Wednesday, March 18, 2020 — 6A
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

There’s something to be said about the 

popularity of sports movies, a genre that has 

made its name with heartwarming tales of misfits 

working together towards miraculous wins. 

Most sports films leave the audience with a sense 

of satisfaction. You know the story: The wise 

mentor coaxes talent out of an underdog team 

of misfits and ultimately leads them to victory. 

There’s a formula to these films, and it works 

every time: “Remember the Titans,” “A League of 

Their Own,” “Hoosiers,” “Field of Dreams” and 

“Rocky,” to name a few, are crowd-pleasers even 

in their predictability.

When I entered the theater to see “The Way 

Back,” I incorrectly assumed that it would be 

a 
typical 
sports 

movie. 
To 
be 

fair, there are a 

number of classic 

sports 
movie 

elements 
present 

throughout: 

a 
struggling 

misfit 
basketball 

team, 
montages 

that 
show 
their 

improvement and 

slow motion action 

shots. 
Director 

Gavin 
O’Connor 

(“Miracle”) is a sports movie veteran, and he 

knows how to play the genre well. But what 

sets “The Way Back” apart is its focus beyond 

basketball and into the deep humanity of 

addiction, grief and recovery.

This exploration of human resilience is 

centered around Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck, 

“Gone Girl”), a construction worker who is offered 

a job as the head coach of the Bishop Hayes High 

School’s basketball team. In high school, Jack was 

Bishop Hayes’s star player, leading his team to 

victory and multiple championships. Now, he’s an 

alcoholic who spends nights getting so drunk that 

he has to be carried home from the bar.

His coaching doesn’t follow the typical sports 

movie format. Jack is not a wise mentor or a steady 

rock for his struggling team to latch onto. He’s 

volatile and foul-mouthed, with a tendency to 

yell at referees and push people too far. His life is 

unstable, but he drinks with rhythmic ease. Still, 

Jack’s ties to the team are essential to its success; 

as the team starts winning games, his life starts 

to stabilize, his moods become more sedated and 

his drinking is less destructive. However, just 

because sports can temporarily improve life does 

not mean that they can fix it entirely. While most 

sports movies avoid this truth entirely, this is a 

fact that “The Way Back” openly acknowledges.

The ten Bishop Hayes Varsity players have 

different personalities, but are united by their love 

for the game. At first, Jack seems embarrassed by 

his team, embarrassed by their pregame dancing 

ritual and the fact that they keep losing games. 

But as time passes, he clearly starts to see himself 

in these kids. Whether he’s encouraging shy but 

talented point guard Brandon (Brandon Wilson, 

“Little Monk”) to step into a leadership position, 

or hypocritically chastising center Marcus 

(Melvin Gregg, “American Vandal”) for his vulgar 

language, he tries to help them forge a positive 

path to their future. He inspires his players with 

mantras and mentalities, asking his team the most 

important question after every game, win or lose: 

“What did we learn about ourselves last night?” 

Like most sports movies, you become quickly 

attached to the team and their success. You 

wince when the opposing team dunks savagely 

on an unprepared center. You cheer when one of 

the players sinks a three-point shot that swishes 

through the net 

with a satisfying 

whoosh. 
These 

players are not just 

a group of high 

school kids in blue 

jerseys — they’re 

your team now.

All the while, 

there is a slow 

reveal of details 

about Jack’s past, 

giving us a gradual 

understanding 
of 

the 
full 
picture. 

Jack’s struggle and hidden motivations are so 

engrossing that at times you almost forget that 

this is a movie about basketball — a feat that can be 

credited to Affleck’s performance. His execution 

is captivating, in his trembling fingers or the subtle 

slurring of his words when he is drunk. Affleck 

himself has had numerous public struggles with 

addiction and mental health in previous years, 

and has cited this project as a kind of therapy for 

him. Affleck is fully committed to the role, and 

this passion gives Jack a thrilling spark in a film 

full of muted colors and heavy themes.

Over the course of his season with Bishop 

Hayes, Jack gives the team a lot of advice, good 

and bad. At one of the first games, Jack sends 

the wrong message, encouraging his team to 

play dirty. By the end, he’s encouraging them in 

a different way, creating mantras about working 

together as a true team and playing with a chip 

on your shoulder. Watching his messages change 

is gratifying, even if it’s predictable. “All the little 

things add up,” he starts to tell his team. Rather 

than focus on the big things you can’t change, 

try to fix the small things that you can. These 

messages go beyond sports, into the realm of 

human problems that “The Way Back” navigates 

so comfortably. By the end, you don’t care as much 

about who won the playoffs as you do about what 

the players, and their imperfect coach, learned 

about themselves in the process.

