“Lets Capture the Dream”- Chazz Micheal Micheals

Blades of Glory (2007), directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, tells the story of two professional, rival ice skaters that are striped of their gold medals and suffer a lifetime suspension from men’s single competition. After 3 years, the two men find a loophole in the rulebook that will allow them to qualify as a men’s pair’s team. Chazz Micheal Micheals (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (John Heder) must put their past and differences behind them and go out and win back that gold medal in this hilarious comedy. 

Throughout the movie there are multiple scenes that include multiple sponsorships for the film. The big ones include, Skittles, Captain Morgan, Xbox and Crest. One sponsor that is not exactly mentioned, but the movie is obviously trying to relate to would be the Olympics. Throughout the course of the movie it is building up the World Winter Sport Games, which happens to be a global winter sports competition, much like the winter Olympics. I believe the movie does a great job of portraying the Olympics without doing the exact same things. The movie has a specific city where the games are located, Montreal. The film also has many similar television intros, much like the Olympics and countless other things.

In Lunsford’ novel, Everything’s an Argument, she says, “Once you have drafted a claim, you can explore cause-and-effect relationships, drawing out reasons, warrants, and evidence that can support the claim most effectively” (Lundsford, 350).  Blades of Glory draws up the claim that figure skating is a joke of a sport and that the athletes competing in it do not take it very seriously. In one scene, Chazz is backstage in the dressing room after a show at his new job, Grublets on Ice, a children’s ice show. Chazz is one of many professional skaters that are obviously not happy with their current occupation of dancing in animal costumes for children. Chazz, a sex, drug and alcohol addict, is getting drunk backstage with some of his co stars before the next show begins. This is where one of the sponsors comes in, Captain Morgan, because we see Chazz take a big sip from a Captain Morgan bottle. What message is this sending to the viewers about Captain Morgan? Miserable ice skaters drink this liquor to get drunk before they perform in front of kids? Captain Morgan says on its website and I quote, “Diageo is proud of its brands and its commitment to setting the standard for social responsibility and responsible marketing.” Wouldn’t this classify as irresponsible marketing?

Another example from the film that shows that figure skating is not a serious sport is at the beginning of the film when Jimmy MacElroy is sitting in the judgment booth eating Skittles after his performance. Now Jimmy’s character is known as being a childish, sheltered, hard working figure skater, but at the same time, who eats Skittles after performance. This displays the argument as an athlete that is unhealthy and has not grown up yet. Skittles are great don’t get me wrong, but they are not great after a skating performance on the national stage.

Overall the film does a great job of incorporating its sponsors into the film, but the way they incorporate them I believe does not benefit the sponsor very much. On the other hand the movie is a comedy so it is suppose to be funny, but the sponsor should have thought twice before signing up for this.