Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

They Call Me Magic

2022; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 49; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5406/21558450.49.2.05

2155-8450

Kate Aguilar,

Sports Analytics and Performance

In the introduction to Jackie Robinson's reissued autobiography, I Never Had it Made (1995), cultural critic Cornel West begins: “Here is a great American hero who refuses to be a mythical hero. Instead, he tells the painful truth about himself as a human being—someone who, like all of us, needs love, struggles with insecurity, makes mistakes, revels in achievements, and weeps in sorrow.”1 In many ways, West could have written a similar introduction for Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr., who, like Robinson, uses the 2022 documentary They Call Me Magic to deconstruct the mythology and the man, one engaged in both political and community activism because of what he could do on the court and the opportunities that talent afforded him off it.Sport historians, of course, recognize that Jackie Robinson and Magic Johnson came up in different times. Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. Johnson was a trailblazer in combatting the stigma around HIV and AIDS in the early 1990s. And yet, both had the weight of the white sporting establishment and the Black community on their shoulders. The magic of sport was that it gave them an international platform to effect change.They Call Me Magic premiered on Apple TV+ on April 22, 2022. The first episode takes the viewer through Johnson's early years in Lansing, Michigan, including his lackluster debut in high school basketball. His remarkable game two turnaround earns him the nickname “Magic” from a local sportswriter. His standout high school career leads him to Michigan State University, where he takes the Spartans to a 1979 NCAA Championship win over Larry Bird's Indiana State Sycamores. The Los Angeles Lakers draft him as the first overall pick in the 1979 NBA Draft. The second episode explores the rise to and aftermath of the Lakers’ 1980 NBA Championship victory. The first two episodes center on sport, and yet it is evident from the beginning how this documentary attempts to deviate from some recent sports documentaries. Whereas ESPN's The Last Dance (2020) was all about the game, They Call Me Magic brings in family, friends, his children, business associates, and politicians to make clear that there is life before and after basketball.To further set this tone, former professional basketball player Isiah Thomas and Magic's son, Earvin Johnson III, among others, note a distinction between Magic and Earvin. Magic loves the crowd. Earvin likes the quiet. The tension of the series is that it appears neither Magic nor his production team can decide which personality deserves more air. The first two episodes rely on a highlight reel of great sporting moments often at the expense of the personal. In the early episodes, for example, Johnson observes how desegregation busing impacted where he played high school basketball, including the principal taking him aside and asking him to set an example for Black students. He does not reflect on how he felt about that conversation or societal expectations. The choice of the production team to title episode 2 “Brute,” which seems to refer to the historical Black Brute caricature, the hypersexualized Black male, is also worthy of on-air deconstruction. The early episodes miss critical opportunities to let Johnson unpack why he believes he is far more than just a player, or a sexual player, but what he grappled with emotionally along the way to achieve some of the biggest sporting moments of his career.The final two episodes, “Earvin” and “Magic,” attempt to grapple more fully with the man. They focus on Johnson's HIV diagnosis, how it fits within the larger AIDS crisis, and why he feels compelled to become a member of, and then quit, President George W. Bush's national AIDS commission. Johnson also briefly unpacks how the 1992 Los Angeles uprising impacted his decision to use his time and talent outside of sport to invest in Black urban communities. Here, we get a glimpse of the fear Johnson felt around his own mortality and for his wife and unborn child. We see him unpack stereotypes surrounding the Black consumer. His business acumen helps him create Magic Johnson Enterprises. It also seemed significant, yet was sadly left unanalyzed, that his executive team are all Black women.It all comes full circle at the end of the series when Johnson becomes a stakeholder in the LA Dodgers. In the final minutes, former teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reflects, “I was born the day after Jackie Robinson played his first game . . . 60 years later, and it's Magic. And that was the type of good luck that you can't order it up. It just happens.” The series’ “magic touch” is that it shows how intentional Johnson was in constructing both the celebrity and the man. He made smart, calculated decisions along the way that allowed him to excel in and transcend the game. And although this series may leave sport historians and fans like me wanting more—more historical context, more personal reflection, more “truth”—perhaps his greatest sleight of hand is just that. He knows how to make an entrance and when to walk away.