‘The Way Back’ is a sports 
film without the formula

KARI ANDERSON

Daily Arts Writer

WARNER BROS

OK, so the world right now is a pretty 

dark place to live in. Political uncertainty, 

a quickly deteriorating environment and 

the current outbreak of a deadly pandemic 

have made 2020 one of the scariest years 

in recent history. With so much chaos 

compacted into a short period of time, it’s 

not hard to resign oneself to a pessimistic 

view of the future. 

Enter Generation Z. Born in the years 

between 1997 and 2012 and characterized 

by a love of memes and a distrust of 

authority, the young people that comprise 

Gen 
Z 
(occasionally 
referred 
to 
as 

“zoomers”) have grown to dominate social 

media and pop culture 

while 
also 
becoming 

increasingly 
involved 

in social issues. The 

largest, most ethnically 

diverse age group in 

the history of the U.S. 

has 
simultaneously 

disavowed 
the 

establishment 
and 

called for change with 

social 
movements 

like #NeverAgain and 

the 
March 
for 
Our 

Lives, 
in 
response 

to 
the 
numerous 

school shootings that 

have 
defined 
many 

childhoods.

Gen 
Z, 
while 

undoubtedly politically 

and 
socially 
active, 

maintains an air of nihilism that often 

earns them labels like “apathetic” or 

“spoiled.” This disconnect between their 

perception and reality may lie in Gen Z’s 

multifaceted attitude toward the future. 

That attitude, while complex and evolving 

with age, involves contradictions between 

idealism and realism, hope for progress 

and fear for the inevitable. 

The reasons for Gen Z’s unique outlook 

lie in the social, political, racial and 

cultural dynamics that define the modern 

world. While all these influences play a 

role in developing the Gen Z mindset, one 

small aspect of popular culture may serve 

as one of the best ways to describe the 

average Gen Z kid: The abundance of goth 

girls in children’s cartoons. 

While not the most highbrow media 

trend to analyze, the ubiquity of the “goth 

girl” trope in ’00s and ’10s kids’ TV may 

give insight into Gen Z’s tendency to 

appear apathetic while actually harboring 

deep empathy for those around them. This 

trope, though used since the inception of 

the goth subculture in the early 1970s, 

was most visible during the mid-2000s — 

formative years for the vast majority of 

Gen Z.

Many shows produced on popular 

children’s networks like Nickelodeon, 

Disney Channel and Cartoon Network 

feature a specific stock character of the 

goth girl with a black heart of gold. These 

characters are often presented as walking 

contradictions: Sam Manson from “Danny 

Phantom” hunts ghosts, but is a steadfast 

vegetarian; Gwen from “Total Drama 

Island” always has a sarcastic one-liner 

for her competitors, but also has the 

intelligence to make it to the faux-reality 

show’s 
finale. 
Thorn 

and the Hex Girls of the 

“Scooby-Doo” franchise 

have 
a 
witchcraft-

themed 
heavy 
metal 

band, 
yet 
care 
for 

the 
planet 
as 
self-

proclaimed “eco-goths.” 

These 
characters, 

each meant to act as 

unlikely 
protagonists 

and role models for the 

young 
audience, 
have 

two 
important 
traits 

in common: a gothic 

aesthetic 
with 
an 

uninterested 
exterior 

and a secret passion for 

supporting the people 

and causes they believe 

in. 

Gen 
Z 
viewers 

watching these goth girls take TV by storm 

were paying close attention. E-girls and 

e-boys have recently emerged as lifestyle 

trends on youth-oriented apps like TikTok, 

and memes heralding the goth women and 

men of the 2000s are all over the Internet. 

Clearly, these cartoon tropes have made 

an impact on popular culture visually, so 

the idea that they may have had a strong 

influence on Gen Z as kids may not be so 

far-fetched. 

Though cartoon goth girls only provide 

a small glimpse into the childhoods of 

this generation, analysis of this trope 

contextualizes the simple, everyday media 

messages that Gen Z grew up with. In 

understanding the actions and motivations 

of Gen Z today, it’s worth examining 

why exactly we became so hopeful and 

pessimistic. We do not exist in a vacuum — 

we did not make ourselves this way. As this 

generation ages, realizing what created us 

informs how we can move forward.

Gen Z is going goth and our 
cartoons might be the reason

ANYA SOLLER
Daily Arts Writer

BUTCH HARTMAN

FILM REVIEW

“The Way Back”

Dir. Gavin O’Connor

Warner Bros. Pictures

Clearly, these cartoon 
tropes have made an 
impact on popular 
culture visually, so 

the idea that they may 

have had a strong 

influence on Gen Z as 
kids may not be so far-

fetched

TV NOTEBOOK

