The Curious Political Attacks on Next Goal Wins

Next Goal Wins tells the true story of the American Samoan soccer team in a unique type of sports film. It’s not about a team that wants to win a big game or tournament. Instead, they have the more modest goal of not being the worst team in the entire world. In 2001, the team gave up 31 goals to Australia marking the most lopsided victory in the history of World Cup qualifying.

Michael Fassbender plays Dutch-American coach Thomas Rongen who (in one of many instances of dramatic embellishment) has been fired from three previous jobs meaning that this is the end of the line for him. His life is in turmoil. He lost a daughter in a crash, and his wife (Elizabeth Moss) separated from him. When he wants to return to the States, she levels with him there really isn’t anywhere for him to go. Ouch!

Next Goal Wins follows the beats of a typical sports movie, but only to a certain extent. It’s a travelogue that has pedagogical appeal in teaching us about the blip in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that flies an American flag but feels like a world all its own. More importantly, it portrays the culture with an overwhelming sense of joy. In fact, American Samoans’ priority for fun in sports is a refreshing contradiction to our cultural drive for victory (past Little League, at least).

The film is marked by three central relationships. Despite the fact that Rongen was happily married through it all, Waititi felt it gave him more of an arc to be separated or divorced but aiming to find amiability with his ex; The Soloist, Moneyball, and Begin Again are other films that have gone down this road. Secondly, Oscar Knightley plays the federation chief of Samoan soccer who serves as a foil (of the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” variety) and comic relief. Lastly, there’s a transgender player named Jaiyah who is currently within the legal bounds of eligibility for a man’s team but will soon transition to a woman.

With increased sensitivity to portrayals of identity, filmmakers risk coming under fire today for putting together a White character and a marginalized person if they lean more on one or the other, whether it’s the White Savior trope or the equivalent of a Magical Negro character.

This film has faced a small amount of backlash (here and here) over the fumbling of its trans character. It’s certainly something that needs to be examined: In the case of Polygon’s criticism, they claim Rongen doesn’t apologize to Jaiyah for dead naming her. The article also faults the film for having a homophobic character in the first place, without accounting for the context that most people in 2011 would be far more uneducated on transgenderism than the present day.

Esther Zuckerman at Indiewire writes that the film “highlights (and tries to get some laughs out of) her otherness and seems unequipped to handle discussions of hormones and other facets of transness.” I’d challenge Zuckerman to find an instance where any jokes are in the script about her otherness. There are jokes about culture clash, but nearly everything in the script from the musical tone to the gravity of Jaiyah being misgendered is treated with solemnity.

We can quibble about these vague definitions, but the larger point might be that Taiki Waititi has a long history of highlighting LGBTQ visibility in his work. In an interview with Out Magazine:

Taika Waititi loves telling queer love stories.

The director, star, and co-writer of Marvel Studios’ new film Thor: Love and Thunder has been known lately for his romantic LGBTQ+ storytelling, both in the HBO Max series Our Flag Means Death, and in the latest Thor, where he plays gay characters who get to fall in love.

Why does he love getting to tell these kinds of stories? Because he says he can relate to them on a personal level.

“We’re all queer,” Waititi tells Out when asked why he likes telling LGBTQ+ love stories so much. “Just to varying degrees of where we are on the [sexuality] spectrum, I think. I think, innately, humans have all got some degree of queerness in them.”

Because of that, he was excited to bring that queerness to his new movie. “With Thor, it’s great to be able to finally get Tessa’s character, and my character as well, where we’re both queer,” he says.

While Valkyrie getting her love interest was the dream that didn’t happen in Love and Thunder, we should remember that this movie is a Disney movie, and Disney is exceedingly slow when it comes to queer representation.

In much of his work. He mentioned that for a GLAD survey, that all of his characters in What We Do in the Shadows are queer in some ways. He added a queer element to the story Our Flag Means Death midway through and confirmed in an interview that Jojo Rabbit has a queer storyline. Some might consider each of these moves unnecessary. In the case of the former, the nature of the vampires on WWDITS is pretty clearly depraved and ravenous and might better be viewed without traditional sexual boundaries rather than as political talking points.

Perhaps, the recent WWDITS fifth season episode “Pride Parade” highlights the absurdity of the box that Waititi’s work is put in by others. In the episode in question, neighbor Sean is running for city comptroller and decides to put on a pride parade featuring his vampire neighbors, because they’re all gay. Despite the fact that Nandoor and Lazslo’s relationship has included casual hand jobs and Lazlo has a crush on Sean himself, being labeled as “gay” comes off as odd to the vampires.

This might be seen as very similar to Waititi himself, who publicly came out in 2022.

