles I saw about lawsuits, which drew my attention. I was honestly surprised, not so much that someone had hurt feelings, but that it was Mr. West, since I watched the show and kind of felt he was vaguely heroic, whereas Buss and Jack Kent Cooke and certain others seemed creepy and self-serving in the extreme-though of course they are dead and I’m fairly certain that a dead person can’t be libelled.
In the analysis of literature, a lot of times critics aren’t sure how to ‘read’ a phantasmagoria. If they treat it as fantasy only, they might entirely miss the point, whereas if they look at the literal end, they seem to be treating a deliberate cartoon as if it were a biography or a history text. In the case of Winning Time, they largely evaluated it like it was a straight interpretative historical novel or biopic. I guess I feel it should be permitted a little latitude, to find its own voice-sort of like a cubist painting. People may not get it at first, but there is something fascinating going on. It is certainly true that Mr. West feels wronged, no question. My problem is that it ‘reads’ so much like an over the top and cartoonish absurdity that I feel he has not been wronged in the manner of a person, for example, falsely accused of assaulting another on the front page of the New York Times. It feels like Mr. West is even admitting that, in a way, demanding an apology, which he might well get, but my question is what does it accomplish? They are making a second season of the program, so Mr. W. might be in for more of the same.
Please keep in mind that this is an opinion, that I came to admire and even look forward to seeing the fictional Jerry W. each week, and that I found the show so original that it stuck out as important (despite the fact that it was released in the same year as the Apple show Severance). I know it comes back to West’s feelings and I truly do see how it would be painful to be portrayed in fiction (really and truly), but it is also about what the cartoon is saying about him: for me, it doesn’t quite seem like a simple case of libel-in this instance, it feels like something harder to pin down. Still, I imagine the honest answer to your query is that it will be decided by his legal team, who will certainly proceed with things and he will get that day in court he wants, probably. It may well not be what he expects, since the damages here are unclear and frankly, iffy, and courts are tough to predict, but he will get that day. What was I driving at, then? I believe it is that one should take a longer view of the final product. Does the show wrong West and if it does, how much does it wrong him? Isn’t this a matter of degree? Where do we draw the line? I realize others will certainly see this differently and that to some people, there is never any recourse, but court. I just feel that sometimes, as with Paul Simon and DiMaggio, things kind of work out on their own and that what first seemed like a terrible wrong, didn’t exactly rise to that level.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to clarify, assuming this answer did so.
Thank you for your courteous reply; I rarely comment in these forums, as responses like yours seem as rare as they are welcome. mostly I see emoji replies, or Godwin’s law proofs.
I don’t see the courts as ideal either. And agree wholly that they are relied upon too often. But I’m unsure as to the alternative, and West feels this is his option, after being hurt. I am the last person who’d propose restricting an artist’s options, but as a critic I can’t help but feel the art is weaker when it diminishes those it portrays, when it leaves real people as cartoons. And, to stretch the thought, there’s a kind of cunning and avarice in an artist giving the people what they want in this cartoon age: to seek reward for more of the same. Like Wolf of Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, the disruptive fourth wall techniques make the show savagely entertaining; they don’t make it thoughtful, or deeply insightful about the people it (ab)uses to sell the entertainment. West isn’t wrong not to want a cartoon to eclipse what he has fought for in his life, to not be ground into more food eaten at the circus.
I wish Jerry would see this. He was a great player and a great executive.