Preview

Love And Basketball Character Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
737 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Love And Basketball Character Analysis
Positive things about Love & Basketball

Here’s the run-down. Love & Basketball is deceivingly simple in its structure. The movie is divided into the quarters of a basketball game and tells the story of a boy and a girl. Meeting at about the age 11, the film traces their lives as they run parallel and run apart from childhood, to high school, to college, and just after. Monica and Quincy each have their hopes and their dreams. They both want to play basketball on a professional level. For Quincy, it is easier and expected since he is the son of a professional player. It is harder for Monica, both being a woman and as a daughter whose mother cannot understand why she does not want to grow up to be a pretty stay at home wife. Through the whole
…show more content…
This movie shows that no matter what race, gender, or where you came from you can be a successful athlete. Monica is a black female basketball player with an attitude of a male who makes it to the pros. Going into her senior year of high school, Monica was afraid she wasn’t getting any looks by colleges and at the games she was getting looked at she was riding the bench because of her attitude, but the movie showed that it is important to have a strong support system at home. Her parents recognized it and put her in her place! A good athlete has to be all around good. They have to be focused in the classroom and respectable on and off the court! The movie showed how important a healthy home life is needed in more ways than just at Monica’s home. Quincy’s father was a professional athlete that was cheating on his mother. This unhealthy home life affected Quincy and his athletics. Quincy didn’t finish college because of it and entered the draft. After he entered the draft he hurt his knee; consequently he thought his basketball career was over. That was also another positive aspect of the movie, showing the importance of education! If Quincy had finished college and received a college degree he would have had something to fall back …show more content…
A story based on two individuals whom are childhood sweethearts trying to balance following their dreams while trying to keep their love alive is ultimately the hardest thing to do in the eyes of a student athlete of any age! Watching this movie gives you hope that it can actually happen. I know people who try to live this life. Truth be told, it can only happen in a fairy tale though! I don’t believe it. A little girl finds herself in a new neighborhood and having to make new friends. She stumbles upon some boys playing basketball. Being the tomboy she is, she assumes they will let her play. She ends up in a fight with one boy, Quincy. She goes home only to hear her mom go on and on about how she needs to be more girly and quit trying to be one of the boys. Monica has heard this bit her whole life. The young boy is fascinated by Monica; he has probably never had a girl ever stand up to him in that way. He asks her to be his girlfriend and they share their first kiss together. Throughout the years they maintain their strong friendship, living so close together they comfort each other during family problems. They live window to window. They get to high school and Quincy is, of course, quite the ladies’ man; being the best basketball player in the state, they tend to have that effect. Monica plays too, but in high school her anger problems are out of control on the court. Little did they know their romantic

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    It is loosely based on a true story of a small high school basketball team. The story is located in a small farming community in Indiana where a new coach that has an unknown past and other than a traditional coaching style steps into a vacated role. The new ideas and ideals presented are met with reluctance and resistance from the players and local population who are engrained deeply with traditional thinking. Over time, and not without great resistance, the new coach inspires the team and the locals to embrace new ideals and structure. Along the way, the coach also inspires a former local basketball superstar to rejoin the team and in turn saves the coach from removal from his job as head coach. Although great underdogs, the team goes on to win the Indiana State Basketball…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hoosiers a Film Review

    • 1284 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Our setting is rural Indiana in a town called Hickory. It’s a place that’s resistant to change. Hickory is a place where, according to Myra Fleener, a character in the film, “basketball heroes are treated like gods”. This town takes their basketball seriously, a setting where the new basketball coach faces the obstacle of sleuth of second-guessing fathers.…

    • 1284 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Od in Hoosiers

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The movie Hoosiers was a great story that dealt with many of the topics covered in our readings for the week. The story is about a small-town Indiana basketball team that overcomes many challenges to win the state championship. The main character of the movie is Norman Dale, a passionate basketball coach that faces many obstacles in his attempt to teach his players about the benefits of working together as a team. The movie dealt with many team oriented topics such as team development, interdependence, group cohesiveness, intergroup problems, and confrontation.…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The film also portrays the stereotypes that were used against the group of Asian American friends. At a party, a couple of white varsity sports players made racist jokes against them, but that caused Daric, one of the main characters, to fight them and the Asian American group ended up beating one of the white varsity players. After that, people at the high school started treating them with more respect. Another interesting aspect about the movie was that there were no parents. I felt that this brought all of the attention towards the struggles that the high school students felt, without being repressed by the perspective of the parents. I enjoyed this film very much. I thought it was very funny and was also very accurate on portraying the stereotypes that Asian American high schoolers had to go through.…

    • 299 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sacred Hoops

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Lastly this book shows how sports can greatly affect people 's lives. People can be affected for the greater, worse, or sports help them find abetted place. Some players careers can go so great, per say Michael Jordan, who is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Basketball affected his life so positively because he was so good, and because of this his life was great. For some people sports can also tear their life apart, say they have a rough year or an injury, this could get to their head and mess up their career. So many athletes are affected by injuries and after they attempt a comeback might never play as good as they did before because they let it get to their heads. There are also people like Phil Jackson that playing professional basketball wasn 't made for him, so once he learned that he figured out that his thing was coaching, and he became one of the greatest coaches ever because of how much the sport of basketball impacted his life.…

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The exceptionally engaging film, Hoop Dreams goes deep into the life that surrounds basketball. To make it, a player has to be something more then just a good player. They need to be belligerent, well trained, surpass academically, and unaware of anything that doesn't include basketball. The highly thought out, and heartrending film closely records the lives of two Chicago teenagers as we watch their struggle of basketball, to become the best.…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hoop Dreams Themes

