Parents' Guide to Youngblood

A remake of the same-named 1980s sports film, this is a movie that's hard to make with a Black lead character without landing in a cliché minefield. The fact that Youngblood is about a Black male hockey player with anger issues existing within the sport's mostly White world leaves it wobbling on the line of being realistic vs. presenting a positive role model. It's too bad that Black characters aren't often afforded the chance to be angry without being seen as a stereotypical "angry Black person." In that sense, Youngblood gives viewers a chance to see an unvarnished, imperfect Black character who still demands that you see his humanity.

But on the other hand, Youngblood's optics don't serve Dean well if the film is trying to avoid pigeon-holing him. Seeing a Black character get "tamed," in a manner of speaking, by the White people in his life, even in the form of friendship and tough love, is likely to leave a bad taste in many mouths. Furthermore, a scene that should be extremely powerful—Dean telling his father that his dad's violent, intense way of handling hockey and life is harmful—is blunted by the fact that Dean learned about tenderness from his White surroundings. That could make some viewers feel like the film is positioning Black male anger as a problem instead of the result of systemic societal failures, and that Whiteness is an answer for civility and community. On the whole, Youngblood is a film that has good performances from its leads, but the story's optics might have failed its layered and complex characters.