Love & Basketball should not be your favourite Black romance movie and let me tell you why
TW: If Love & Basketball is your favourite film please refrain from reading or stay and have your eyes opened to the harsh truth.
When you think of Black romance movies, a lot of us think Love & Basketball. Their love story was perfect and when we watched their love unfold, we all wanted a story like theirs. The ups and downs, the break ups and make ups and of course the happy ending. Growing up I remember how people around me marvelled about Love & Basketball and I have just never understood why. For me, Love & Basketball is a horrible representation of love and I’m going to tell you why.
I have never truly been able to understand why people swoon over Love & Basketball. I have always been obsessed with romance movies, especially Black romance movies. A lot of these Black love films, The Best Man, Love Jones, Love & Basketball have had a large influenced our ideas of love.
Every time this movie is mentioned it’s crazy to me that this is what people see as a true depiction of Black love and romance. To me it’s laughable. I have only been able to watch this movie twice, the second time to confirm that it was truly the story of struggle love that I remember. There was nothing romantic about this movie to me and Monica and Q weren’t exactly #Relationshipgoals if you ask me.
Now before we begin these critiques are not to take away from the fact that there are positives about the movie. When it comes to the performances and acting of the two amazing leads, I have no notes, The movie is iconic, the soundtrack is iconic.
The movie itself touches on a lot of big themes exploring Black femininity, masculinity, gender roles and expectations etc. The movie is a cultural touchstone for the Black community and one of the most beloved black love movies of all time.
Because it is one of the most beloved movies I will try and tred lightly, but people it’s about time that we realise that it just isn’t that good of a love story.
Whilst the movie tells a relatable and realistic love story, the story line is where things become a bit more problematic. Now let’s dive deep into the problematic themes in Love & Basketball.
To quickly recap, Love & Basketball tells that tale of two childhood friends who dream of being professional basketballers who end up falling in love with each other along the way. They bond over their love of basketball, develop feelings for each other in high school, they stay together until freshman year of college. Years pass and the two somewhat lose contact and live separate lives.
We see how busy they both are with basketball in college, Q gets mad at Monica for not breaking her team curfew rule to come and see him, putting herself first. So, what does Q do, he decides to essentially go on a date with another woman resulting in their breakup. Q expects that Monica should prioritise his needs over her own commitments, even when doing so would jeopardise her career.
He retaliates and decides to punish the woman he supposedly loves for choosing herself. This again just reinforces the toxic idea in black love that a woman’s loyalty is tested by her willingness to sacrifice her own goals as seen by Monica’s actions being met with manipulation. We see the film validate Q’s feeling unwanted and unsupported when Monica was busy with basketball, but she had to make accommodations for him. It’s crazy!
Q gets mad at Monica for choosing herself and caring about her own basketball career and leaves her, were Monica’s dreams not as important as his?
Why are we so enamoured with struggle love?
The term ‘struggle love’ refers to the belief that for a couple to grow one or both must inflict emotional, psychical or psychological pain within the relationship.
Monica’s persistence in pursuing Q, despite his neglect and emotional unavailability exemplifies this. This reflects broader expectations that Black women should be ‘ride or die’ partners, sacrificing their well-being and aspirations to support Black men. This idea is toxic. So why does Love and Basketball romanticise this narrative in society that Black women should be okay with – the idea that Black women need to suffer first before they get their happy ending, and lower their standards. That they are not worthy of long-lasting love even after we have struggled by a man’s side.
Why must love have to be earned or proven through enduring hardship? It simply promotes the idea that Black women should hold up and hold down Black men even when they refuse or fail to do the same for us. Watching it I would find myself screaming he doesn’t love you to Monica, telling her to STAND UP!
And the award for the worlds least romantic ending goes to …
When Monica and Q cross paths again, she finds out that he has been benched, is injured and unemployed and now engaged to another woman …
All green flags apparently because yet again Monica, still madly in love with this man for whatever reason decides to fight for this love one last time. Monica challenges Q to one last basketball game to win his love, his heart and if Q loses, he calls of the wedding. When he wins the game he says ‘Double or nothing?’, realising he doesn’t want to live without her. Romantic right? Or is it?
Q still played the game and had to beat her, won, gave her the whopping of a lifetime before he took her back. Did he have to do that? Think about how Monica felt like she had to play a game to ‘win’ his love and him back. This is a powerful illustration of the struggle love dynamic, where love is depicted as something that must be earned through hardship or competition.
The need to "win" his love suggests that despite all they’ve been through, Monica is still expected to fight for his affection, further emphasising the unhealthy narrative that Black women must continuously struggle or compete to secure and maintain love, even with someone who has repeatedly failed to prioritize and respect them. Black women shouldn’t have to beg for love, conditional love at that.
There is nothing wrong with wearing your heart on your sleeve and going after what you want there is however a problem with going after someone who has shown you time and time again, they do not respect or love you the same ways in which you do. That’s just my opinion.
We fantasise about the things we see in movies and wish for the same events to take place in our real lives. Love & Basketball was released over 20 years ago and most probably resulted in a whole generation fantasising about unhealthy struggle love and toxic relationships. Monica and Q’s love is not something we should strive for or fantasise about.
Today we are seeing more and more representations of Black love in the media, especially in film, of course, this is a positive but how is Black love being represented? We must open our eyes to the toxic reality of our favourite Black films because I’m tired of seeing negative representations of love painted as positive ones.
With all this said, I would like to reiterate that Love & Basketball will undoubtedly be a classic in Black cinema but let’s just be a bit more mindful of the movies we choose as representations of the love that we want for ourselves.
This was great. It’s time we stop fantasising “struggle love”