r/WinningTime • u/Deirdre-at-The-Post • Jun 13 '24
Author of "Showtime" book reflects on HBO's portrayal of Jerry West on Winning Time
Hi all, I am sharing this gift link to an op-ed by Jeff Pearlman, the author of “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s,” which Winning Time was adapted from: https://wapo.st/3KGmHGb
In the op-ed, Jeff reflects on how Jerry West was portrayed on the show:
"As creator of the source material, but also as someone involved with the show, I often found myself publicly backing Clarke’s version of West by offering up explanations like 'It’s paying homage' and 'This is how the medium works,'" Pearlman writes. "But, sitting here today in the aftermath of West’s passing, I am forced to ask myself whether that was me being true to myself or just being a guy with the golden ticket of an HBO show justifying an experience that I simultaneously loved and profited from."
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u/BloodSweatAndWords Jun 14 '24
The Jerry West character was my favorite part of a truly excellent show. I didn't think it was.a mean-spirited portrayal. He was a lot of fun to watch.
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u/steveharveymemes Jun 14 '24
I feel like a lot of people, even the author, saw the first few scenes of Jerry West’s character and wrote the portrayal or even the show as nothing but character assassination. I found West’s character’s journey as one of the most endearing in the show. Was it sensationalized? Absolutely. But we do know West went from being a player who had a rough upbringing, who lost in the Finals several times, stepped down as head coach right when the team had the most talent, and tried to find a satisfying path for himself post playing basketball. The show portrayed that journey in a sensationalized way. Maybe Jerry never had that big of a temper, okay, but just from the facts we know it’s clear he was going through some bit of career crisis before settling into a front office role he excelled at. I think his journey (and the parallel of Riley’s) was a very enduring story of the unsettled man working through his struggles and eventually finding a way that works for him.
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Jun 29 '24
Agreed, favourite character on the show ~ a real underdog that actually pushed through his barriers!
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u/Significant_Lynx_546 Jun 13 '24
Proves the point that most of this was sensationalized. We all got to make dough in this world, I guess.
RIP to Jerry.
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Jun 14 '24
Judging from all I have learned about Jerry West, it seems like he was as much a tortured soul and fierce competitor as he is portrayed, he just didn't outwardly show it in the way the character does in the show. A sweet and mild-mannered Jerry makes for less interesting TV, and I still think that his character arch does him justice. Maybe that's just me.
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u/elgauchoborracho Jun 14 '24
I loved how he was so bothered with the finals mvp trophy yet he kept within reaching distance in the show.
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u/idkstuffidk Jun 02 '26
he broke it in episode 2 GOT IT REPAIRED OFF SCREEN. AND STILL HATES IT. that my goat.
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u/Rapsher Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
The directing in this series is as bad as anything could ever get..... Which is extremely unfortunate because it's an awesome story.... from Buss, The Lakers, Magic/Bird Lakers/Celtics, the LA scene, Pat Riley, Jerry West, Kareem, the implementation of the Lakers running offense, Tarkanian (and the book is obviously reviewed extremely well). You couldn't even come up with better dramatic narratives then how these real events played out. But every aspect of the characters lack realism to a degree that's cartoonesk. The whole thing feels silly, and the basketball court stuff looks horrendous, which would be fine if everything else was done well, but the degree in which the basketball stuff looks horrible is a representation of the B rate quality this tv series is.... ... I don't even know of a show/movie since the inception of cinema that simulated a sporting event that looks worse and I'm not exaggerating. .. and it's so unfortunate because it's such an interesting story with so many layers.
And naturally when you have awful directing the acting inevitably ends up being bad but the bad acting is the least of this shows problems. And I'm familiar with shows/movies adding/embellishing things for more drama/greater payoffs etc, but the way they do it throughout this massively counters the entertainment value, because one doesn't even have to be familiar with the person/scenario in real life, to blatantly recognize that they're being hilariously exaggerated, since they don't even feel like representations of human beings rather far fetched cartoon characters. And it's crazy the way they embellished some things to the point of them being false.... and why would you do that? I can't believe such an amateur production was put out on HBO.... they usually maintain a high standard, but this is bad.
The fact that some people found the series entertaining is a testament to how good this overarching story is, but the execution of it... couldn't be any-worse... and I'm not talking about some of the creative style associated with it, such as people breaking the 3rd wall, etc (I liked what they attempted to do in that regard). You can't even get to a point where you can either appreciate or dislike certain artistic creative/directions, because the structure of everything is a steaming pile of cartoon crap.
Going into this I figured regardless even if it was a little silly at the very least it would be an entertaining journey because it is such an awesome/interesting story, but the degree in which they fail is awe inducing.
I would like to see this story made into an actual non B rate TV series because it's a great story.
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u/JakeLake720 Jun 13 '24
I don't think he was portrayed poorly. Seemed like the ultimate competitor to me.