In his press statement, he said, “I’ve never really put a label on myself. I’ve never really felt the need to. I think if you’re attracted to someone, it doesn’t matter what gender they are.”

It’s fitting that in the episode, Nandor and Lazslo are not particularly cognizant of Sean’s definition of queer, but agree to it anyway.

In Next Goal Wins, Taiki Waititi made a conscious choice to elevate the character. The real-life Jaiyah was a high schooler who rode the bench and got 10 minutes of playing time in the entire tournament. Her on-screen counterpart was the team captain, Rongen’s best friend, and made two of the key plays to secure a win.

Furthermore, the film has a clear thesis. The legitimacy of the two-spirit principle — the idea that transgenderism has a Native American historical basis and is not a recent invention — has become a contested theory even among Native Americans. Waititi takes careful care to explain that gender fluidity is part of Samoan culture and even has a name (“fa’afafine”).

Next Goal Wins is an inherently political film. Many might call the embellishments of the historical record within the bounds of typical dramatic license for this film. What should be acknowledged is that Waititi chose this culture because he wanted to tackle the two-spirit theory and that the media praised and elevated this movie because of a transgender character.

Acknowledging this bias certainly doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong or right about the two-spirit movement, transgenderism, or the fa’afafine.

In fact, I found it to be narratively effective and a beautiful story. Since forever, sports films like Bad News Bears, Mighty Ducks, A League of Their Own, and Hoosiers have relied on cranky coaches who’d rather be anywhere else learning to meet their teams halfway and accept a different team culture. In a narrative sense, Jaiya is as far away from Rongen’s experience so it’s an ideal relationship that thematically ties in deeper to the traditional coach’s journey.

Critics on the right would do well to acknowledge the bias behind the film’s purpose and enjoy it. Critics on the left who use their platforms as gatekeepers of cinema to enforce standards of marginalized representation (often, by their narrow definitions) would do well to not put someone who aligns with their goals, like Waititi, into an increasingly conscripted tight-wire act with so few options as to what a positive LGBT film can be.

What I'm Watching April edition: What We Do in the Shadows, Unorthodox, Kidding, On Becoming a God in Central Florida, Middleditch and Schwartz

What We Do in the Shadows (FX)-One of my serendipitous discoveries last year, this Taiki Wahiti adaptation shows no signs of losing its edge. The series premiere kicked off with Haley Joel Osment in a stroke of divine inspiration. By the third episode, there's some legitimate character development as Guillermo realizes that maybe vampiring has some negative side effects (i.e. humans getting the blood sucked out of them) in a revelation that parallels "The Good Place"'s Michael. While the show works episodically, it could go next level with an arc. Fingers crossed!

Kidding (Showtime)-Is Jim Carrey known as a sad guy? I don't know his biography but in the wake of Robin Williams' death, the publicity for Louie CK's instability, "Honey Boy" (which details the abuse of stand-up-comedian-turned-actor Shia LaBeouf), it's an increasingly common perception that comedians are dark people. Oh yeah, and there's "The Joker." While the show centers around a Mr. Rogers expy named Jeff Pickles who is losing his marbles and doesn't have the capacity to express it, it treads in the same "sad comedian" trope and it's surely no coincidence that Jim Carrey is cast here.

The basic synopsis of Pickles's problems is he lost his son in a car crash and the incident drove him and his wife (Judy Greer) to the point of his divorce. The beauty of the series is that his personality and affectations are so much more complicated: He can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to his desire to be kind, he represses his emotions, and his inability to creatively control his program is compounded with how much of a control freak he is. Joining him for the ride are Diedre (the ridiculously talented Catherine Keener) as his sister who is also a puppeteer for the show. She's not as far along the edge of dysfunction as Jeff and functions as an interesting counter-example for if Jeff dealt with his grief much better.

The show isn't afraid to blur the fourth wall in the show-within-the-show segments and there's a certain psychedelic mood. This is a show that feels like LSD was either involved in the making of it somehow or intended to play into the target audience. In other words, it's a show that's bold and that's something worth watching.

On Becoming a God in Central Florida (Showtime)-Anti-heroes in TV's Golden Age are generally built from the same Elizabeth Jennings or Walter White (or now Marty Byrde of "Ozark") mold: Master chess players who constantly have to answer with their back against the wall to various dangerous people who want opposite things from them. This show presents us with a protagonist who might succeed based on moxey and spunk alone but it’s equally likely she'll shoot herself in the foot first. Krystal’s lack of certainty makes for a show that’s sublimely unpredictable. 

