Know how you can tell if women’s sports has finally broken into the American mainstream consciousness? When your 82-year-old grandmother-in-law tells you, “They’ve been showing a lot more girls basketball on television these days.”
With viewership for women’s basketball at an all-time high, “Power of the Dream” — Amazon’s new documentary directed by Dawn Porter that highlights the WNBA’s fight for equity and representation — arrives at an apex moment.
Offering a candid look into the off-court activism of WNBAers during the COVID-ravaged 2020 season — as players mourn the loss of Black lives due to police violence and get involved in the Georgia senatorial race — the film isn’t what you’d expect from a basketball joint. There’s virtually no dribbling in it, and very little action about the sport itself. (Perhaps that’s communicated in the title, which is more poetic than it is athletic).
And yet, this isn’t a polished look at the league’s imperviousness. It’s about the ugliness of pro sports in America: the struggles that even the world’s most successful, elite basketballers face, their battles to impact greater social change, and their sacrifices to improve conditions for marginalized communities, all while juggling their own needs that aren’t being met as a unionized workforce of 144 employees.
With a mix of news clips, original documentary footage, and interviews with notable sports journalists and WNBA icons (including Angel McCoughtry, Layshia Clarendon, and Elizabeth Williams), the film shows multiple dimensions of player-led change.
Rather than glorifying the WNBA’s public image (the film shows when the league misstepped by fining players for their social actions), the camera zooms in on players in genuine states of vulnerability and uncertainty — if not utter frustration — as they coordinate to stand up for their core beliefs. It helps that two of the featured athletes, Nneka Ogwumike and Sue Bird, widely considered to be among the best women hoopers of their generations, are behind the film’s production. The documentary shines brightest in moments that feel intimate: windows of genuine urgency and (figurative) locker room access that can be gained when the players themselves have a hand in the making.
Ultimately, the film asks: What responsibilities do modern professional athletes have? How do those responsibilities evolve, shift and deepen when layered with issues of gender, race and economics? And how do high-achieving humans respond when their dreams are challenged and interrupted?
A legacy of WNBActivism
“Power of the Dream” constructs a framework beginning with the opening scene, when a group key players prepare to discuss their political views on live television while wearing black T-shirts that read “ARREST THE COPS WHO KILLED BREONNA TAYLOR” and “SAY HER NAME.”
With the murders of Breonna Taylor and, months later, George Floyd, the league’s biggest stars take a unified stand. With televised games scheduled to air, they collectively refuse to compete as usual, instead gathering on the lawn of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. — where their shortened, quarantined season took place — to hold a vigil. Every single WNBA player was in attendance. It’s among the most moving things you’ll ever see in professional sports. Imagine any other league pulling that off.
Article by NPR
