We got a real jam goin’ down, welcome to the Space Jam

By Gabriella Iarrobino

I cannot recall the last time I was as excited for anything as I was to watch Space Jam a few weeks ago with a few friends.

Literally, I wasn’t even that excited for my 21st birthday a few weeks prior.

This is how serious and deep my love for this Michael Jordan/Warner Bros. product placement movie goes.

The viewing was an impromptu endeavor as we were sitting around chatting and somehow Space Jam came up.

“SPACE JAM!” I shriek, “That movie epitomizes my childhood.”

Space Jam came out in 1996 when I was five years old; my father is a huge basketball and Looney Tunes fan so naturally he bought the movie on VHS. I remember watching this movie over and over and over. I also had an obsession with Lola Bunny and after re-watching this movie as an adult; I was shocked to realize she was such a sexualized character. Even this revelation did not diminish my eternal love for it.

We sat around my friend’s computer, wide eyed and giggling. Although I know the movie by heart, it was exciting to watch it for the first time in probably 15 years. It was almost as if I was viewing it for the first time, yet it was so familiar.

Space Jam was a huge thing for my brother and I growing up. I’m not saying that my mother has a home video of us lip syncing to “I Believe I Can Fly,” but I’m not saying she doesn’t either.

Nostalgia can be a funny thing. It is a literal yearning for the past. Sometimes it can make you sad as you long for times passed, but sometimes it just makes you really happy. In this case I was the latter.

For an hour and a half I was transported back to a time where my brother and I would sit on the floor of our TV room, glued to the screen, watching a movie that we had seen a hundred times. I didn’t once think about school, work, my future plans, financial issues or other things that seem to plague my life as I travel into adulthood.

I think this speaks to the power of circumstance and art. While Space Jam is not particularly art, it is a movie, which I view as a form of art. When experiencing something for the first time, every time you return to it, you will be reminded of the context in which you first experienced it. And for me Space Jam reminds me of being a kid without a care in the world. And in that moment, I needed that immensely.

And can I just say, how Michael Jordan didn’t win an Oscar for his performance as himself is beyond me.

Images courtesy of fanpop.com