Krystal Stubbs (Kirsten Dunst) is a water-park employee who becomes widowed in the pilot episode by a man who threw all their money in a pyramid scheme. She needs some form of financial relief and neither her water park employee, her misogynistic neighbor, her debt collector, or her late husband's pyramid scheme "family" is willing to give her much leeway. The first couple episodes show the glimmers of good news that are stretched between dark spells and that's a bit hard to watch. Tragedy is all well and good at the movies but when you're watching a character get beaten up week in and out, what's the point?

But when Stubbs tricks her husband's lackey into giving him stage time (locking him in a closet under the guise of seducing him; a strangely cathartic scene) at the pyramid scheme convention, she discovers she has the power to influence people. The problem is her foil (Ted Levine in a high water mark) has a scam of a company to begin with and she can't do much within his rules.

The show is set in the 1990s when pyramid schemes were at their most popular with period appropriate details. The FAM pyramid scheme is portrayed as a tragic cult (laid on pretty heavy) but, hey that's capitalism in a nutshell. At least that's the thesis of this series. 

Source: Time Magazine

Unorthodox (Netflix)-As someone who has spent time on the fringes of an Orthodox community in Richmond, Virginia, I have seen modern Orthodox Judaism up close and have had a billion questions about it but those questions are entirely different than the practitioners of the religion themselves. I've always wondered why these people are stuck to such a regimental lifestyle and if there are any potential dangers if they took such restrictions too far. The people I met were mostly concerned with how to best observe the Torah without critically going beyond that. Still, these people had connections to the outside world and choices. I had heard stories about communities in the American Northeast where the rules were even more rigid and that's where I had legitimate worry about how my own religion could have some messed-up consequences for the people born into it who might not want to participate at their parents' level of observance. In essence, that's what this series is about: The uglier side of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism and it's very effective at shaking up our doubts.

Source: Vulture

Middleditch and Schwartz (Netflix)-Ever go to a long-form improv and feel like it wasn't your thing? It's probably that you just didn't see the art form with people who know what they're doing. 

Thomas Middleditch and Ben Schwartz are freaking geniuses at this art form. They effortlessly switch characters; incorporate comic tics very early on so you're laughing sooner than later; and thing several steps ahead to where the story should go. It's not too far-fetched to think that they could write a sitcom pilot on the spot. Jesse David Fox wrote an excellent article about how this could resurrect the often maligned form of improv, but the problem is that most improv shows you see don't feature people with these abilities. 

Watching these two only makes me want to watch more of these two and their unique spin on the form. The only problem is that Middleditch and Schwartz only have three episodes. Doesn't Netflix give everything a minimum of six episodes? Were production costs that high for filming two people playing pretend on stage?

Ten Honorable Mentions in Television for the best of 2019

Every year I do a top 12 list (check the label) for the best of the year in television and add an extra top 10 honorable mentions. Through thick and thin, I've done this list for 12 straight years and treated it with the gravity as if I'm announcing the Nobel Prizes. This year, I thought I'd separate the honorable mentions and give them their own entry for space reasons. Perhaps, also the readers can best absorb ten entries at one time.

Source: Den of Geek

American Horror Story: 1984 (FX)-As if the homage to the horror films of the 1980s wasn’t enough, the deluge of aerobics, side pony tails, synthesizer music and whatever else to set the place and time with the delicacy of a sledgehammer. But, hey, I dug the series’ cheekily self-referential tone and strong sense of place. Like other versions of AHS, the series is guilty of overpopulating its villains but there was a surprisingly strong thru-line to keep the narrative engaging and a couple genuinely bitching heroines worth rooting for.

Black Mirror (Netflix) -Charlie Brooker's prescient sci-fi anthology set in some unspecified near future continues to stay fresh and kinetic in its 5th season. That there were only three episodes is a source of complaint but each episode is relevant in multiple ways to our technoscape (isn't talking to the bastards who made your technology when it blows up on you the ultimate vicarious fantasy?) and meticulously crafted (all the little foreshadowings show up on rewatch).

Bless the Harts (Fox)- The first animated Sunday night entry in Fox to earn a second season renewal since "Bob's Burgers", this take on red state lower class working families would be in danger of being seen as a condescending parody of it weren't so sweet. The characters (a single mother, daughter, serious boyfriend and live-in mother) are all fully-formed comic creations and they bounce off each other well. The show also gets extra mileage out of a most amusing passive-aggressive rivalry between two grandmas (one played by guest star Mary Steenburgen showing off a previously unseen vicious side)

Source: Variety

Derry Girls (Channel 4/Netflix)-Of the many shows featuring teenagers I saw this year, few were as funny and fewer captured both the gut-wrenching awkwardness and carefree joy as this entry. The show is also a wayward family sitcom as the bickering family members of three generations keep the show lively.  Set in Northern Ireland at the heat of the IRA’s disruption in the 1990s, the show is rooted in a strong set of place and time. The season finale in which James traded an unstable mother for the continued awkwardness of being a boy in an all-girls school made no sense (nothing ever does with James' situation) but it was an earned emotional coda.

