Though closer to hagiography than documentary, Jordan’s Netflix series offers a lavish and beautiful courtside seat
That thing you like? It’s actually rubbish. Here’s why. No wait, come back! This isn’t that. Although, as it happens, there has been a background drip of this kind of thing around The Last Dance, the blockbusting Netflix series documenting the incredible untold story of Michael Jordan winning at basketball while people tell him he’s great and he pretends to be nice.
Come back again! Just a joke! But this has been a real-world subplot to the success of The Last Dance, a public response that has veered between unconditional reverence, to a kind of culture-wars inventory of the personal politics of the film’s star. As the final episodes aired this week there was a minor chorus of Chicago Bulls teammates dismayed at their own portrayal as extras, plot devices in the Jordan Supremacy.
Related: Scottie Pippen said to be ‘beyond livid’ at Jordan for portrayal in The Last Dance
Towards the end someone poisons him with a doctored pizza and you think, yeah, well, OK
Related: The Last Dance: Is the Michael Jordan documentary a dressed-up puff piece?
