Air finally hit Amazon Prime. I watched it from the perspective of a small businessperson who read Swoosh, Just Do It and Shoe Dog. This means my working knowledge of the subject extends far beyond sneakerhead celebration of the Jordan 1. My deep reservoir of information on Nike didn’t hurt how I enjoyed seeing a visual version of Nike’s history. Although the casting kind of disrupted my viewing. I think Ben Affleck looked like Phil Knight if Knight played football for Oregon instead of running track. Affleck is massive since playing the Dark Knight and watching him jog in the film was kind of jarring, but it didn’t hurt the story. The casting that did hinder my enjoyment was Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser. In every book written about the rise of Nike, Strasser is described as looking like The Mountain in Game of Thrones. He’s a giant lawyer who looms and broods, but gets things done. Bateman is a guy who launders money in the Ozarks. Strasser in the film feels minimized.
The nostalgia generated by the film is great, but Matt Damon looks nothing like Sonny Vaccaro and the film seems to gloss over the basketball legacy of George Raveling. As both a college basketball player (JUCO) and a head basketball coach (high school and college recruiter) the stories around Sonny and George are big enough that they could be series independent of the Air Jordan 1 narrative. Air has so much real estate that a writer with the chops to do what is being done with HBO’s Winning Time (the story of the Lakers), should certainly consider pulling together a pilot for the rise of Nike. This movie works even with Jordan functioning like Wilson the Neighbor on Home Improvement. We don’t really get to see him outside of actual film footage.
What Needs to be Understood
This is a feel-good story that has considerably dark undertones. Layoffs were taking place at Nike during the time this film was set. That is glossed over. More important is the complex reality of how Nike changed an entire industry. Nike pioneered offshore manufacturing for the sneaker industry. In Shoe Dog and Swoosh there are entire chapters dedicated to the lobbying of politicians and the political fights Nike endured to import less expensive footwear into the U.S. from Japan initially and then China and other Asian countries. Before Nike’s explosive growth shoe manufacturing was an industry in the States. The article below leads with this quote, “For Douglas Clark, the darkest part of working for Nike in the 1980s was watching American shoe manufacturing “evaporate” in the Northeast in a mass exodus to Asia in pursuit of cheaper labor.” Why the American shoe disappeared and why it’s so hard to bring it back | MPR News While Air is an entertaining introduction to the story of how Air Jordan was born, there is a considerable opportunity for the creation of content that tells a more in-depth story of the brand. I’d really like to see that happen.
