My Penn colleague Salamishah Tillet has just penned a piece on Spike Lee’s Kobe Bryant documentary, Kobe Doin’ Work, which ESPN aired this past weekend. I DVR’d the final section of the film, so I was able to catch a little bit of it.
Tillet and I co-taught a course on Spike Lee last semester, so we both got re-acquainted with all of his films. We even took our students to see (and critically engage) his latest theatrical release, Miracle at St. Anna. (I blogged about that course last year.)
Tillet’s article is a review of the Kobe film and the Kobe phenomenon.
“I’ve never been a Kobe Bryant fan,” she admits. “Maybe it’s because I’m still getting over the Lakers 4-1 deafening defeat of my mainstay, the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2001 NBA finals. Maybe I just don’t like his particular blue-chip swagger. Of his generation of athletes, I have always appreciated Serena Williams’ extroverted braininess, Donovan McNabb’s self-composure, and of course, Allen Iverson’s blue–collar, rumble-in-the-jungle plays. Most certainly it’s because I never got over those sexual assault charges. But I have to hand it to Spike Lee. For about 90 minutes last weekend, as I watched his documentary, “Kobe: Doin’ Work“—which aired on ESPN Saturday and was released on DVD on Tuesday—I got sucked into the hype.”
I know that Kobe can play. But I have always rooted for the Allen Iversons and Dwyane Wades and Lebron Jameses when they locked heads with him. I don’t quite know why. It might have something to do with the fact that the NBA’s powers-that-be seemed to pre-ordain Kobe’s uncontested status as Michale Jordan’s heir.
If you read Tillet’s short essay, you’ll see that she makes a nice point about what Spike’s film shows us and what it decidedly does not.
I was able to catch the end of Lee’s documentary, the scene that Tillet describes in her piece. The scene (of Kobe and his family driving off behind their car’s tinted glass windows) feels touching and quotidian and illusive all at the same time. You can’t help but feel like the real story begins as Lee’s film’s end credits are poised to roll.
In a Reality TV’d world, we expect to learn so much more about a Kobe Bryant than just how he approaches his defensive assignments or half-time deficits. We almost think we’re owed that kind of access. We aren’t, but we think we are. Given how much we demand of our celebrities, it might even be a little refreshing to see someone keep the public’s prying eyes safely at bay.
