Catch da Flava Radio - Gridiron Movie Review

I’m sure we all love talking about movies that inspire us to do better and be better. For our March 8th show, me and other youth members from Radio Regent took part in a panel discussion about a movie called Gridiron. Gridiron is about a counselor (The Rock) at a juvenile detention facility who decides to turn the young inmates in his charge into a football team to give them a sense of self-respect and social responsibility, but he faces opposition from high-school coaches who do not want their players facing criminals on the field. The outcome was pretty hilarious as well as interesting because we had more females than males on the panel. One of the questions asked was if you had a child that was in & out of jail or just giving trouble at home and was enrolled in the Gridiron challenge without say, how would you feel? One of the ladies said that they would question their parenting skills or themselves because as much as he gives trouble, would they really want to risk his life in trying to help him become a better man?


We discussed various ways about how dangerous it might be if your son was sent there and we also talked about how in a crazy way, how much it might actually help. Things get technical because the facility was designed to help groom these young inmates into independent, ambitious men with good morals and a sense of purpose, so they decided to use football. Which makes sense because it gives the young men a chance to take out their aggression in a way that wouldn't get them arrested. But it doesn't help when all of them are each representing a different gang. In this movie, though we learned that no matter how different each one of them is, they all have one goal and that is to live to see another day. We all agreed that some of these scenes we saw involved gunshots and abusive relationships, which we found shocking and epic.

Imagine having a little brother involved in a gang with you and you're supposed to be the one setting the example- what mindset would you have to be in? How would you walk out of that life? Some of us mentioned that it’s sad how lacking of resources there was back in those days. When they're not there, it causes a negative chain reaction. I'd say the movie really captured the reality of how people react to others who are different. Look at how the boys and the coach were judged when they asked their boys to be allowed to play against other high schools. They acted like the boys weren't humans with feelings, as if they didn't deserve a chance at feeling normal even if it was just for a moment. We strongly disliked the fact that the CEO only looked at the matter from a negative side. I mean are you telling me that the boys who weren't inmates would really be traumatized by a different style of competition? Football is football- am i right or wrong? But isn't it interesting how they come together through football and they’re so diverse at that. I’d like to thank the panel participants Beverly, Diamond, and Erika for participating. I'm glad that they learnt something and I hope that it motivates everyone to be more compassionate and understanding as a whole.​

By: Travis

Listen to Podcast:
(coming soon)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Camping with the Divas Girls Group

Catch da Flava - Pro-Life and Pro-Choice

Catch da Flava - Discussing Mental Helath and Peacebuilders