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Another theme we talked about in class was the challenges that African American athletes face in school and at home. In college sports, minority male athletes and revenue-producing sport athletes tend to achieve less academically. In fact, most athletes spend more time on sport-related activities than on school-related activities during the season. This was especially true in the documentary. Both William Gates and Arthur Agee struggled in school and had a hard time keeping their grades up. William Gates struggled to achieve the minimum score needed to attend Marquette University while Arthur Agee 's scores were so low…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The movie Love & Basketball was released in 2000, however the events in the film take place starting back in 1981 in Los Angeles, California. Monica, one of main characters, moves in next door to Quincy, the other main character. At this time, they are both 11 years old with big dreams of playing in the NBA, just like Quincy’s dad. As they both attended the same schools, their love-hate relationship lasts into high school, only their attitudes separated them, except when Quincy parents argue and he climbs through Monica’s bedroom winder to sleep on the floor at night. As high school ends, they become a couple, but within a year, when they both begin college at USC, things take a turn for the worst after Quincy’s relationship with his dad takes an ugly turn, which caused him to break up with Monica. After five years, both of their professional careers come to a crossroad and Quincy and Monica meet again, leading up to a final game of one-on-one with a lot at stake. This movie shows different representations of gender roles, falling somewhere in the middle of a resistant representation and a reaffirmation of gender roles. As the two main characters were the same age, same university, both at the same class standing and both play the same sport of basketball, gender performance was clear by Monica’s treatment throughout the movie.…

    • 1766 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hoop Dreams Analysis

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The movie Hoop Dreams traced a poor young talented African American named Arthur Agee from grade eight to college. Arthur hoped to play professional basketball in the future to help his family to escape poverty. Despite the fact that his family background and the neighborhood he lived in, disadvantaged him to pursue his goal in many ways. Firstly, Arthur is determined to play professional basketball, in order to help out his family. Secondly, his ability to adapt difficult circumstances played a significant role toward his success in basketball. Thirdly, his education value hoping that playing basketball could lead him to a college education. For Author playing basketball, it is not only a fun activity for him, but it also acted as a tool to…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Where you are can explain who you are. Why you are in a particular place and how you got there tell an outside observer about your decisions and the inferred motives behind those decisions. In “Ex-Basketball Player,” John Updike introduces a character whose surroundings emulate his success in life: Flick Webb. Flick’s momentary success did not remain later in his life. Because setting partially defines a person, Updike uses it, along with tone and irony to remind readers that success is as fickle as humans themselves.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A League of Their Own

    • 363 Words
    • 1 Page

    In regards to the roles of the women and coach with one another, for example, the coach barely cares at first about the team and states "girls can't play baseball", and how he doesn't have a team of ballplayers, but a "team of girls". We however later see a transformation in him that shows his true love of the game, looking past what gender roles were considered back then. Another example is where is Marla, who is a better hitter than most men, yet is almost not allowed in the league because she is considered "ugly". In conclusion, the movie expressed how hard it was for women to be taken seriously outside of "housewife" labels that were bestowed upon them. This film also adds the twist of women struggling to prove themselves as athletes in the 1940s before the Women’s rights movement and Title IX were established, and I believe this movie contributed some insight that way for…

    • 363 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    I was an eight year old kid when I had my first ever glimpse of the NBA Basketball. It was a lanky afro manchild doing a reverse dunk versus Indiana right in front of the Laker crowd. Crowd was in awe, Commentators were ecstatic and Kevin Harlan in his usual voice saying, Kobe can’t be denied. That day, my love affair with the Los Angeles Lakers started.…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Finding Forrester

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Race is a huge issue in the film and many stereotypes are made. Jamal Wallace is introduced in the film as a typical black teenage male who goes to a low class school in the Bronx and really excels on the court as a basketball player. Not too many people thought of him as being anything more than that, due to the fact that Jamal makes mediocre grades in his school in the Bronx, he does just enough to get by and to maintain a "C" average. Jamal did not push himself any harder in the classroom than he needed to. Jamal's passion is writing, you gather this information early in the film due to stacks of books and things that are shown collecting on his desk at home. His mother states " I always see him writing in those Journal's of his."…

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Father She Needed

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Stephanie is thirteen years old and the difficult part of her life is just beginning. She has a mother who has gone through several marriages and none of Stephanie’s stepfathers have ever cared about her until now. Stephanie, despite constant criticism from her mother Helen, pushes herself to perfect her shot-put skills to the best of her ability with her stepfather. Over time, her relationship with her stepfather strengthens, which in turn gives her the encouragement that she wanted, and the true father figure that she desperately needed.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Love and Basketball

    • 986 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The movie starts out with the main characters, Quincy and Monica. Both of them love to play basketball more then they love doing anything else. Quincy is in awe of how good Monica is at playing for a girl. They become friends with each other and remain friends throughout high school. Monica was never big on having a boyfriend and that is something Quincy makes fun of her for. She doesn’t care because all she is interested in is playing ball. After some time Monica starts to fall in love with Quincy and he starts to fall for her also. They end up getting scholarships to the same university and remain together. When Quincy gets news that his father has been cheating on his wife, he slowly falls apart. This causes a huge argument between Monica and him and their relationship falls apart. His playing ability also starts to go downhill as hers reaches a peak. After time goes by they remain apart from each other and keep playing ball for professional teams. Quincy gets hurt on the court and suddenly can’t play anymore. While he is out from basketball he gets engaged while Monica keeps playing basketball. Eventually Monica tells him her feelings for him and how she is still in love with him. At the end of the movie they end up playing a game of one-on-one for his heart. She…

    • 986 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics