Michael Jordan's "Last Dance" around Social Responsibility

"I thought this was about the Temptations. Nope. It's about David Ruffin." Sport historian Louis Moore posted this on Twitter about halfway through the first episode of the highly anticipated sports documentary, The Last Dance. The ESPN and Netflix ten-hour coproduction was pitched as a film about the last season of the Chicago Bulls dynasty from the 1990s; however, as Moore's tweet suggests, it does not take long to realize the documentary is more Michael Jordan hagiography than a lucid account of, arguably, the greatest sports' dynasty of all time. But for any sports fan who followed Michael Jordan's basketball career, this should not be a surprise. It was hardly a surprise for Jordan's teammates. In the introduction of the series, when asked about what made the Bulls dynasty a thing, teammate Steve Kerr says, "I guess what's unique is that … we've got Michael." Even so, as the episodes unravel and many learn that Jordan was who they thought he was, it did not stop millions from tuning in every Sunday, for five consecutive weeks, during a global pandemic. In fact, the experience of watching The Last Dance may be remembered as much as the concerted efforts to give flowers to the living legend.

In some ways, though, centering the documentary on Michael Jordan works. It offers a protagonist that allows the narrative to jump back and forth seamlessly. For example, in Episode One, a shot that begins in October 1997 with Jordan and the Bulls gearing up for their "last dance" immediately flashes back to his college playing days at the University of North Carolina to set the tone. In the interviews with former teammates and coaches from Chapel Hill, it is clear that they believed Jordan was on his way to being special. James Worthy, future basketball hall of famer and Jordan's college teammate, recalls being "better than him for about two weeks." And, after being advised to leave college early for the NBA, Jordan's rookie season was framed as one hellbent on changing the culture surrounding the Chicago Bulls from a "cocaine circus" to a championship contender. From here, the legend of Michael Jordan takes off, accompanied by one of the many highlight reels cut to classic hip-hop tracks (the first was Eric B. and Rakim's "I Ain't No Joke").

The Jordan-centered approach also works because it helps introduce a new generation to an athletic icon whom they mostly know from the "Jumpman" logo, no small feat. For most sports fans under forty, Michael Jordan the player is a distant memory that has been imaginatively patched together with a series of game footage, retro sneaker releases, and popular culture references. Thus, to young viewers, to be "like Mike" is a cliché that captured 1990s culture, and that is it. But this is partly why, according to the sports journalist Michael Wilbon, The Last Dance is vital for today's generation of sports fans and current NBA players. "[They] will discover they can't move like Jordan did, play with his savvy and gamesmanship, talk as much trash, hit as many game winners, defend like him, play with his controlled rage and lead a team like him," Wilbon states. "And they'll likely never win as many titles." This is made clear: to be "like Mike" in the 1990s meant to win at all cost—and he did.

But just as important as the highlights are in The Last Dance, produced by a man invested in controlling his own public image, so too are the omissions. For example, while Jordan's mother and siblings make brief appearances, his children are hardly present and his two wives—Juanita, to whom he was married for seventeen years, and Yvette Prieto, his current wife—are either barely mentioned or not even interviewed. Perhaps this is because Jordan did not want to take the focus too far away from the team. But this, however, cannot explain the Craig Hodges exclusion. Hodges, who was Michael Jordan's teammate during the 1991 and 1992 championship seasons, is neither...