Competition

Three very different movies but at the root a single theme. Over the last couple days I watched Word Wars: Tiles and Tribulations on the Scrabble Competition Circuit, Murderball, and the Longest Yard. The first two were particularly intriguing as they were both documentaries.
In Word Wars, there was no glamour in the competition, these were thirty year old spelling bee champs. I didn't get the impression that the main characters did much other than play Scrabble and study words. These were people you admired only for their insane devotion to this game which frankly didn't provide much monetary incentive in the competitions. Really the best reason I can see as to why they compete is because they can. This game requires a very specialized skill set to be one of the elite players and somewhere along the line these people achieved it. Surely they chose to compete at Scrabble, but at the point in their lives that was shown in the film, it was hardly a choice.
This ties in nicely to Murderball where the initial catalyst to become a wheelchair rugby player was certainly not a choice. The way the movie portrays the players is definitely not to elicit pity for them but unexpectedly to drive respect and even envy for the players. It succeeds so wonderfully in making you forget that all the players are in some way handicapped, and for the majority of the movie they are viewed only as athletes and competitors. I can't say their livestyle was particularly glamourous either, but none of them seemed to let their conditions which make them suitable for wheelchair rugby (the paralysis) define them. The movie shows great candor and truth and reminds you that they are still very human. They want to compete because they can. Not because they need to prove anything to their more able bodied brethren, but because they are good and can.
The Longest Yard also touches on the idea of competition, but it's really overshadowed by 'Remember the Titans' messages of teamwork and such. For no good reason, the prisoners are pegged as the underdogs throughout the film. And thus, these prisoners eventually feel the need to be competitive because they can be competitive. I just can't really see this message in the film because I don't know what assumptions lead to the thought that a trained small staff of guards are THAT much more capable than an entire prison worth of athletic talent. Oh well, at least the movie wasn't bad.
Word Wars: 4/5
Murderball: 4.5/5
Longest Yard:3/5