Disenchantment (Netflix)-This appeared in my top 12 last year based on potential and while it needs to round it still needs to round its lead characters, it has the visual richness and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it humor that made “Futurama” so rewatchable. Additionally, it’s a positive sign for the show’s world-building that Luci, Derek, and Oona got appropriately TGIF-ish (but not too cheesy) special episodes of the week.

Source: The Verge

Good Omens (Amazon)-The juxtaposition of minute details and unaware characters with unimaginable cataclysms was something I’d missed since…well..a few months earlier when “Miracle Workers” was on the air. That’s ok, we can never get enough apocalyptic comedy and the British whimsy (mostly in the tradition of Douglas Adams) approach is always welcome. The series is adapted from a Neil Gaiman book about a lowly angel and demon who violate their bosses’ orders to prolong the end of days. Because the book is so dense, the miniseries has the deck stacked against it in terms of delivering digestible entertainment because of all the exposition-oriented hurdles. Still, the series does an admirable job and the sweet odd couple of David Tenant and Michael Sheen is quite sweet. 

The Other Two (Comedy Central)-A wayward exploration of the effects of sudden viral fame, “The Other Two” has the sharpness in dialogue that is reminiscent of “30 Rock” with a tinge of family sitcom sweetness. The show is about a YouTube sensation modelled after Justin Bieber but it wisely focuses on the lives of the four cogs in his support system: The overly eager manager (Ken Marino), the menopausal mom seeking her positivity (Molly Shannon), and the two flailing adult siblings who had performance aspirations (Helene Yorke and Drew Tarver). The fact that the two adult siblings are supportive and not bitter of their brother gives the show a requisite gooeyness that places it on the list.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

The Orville (Fox)-When this show premiered, there was a very understandable chorus of bafflement by critics. Copying the Star Trek universe so closely that it bordered on copyright infringement, spending a lavish budget without any pay off on special effects, and straddling the most awkward line between comedy and drama screamed like a Seth McFarlane vanity project. But towards the back half of its second season, the show cemented itself as a show that offered something the Star Trek universe was lacking: A remedy to the stuffy atmosphere that permeated Starfleet (particularly in TNG).  It seems much more natural that the crew members would drink alcohol and play pranks on each other, doesn’t it? So think of Orville as a version of TNG with characters who are a little looser. The drama is still there. The science is really there. And occasionally there’s a belching contest. No biggie.

Source: Den of Geek

Russian Doll (Netflix)-Natasha Lyonne's protagonist here is such a sweetheart, her id-driven M.O. doesn't come off rude but more exposing the superfluous of polite banality. The show could have done more to get viewers invested in the actual logistics of the Groundhog-Day-like time loop or eliminated all the technobabble about it altogether. However, on the level of a woman (and later, a stranger/friend) seeking growth and being forced into it, the show was genuinely moving.

Source: Den of Geek

What We Do in the Shadows (FX)-I was going to go with “Baroness von Sketch show" in this slot until I saw this on another end of the year list and saw the name Jermaine Clement as one of the creators (Jojo Rabbit’s Taiki Waititi is also on the creative side). While not up there with “Flight of the Conchords” in relatability, it’s a bizarre trip about four vampires clashing with modern-day Staten Island that has a surreal brand of humor that occasionally knocked me straight over.

And for reference, here's all the shows I watched at least one episode of in 2019. If they have an asterisk, that means exactly one episode (minus the top 12):

Abby’s (NBC), Adam Ruins Everything (TruTV), Almost Famous (ABC), Archer (FX), Baroness von Sketch Show (IFC), Big Mouth (Netflix), Card Sharks (ABC), Castle Rock (Hulu), Carmen Sandiego (Netflix), Carnival Row (Amazon)* Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (CBSAA), Corporate (Comedy Central), Crashing (HBO)*, Chernobyl (AMC)*, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW), Dollface (Hulu), Documentary Now (IFC), Final Space (TBS/Netflix)*, Fresh off the Boat (ABC), Futureman (Hulu), God Friended Me (CBS), Good Girls (NBC), Grand Hotel (ABC), Hot Date (Pop TV), I-Land (Netflix), I Think You Should Lave (Netflix), Perfect Harmony (NBC), Politician (Netflix), Sex Education (Netflix), Schitt’s Creek (PopTV), Shrill (Hulu), Society (Netflix), Superstore (NBC), Sunnyside (NBC), Those Who Can’t (TruTV), Thirteen Reasons Why (Netflix), Undone (Amazon Prime), Umbrella Academy (Netflix), Will and Grace (NBC), Yellowstone (Paramount Network)