"Playing For Keeps" - A Movie To Think About

Have you seen movies and you think, why on earth am I watching this movie. Does it make any sense to watch this movie? You can think a lot by watching those movies. What is the message of these movies?

Sometimes it is hard to tell what the message of the movie is, just entertaining, or is this message for society to think about?

These past weeks have been difficult for everybody with all the protests against racism and injustice. Suddenly, everything you do is under the microscope. You didn't know if you're doing the right thing.

A few days ago I saw the movie "Playing for Keeps" on YouTube. In a way it moved me, as I am a mother myself, and at the other side I was confused too.

I was confused because I immediately I realized I also watched to this movie for a purpose: the injustice and racism movement. This movie says a message where we all have to think about, and we never thought about.

The movie plot

The movie "Playing for Keeps" (also known as What Color is Love) is about a young white mother, Nicole, who sleeps with a black man, after having an affair.

After this night she goes out again, she goes to the same nightclub with her friend to score another man. A black man again. But this time she falls in love with this black man, a basketball player, Ty. They are dating.

This basketball player is famous and also married. They both are dating for a while and suddenly, she is pregnant from him. They get a son, Noah. Te basketball player is not involved in parenting in the first three years of the boy's life.

In this marriage, the basketball player has two kids. His wife realized he had an affair. And a child too.

After three years, the basketball player comes around the corner again. He want to be involved in raising the boy. She doesn't want that, but he insists and demands being involved in his son's life. Later, he insists full custody with his wife and not the biological mother.

She still doesn't want that, because she is the mother and not his wife. The reason he gave was that the boy is black and so is his father and the wife if the basketball player. They can teach the boy to ward off racism if he grows up within a black environment.

Her statement is that the boy needs his biological mother and you can't pull him away from his real mother. She fights for his custody. He fights for full custody. They fight against each other.

During this long fight over the custody of her son, they are going fight in court. The last thing they fight over is the way he could be brought up in black people's environment to fight against racism, and that it could only be done by black people.

In the end, she all is want the best for her son. And she thinks that with all the people in his life, he can do want he wants and will be taught much more.

The message of this movie

Watching this movie taught me a lot of things.

Discrimination

There are not only discrimination from white people towards black people, but also from black people towards white people.

The wife of Ty says in front of the press: "We want what's best for Noah. And a strong black family is able to do that. We can help when people start discriminating against him and trust me, they will!"

When Nicole have a break with her colleagues - a white man, three different races - the blackest woman says:

"Well, they can teach him something you can not teach him."

Nicole: "Like she knows anything".

Next to her sit her black (she is light black) friend replies: "I'm sure she knows something. Noah is mixed race, but to people he looks black. You have to deal with that."

Love for your child

But there will be love always: love for a child. Nicole loves her child unconditionally. Ty loves him also very much, even when he wasn't there for a certain time of the boy's life.

You can see that they both love the boy very much. Also, the wife of Ty love the boy very much.

Fight for what is worth

You see that they both fight for what they are worth it: being in the child's life because they love him both very much.

This movie also says you have to fight for what you want and you're worth it. And fight for your rights as a mother and a father.

There will be solution in the end

At the end, Nicole wins, but decided also that the son can be in both lives. That her son can have all in his life. The black parents and the white mother can teach him about racism, the mixed color culture, the white culture and be who he want to be. And that it is possible to be a son from a black parent and a white mother.