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Drama » Sports Drama
A type of drama whose source of conflict is the struggle of an athlete or team as they rise to the top of a chosen sport. Olympic events, baseball, football, basketball, and boxing have provided settings for this film sub-genre. The resolution usually has one of two outcomes: the protagonist(s) either wins some sort of championship or large individual sporting event (i.e. a race, the Oympics, etc.), or loses, resulting in soul searching, depression and/or enlightenment. Conventions of these films often include romantic subplots, physical or psychological injuries, social and political obstacles, male camaraderie, and an action-oriented climax. Examples include The Natural, the Rocky series, He Got Game, North Dallas Forty, Tin Cup, Hoosiers, Jerry Maguire and Chariots of Fire. Others variations on this subgenre are biopics and historical docudramas of famous sports figures or events of a particular sport. Though these use authentic life stories as source material, often reality is manipulated for dramatic tension and many use similar conventions as fictional sports dramas. Illustrations of this approach include The Pride of the Yankees, Raging Bull, Cobb, The Jessie Owens Story, Knute Rockne, All American, and Eight Men Out.
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