by Tatiana Rodriguez ’23

All American, which was released on Netflix in August, has had a large viewer population since the first season. The show focuses on high school football while also adding in real-life scenarios for African Americans who make up a majority of the characters. 

During the first two seasons, All American mainly centeredon high school football, real-life problems for high schoolers, and had moments that highlighted the problems there are with systemic racism. Later on in season three, the show focused more on the Black Lives Matter movement compared to the last seasons. By incorporating the movement into the show, the show is able to educate their viewers on the realities of African American lives. Despite the education,“All American” got lots of negative feedback and lost some viewers for depicting the polarization around the Black Lives Matter movement. 

In the first and second seasons in the show, All American revolved around the main character Spencer transferring high schools and growing through his football career. While he did this, he still faced racial discrimination and the show spotlighted this a few times in each season. Later on in season three of the show, the show included three episodes that focused on bringing justice for Tamika as she died through police brutality. In order to fight for justice the characters held protests, taking a knee for the flag and put their football team in jeopardy of losing a big game; all of these steps in order to stress the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement. There was a longer duration of highlighting the movement than in the past seasons. 

The resulting controversy in portraying the Black Lives Matter movement spurred a dislike from some viewers as there have been complaints that All American  treats football as an“afterthought” and that the show has become political by including Black Lives Matter. 

Even with the controversy that “All American” brought with their third season, the show was able to educate people on the problems with racism and the meaning behind the Black Lives Matter movement. Regardless of the fact that the show was originally created to be relatable to high schoolers and those who play and enjoy watching football, All American has been able to take the audience that they created and educate them even more on racism and the lives of African Americans.