Clipped
By Joyce Slaton, Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
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Fizzy NBA scandal drama has racist themes, foul language.
Rate TV show![Clipped TV show poster: shows a hand holding a basketball with orange and blue nails with "Clipped" above](/sites/default/files/styles/ratio_2_3_small/public/product-images/csm-tv/clipped.jpg)
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Clipped
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What's the Story?
CLIPPED is a limited series about a 2014 scandal in which the owner of basketball team the Los Angeles Clippers was recorded saying he didn't want Black people coming to his team's games. It centers on owner Donald Sterling (Ed O'Neill), his calculating wife, Shelly (Jacki Weaver), and the assistant/girlfriend/alleged beard V. Stiviano (Cleopatra Coleman) who taped Sterling and released the tape to the media. Laurence Fishburne also stars as Doc Rivers, the ex-Clippers-player-turned-coach who had every chance of turning the team's luck around, until the team's owner got in his way.
Is It Any Good?
With the magic combination of great writing, great actors, and an absolutely bonkers real-life story to draw from, this limited series is a gas. In Clipped's retelling, every character is sympathetic: O'Neill's Donald Sterling is loathsome and abusive, true; but he's also a kindly ol' grandpa guy who tells his wife she's pretty and gives her a sweet kiss. Said wife, Shelly, is a marvel in Weaver's hands, alternately a wide-eyed innocent and a cunning strategist, by turns: whichever gets her what she wants. And Coleman's V. Stiviano is perhaps the strangest of all, demanding attention from Sterling and the press, while in her private life she adopts two foster children at the same time as she ignites the 2014 scandal with her surreptitious recordings of conversations with her boss.
With a big sprawling story packed into six episodes, Clipped moves at a breakneck pace and does a stellar job illuminating the different parties and POVs of the Sterling scandal, as well as taking us behind the scenes with a team with what Clippers coach Doc Rivers calls "a Cinderella story in the making" despite the handicap of a "bad boss." In Fishburne's stentorian delivery and sad eyes, we see what the Clippers could have been, what this fine coach could have made them, without the layers of racism and capitalism that gave Donald Sterling the power to ruin it all. We feel his pain.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about why TV series so often focus on scandals. What about a scandal holds dramatic or comedic potential?
Do you remember the 2014 Donald Sterling scandal? If so, how does your memory of the story affect how you view this drama?
What cliches frequently appear in sports movies or TV shows? Which show up in Clipped?
TV Details
- Premiere date: June 16, 2024
- Cast: Ed O'Neill , Jacki Weaver , Cleopatra Coleman , Laurence Fishburne
- Network: FX
- Genre: Drama
- TV rating: TV-MA
- Last updated: June 19, 2024
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