There’s something really appealing about Air (2023), Ben Affleck’s film about Nike signing Michael Jordan during his rookie year in 1984. The cast is generally likable and the use of familiar pop hits from the eighties help to make even tense scenes familiar or comforting; yet Air is a film that is totally foreign to most of us. Audiences are not comprised of rich white men nor are they composed of all-star athletes. Still, we watch Air in total ignorance of the fact that the drama playing out before us is one of capitalist ambition.
Capitalism rules American society and culture debilitatingly. Air, intentionally or not, remains uncritical of that fact. Affleck makes the occasional nod of recognition to this systemic problem, but as a whole Air celebrates capitalist ideologies. The Nike executives in Air sacrifice time with their families, friends, and even their health to land Michael Jordan and make him Nike’s player. Affleck suggests that some do this out of love for basketball, others because they can realize the perfect shoe and for some because they simply believe in Michael Jordan. But didn’t they all get rich off of this deal and wouldn’t that have been the primary motivating factor?
As is the case with so many films based upon history Air opts to romanticize those facts that make for good, affirming escapism while simultaneously ignoring facts that overly humanize characters or pinpoint flaws in the filmmakers’ portraiture. Air is a feel good movie, plain and simple. Affleck, in his drive to prove he’s a filmmaker capable of directing any kind of “serious” picture has proven that he deliver what is so often called “the feel-good movie of the year”. But beneath is warm inviting surface Air is an empty film.
Air adopts the all-too-familiar stylistic gestures of Aaron Sorkin and imbues them with the enticing charms of Good Will Hunting (1997). What Air says about the sports industry is little more than that these events happened and, ideally, they went down like this. Really there’s nothing to dislike about Air except that there is nothing to love about it either. Air skirts around various relevant issues of race and class while maintaining the capitalist value system established by rich white men back in 1776. Ben Affleck, like those guys over at Nike, may have thought his product was going to change the world but really Affleck and Nike are just out to make some money.
