All American and the Path to Glory
The moral case for wanting to be praised for your work.
We like when people praise us for things.
Especially when we do things that are worth being praised for. Such as when we learn to walk for the first time, or talk, or do well on a test. As we get older, the amount of challenge you have to achieve in order to get praise gets more and more difficult. Mainly because so many more people can do certain things and not other things. We work on skills like our intelligence or our physical abilities like being able to play in sports at a higher and higher level. The more you do it the fewer people can actually achieve these harder and harder goals. With more effort, the more people are interested in watching this type of thing like playing in a sport. They get together in large groups to cheer you on in the hopes that they will see something fantastic and exciting happen which almost no one can do except for the person on the field.
When you do this, it feels great. To hear the cheers of people get louder the more you do and the more exciting you can make things for them. You want more of them to cheer and will work harder in order to achieve things people will cheer you for. So much work goes into being able to be the person who can catch that ball in the final moments of a game or run fast enough to get past the line in order to win. Some of these things you can do on your own but other things require a team. Finding a way to give your teammates enough motivation is just as difficult as actually trying to be in that moment.
Largely because without them you don't reach that moment at all. You never hear the cheers of the crowd and how good it feels to be the kind of person who seems able to achieve the impossible in those important moments. All of it goes away if you don't have people behind you. Not just your teammates but also your family and friends who want to see you push yourself to those limits. They want to see you get there because they want to be the kind of people who can praise you. Who can make you feel that good about yourself.
All American is very much about how hard it is to get to a point where you find a path to that glory. Spencer James, as played brilliantly by Daniel Ezra, is someone willing to do what he has to in order to achieve glory. To put in the time and energy necessary to be the kind of person that others will cheer on during a football game. He wants to be that kind of person and has the potential to get there. But he needs people around him who will push him far enough to do that type of thing. Give him a reason to catch the ball at an important moment and run across the goal line.
The story is made all the more impressive by the fact that it's based on a real person. Someone who actually did so many of the incredible things you see. It's an inspirational story worth praising people for.
Do yourself a favour and explore the path to glory by checking out All American as soon as you can.
All American is available on The CW app as well as Showcase in Canada.
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