Content warning: discussion of suicideDid you know the Maryland School for the Deaf has one of the best high school football teams in the country? I didn't. This 30-minute doc follows Amaree, a senior and football player, who grew up the only Deaf person in his family after a childhood bout of meningitis. His team is trying to bounce back from a loss, breaking their seasons-long winning streak, before homecoming while also still struggling with the loss of one of their teammates, Teddy, who was moved to a hearing school and then bullied until he killed himself.
Let me repeat that. A high school sophomore, a child, was bullied by his peers for being Black, gay, and Deaf until he committed suicide.
The doc glosses over anything more than the briefest of explanations for Teddy, even though he was clearly a huge impact on Amaree. It has a maybe ten-second clip of an interview with one of the coaches talking about the discrimination Deaf people face in the world outside of protected bubbles, like the School for the Deaf. Since Deafness is the cause célèbre of the Academy this year (next year it'll be Ukraine again), I would have liked to see a little more of an in-depth treatment.
It's currently streaming on Netflix.
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