English 103
The Basketball Diaries directed by Scott Kalvert
New York is an area that is often misjudged as a place filled with danger, glamor, poverty, and mostly located in Manhattan. The Basketball Diaries is movie that takes place in New York during the 1990’s. If someone from a different country were to have watched that movie when it first came out, that person would have thought that New York is a dangerous place filled with rotten teenagers and a lot of drugs. The movie makes life seem that the goal is to get high and play basketball. Although on some level it is true, it is not to the pure extent. These stories are real, but not that common. The movie was realistic in the social, economic, and political aspect to a high degree of extent.
Basketball is a big sport loved by a big nation; it is just so ravishing and maybe eye candy show to some. The suspense, tension, and the adrenaline of the sport gets a persons heart jumping. Jim had his friends, or crew, who had a big passion for basketball. It was a big thing for them growing up as they watched the players in the world go from the streets to famous athletes. Their hearts were set to fulfill the dream. The feeling of invincibility mixed with adrenaline was making them who they were and they didn’t want to let anything stand in their way, until they got drugs of course.
People had seen a sport such as basketball as a major opportunity. It was a career, and a lifestyle for most, to pick up the ball, make people happy, and make out the best of it. Since these kids were looking for scholarship opportunities, they were looking to be the best of the best, along with having all the fame and fortune.
The crime and drug rates in the United States decreased vastly. Especially in New York, the crime rate was dropping rapidly. There was a 15% decrease in shootings, and 8.1 percent in felonies since 1993. Most of these crimes were committed by teenagers/young adults from the ages of 16-23. The drops in crime rates were somewhat surprising because aside from minor changes made to improve safety issues, it didn’t explain the rapid decrease. Some areas in Brooklyn remained the same while others dropped. Like mentioned earlier, most of these crimes were committed by teenagers so they were more spontaneous acts than those of someone over the age of 35 (Kraus, NYT 1995).
After the cocaine epidemic in the 1980’s, in 1990, the epidemic reached its peak. The number of people going to the hospital for cocaine affliction purposes dropped 4% since the beginning of that year. The only problem was that now the consequences of the epidemic were death. The number of deaths increased due to cocaine related deaths (SHENON, September 02, 1990).
The economy was somewhat improving during Clinton’s time as presidency. There were many budget cuts, but along with that came a lot of ideas for the growth of unemployment. According to the New York Times, “Unemployment, Job Growth 5.3 %, 2.8 million jobs Dropouts from the labor force will help keep the unemployment rate low.” The fear of deflation was arising in the 1990’s. According to J. Bradford DeLong, deflation would do more macroeconomic damage than inflation would. Deflation would mean reduction in costs, products, and employment.
Teenage dropouts occur because of drug abuse, not knowing limitations as to what one is consuming. Growing up in the 90s to present, watching the epidemic of drug usage rise in high schools. Failing to find a rate from of a reliable source in New York I’ve come to share a point of view from my vision of this dilemma. It started from a young age as teenagers fall into a pit of failure as they look up to an outbreak of others. Teens felt the side effects of the drug cycle as they intake it resulting their brains to fry with different drugs, having their own effect.
“While alcohol use has remained steady since 1991, the survey indicates more teenagers are smoking. In 1991, 27.5 percent reported smoking in the previous month. That increased to 36.4 percent in 1997, and then dropped to 34.8 percent in 1999. However, frequent cigarette use climbed from 12.7 percent in 1991 to 16.8 percent in 1999.” Fri, 09 Jun 2000, Associated Press (http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n775/a09.html)
As the war on drugs escalated and hard drugs moved into the suburbs, a new form of anti-drug education was born. It was becoming obvious that, as Gary De Blasio, Executive Director of Corner House Counseling Center for Adolescents and Young Adults, said, "Scare tactics don't work." Drug-abuse prevention began to center on education. Instead of giving kids the willies, new outreach programs such as DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA), began teaching kids how to make good choices -- the willies are temporary, the ability to reason is permanent.
De Blasio's group, based in Princeton, N.J., prefers to use factual information. "We provide kids with refusal strategies, problem-solving and emotional coping skills. We show them that they have choices, and that choices have consequences. They find they have options. Peer education is one of our most effective programs. High school students speak at the junior highs, junior high school students talk to elementary school kids. They tell them that they have alternatives, but what the kids in the audience see are the cool kids NOT taking drugs." July 9, 2002 by Jennifer Robison, Contributing Editor (http://www.gallup.com/poll/6352/decades-drug-use-80s-90s.aspx).
The Basketball Diaries is based on a true story that occurred in the 1960’s, although the movie took place in the 1990’s. The movie is basically about a teenage boy named Jim Carroll who plays in his high school’s basketball team and was actually a great player. He dreamed of joining the NBA. After the death of his friend Bobby he then starts experimenting with drugs with his two other friends.
Starting off any regular day with some problems can eventually drive a person a little mad/crazy. Having everyday problems and dealing with whatever way possible is a more difficult task than it sounds.. The goal is to live life and make the best out of it. Jim making the best out of it in catholic school and make it to the NBA. Having some problems in life is hard just as Jim did. Bobby was a friend of Jim’s and his buddies.
The movie got more intense as his friend Bobby dies and Jim suffering with that fact. Not knowing how to get rid of the feeling of this tragedy, he got offered a drug that would take the pain away. Consuming the drug, known as cocaine, uplifted his mood. It affected his mind. Not knowing the consequences of the drug he continues consuming it and found a new way of injecting it afterwords. His life turned upside down as he became a guinea pig to the drug life. Addiction comes into play and away with his life of basketball, his career, and family. His life is on the street, living only to get high and putting his own self through the troubles of getting the drugs.
