Million Dollar Arm Essay

Million Dollar Arm a Disney Film presents the story of Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel. J.B. Bernstein a struggling sports agent, decides to try and recruit indian cricket players to become pitchers for the MLB. Singh and Patel meet Bernstein through his Million Dollar Arm contest. The two winners of the contestant would be taken to America, there they would train and try out infront of professional team scouts.Singh and Patel the two winners of the competition are taken to America, with no prior experiences out of their own village. For the duration of the movie, the two men struggle to acclimate to the culture of America. One scene in the movie displays them not knowing how to get onto an escalator and shows them purposely sticking their hand in a closing

elevator door to watch it re close.During their first few weeks in America, they struggled to be accepted by the other players and contemplated if they could ever get accustom to the different culture.The two young men were not the only ones who have struggled with American cultures in the past, Native Americans have been in the same shoes as them.

Native Americans have had a different ideology than Americans and struggled to become apart of the society, as did Rinku and Dinesh. Not only did they all feel like outsiders, they were also prejudged. While Singh and Patel were practicing one day, the american baseball players decided to make a racial comment at the two, causing a scuffle. Native Americans have faced the same bigoted comments and looked at is if they were from a different planet.

The main themes of the film are culture and exceptionalism. To Bernstein India was the new frontier of athletes, being the first one to face the new frontier comes the many hardships. He struggles to make business deals and have his operations run smoothly. He realizes to be successful there he must act as if he was one. All

through history we have seen this struggle of being the frontiersman. Fortunately, the same outcome has recurred for these brave groups of people.Like Bernstein, the pilgrims also faced hardships facing the new fronteir of the new world. They survived and flourished with the help of the natives and learned to act as they did. In the novel Little House on the Prairie, the family faced these same hardships as being early settlers of Kansas. They flourished by becoming friends with the Native Americans and learning the land from people who knew it best.Overall, through the two films and the novel, to be successful in a new culture calls for one to act apart of that culture. The Other main theme of the movie was exceptionalism. The movie depicts the two getting used to what life is like to be americans. The young men enjoy their first pizzas, parties, and TVS. They become immersed in the new american ideas, forgetting the ones of their native countries. At a point in the movie the two are talking about their native countries. One of them says he does not really care about their and states “ We are in america now, we can do anything here”.Although America is meant to be a free nation, Bernstein and others come to have the ball players accept the countries culture. The movie depicts them being pushed away from their native rituals and forced upon a new way of living. This allows viewers to see that America is not fully exceptional to immigrants. Million Dollar Arm depicts the 21 century struggles that frontiersman face getting accustomed to a new culture.