His friends who accompanied him on his search all fell one by one, getting arrested for their mistakes. All except for one. They see him on the television as a member of the all city team and Jim feels envious knowing that it could have been him being interviewed, living his dream. Left on the ground of a cold winter day all bruised up, the last person with hopes for Jim comes to the rescue. Reggie was the person who wanted to help Jim knowing the person he is capable of; Reggie did not want Jim ending up dead on the streets over the drugs. Reggie stayed up nights for Jim to get through his withdrawals over the drug and not run away. Just as Jim got a little better he relapses and ends up back on the street. Jim comes across this person Diane, a former drug user. Diane used to surf the street doing anything just to get a few dollars just to buy some drugs while Jim was pursuing his goal to the NBA. She would not give him any money so he starting exploiting himself for money just to get some drugs.
Being his last resort, Jim heads over his moms house and asks her if can borrow some money. As a strong parent, Jim’s mother was left with no choice but to call the cops on her own son. The movie ending with Jim rehabilitated after his 6 month sentence in Rikers Island. Turning his life around and after living that life, Jim pursued his new career as an acclaimed poet, musician, novelist, and performer.
The movie was filmed in Manhattan and a lot of parts in Queens. The part that they made to be Staten Island was actually the neighborhood in Forest Hills, and the Staten Island school was Forest Hills High School. In Staten Island, the houses are bigger; more isolated, and have a lot of breathing rooms for the gardens. The area of Forest Hills on the other hand has smaller houses in comparison. Compared to the movie, the area looks exactly the same. Fifteen years have passed since the movie was released and the area hasn’t made much improvement.
. The production of the movie had plenty of mistakes which they constantly failed to cover up. This brought up some questions based on the realism of the film based on small and possible overlooked details. The beginning of the film starts off with Jim narrating and giving a brief introduction as to what is going on. As this is happening, you see the shot in which he is being brutally spanked with a tennis cricket bat on the butt by one of his teachers. The cricket paddle was made out of wood and the average bat weighs about 2 lbs. “The amount of strokes he gets are enough to cause severe bruising or at least serious redness of the skin, yet minutes or hours later, when Jim and the boys are mooning a public ferry from a cliff, not one single bruised or red bottom is to be seen in the row of nude boys. This is inconsistent with Carroll's own words in his book,” stated the writers in the Imdb website.
They also stated “The biggest fatal error was that the NBA ball signed by the players would not have been around at that time. Spalding didn't start manufacturing the NBA ball until 1982 or 1983…. While producing, there was a some equipment present of when “in the "dream" scene, when Jim is shooting his classmates, the one who gets shot in the back has a visible string attached to him which pulls him to the blackboard. When Jim has a vision on the basketball court and gets blown by explosion, the string is visible again. They were dream sequences, but it seems unlikely that he would dream of strings.” 1990-2011 IMDb.com, Inc. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112461/goofs)
Jim Carroll’s apartment was a little too damaged. I haven’t lived in Manhattan apartments, but being that I have lived in a lot of poor areas in queens, I have never lived in an apartment with so much wall damage. It’s dangerous because lead is poisonous. It is definitely possible that the walls could have been peeling, but not to that extent.
Jim Carroll’s apartment was a little too damaged. I haven’t lived in Manhattan apartments, but being that I have lived in a lot of poor areas in queens, I have never lived in an apartment with so much wall damage. It’s dangerous because lead is poisonous. It is definitely possible that the walls could have been peeling, but not to that extent.
Overall, the movie is highly realistic because a lot of kids just want to have fun and feel like bad-asses. They want that sense of freedom and the euphoric feeling after having so much pain. A lot of kids don’t really know what they’re getting into when it comes to experimenting with drugs. They start off by just wanting to try it and say “I won’t get addicted, I can handle it” but before they know it, they can’t get enough of it and throw their life away. If one were to talk about the movie based on the setting, however, a way to tell that the movie took place in the 90’s was by looking at the cars. The cars set a perfect tone to identify what time during the decade it was in. Basketball in the parks seemed to be the most popular thing to do back then
The movie depicts this whole situation pretty accurately as to how life works and how you point out the directions to head. It was a perfect example to show as to how people break no matter how strong one may be, physically or mentally. Jim’s life should be the perfect vision to one’s eyes as to how drugs manipulate their mind, thoughts, and actions. Eventually, it ruins the dream.
Work Cited
1)http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/01/nyregion/new-york-city-crime-falls-but-just-why-is-a-mystery.html “New York City Crime Falls But Just Why Is a Mystery” By CLIFFORD KRAUSS Published: January 1, 1995
2)http://www.mountaintimes.com/history/1990s/world.php3 “A look at some of the events that shaped the world during the decade.” ©2007 The Mountain Times
3)http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/02/us/cocaine-epidemic-may-have-peaked.html
“COCAINE EPIDEMIC MAY HAVE PEAKED” By PHILIP SHENON, September 02, 1990
4)http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Econ_Articles/deflation.html“Why We Should Fear Deflation” J. Bradford DeLong, April, 1998
5)http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/03/business/outlook-1995-the-economy-some-economists-look-into-the-new-year.html
“THE ECONOMY; Some Economists Look Into the New Year” January 03, 1995
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