'The Last Dance' Producers Fixed Barack Obama's Title Following Viewer Backlash
Documentary series The Last Dance has been impressing ESPN and Netflix viewers with how it is telling the story of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls across the 1997-1998 season, but some people have taken issue with one particular detail.
Previously, Barack Obama appeared as a talking head in the docuseries and was credited as 'Barack Obama: Former Chicago Resident'.
While some people saw the funny side of it, others were not happy that they didn't refer to him as the former President of the United States.
Now, a few episodes later, Obama is back and his credit has changed to 'President Barack Obama.' Yup, not even 'Former President'—just 'President'.
We don't know whether the change was made due to a backlash from viewers, or because the filmmakers always planned to change it at this point in the documentary's run, but director Jason Hehir seems to find the whole thing a bit of a laugh in any case.
"What's been the most fun is to see the little subtle things that we've done and just kind of forgot about that are catching people's attention, like the 'Former Chicago Resident' that we put under Barack Obama," he told Boston.com before the latest episode with the title change aired.
"That was just kind of a little inside joke in our edit room because I was pretty adamant that when we have a celebrity, we wanted it to be organic to the story. We don't want to just have a president for president's sake.
"Even though Obama is a basketball fanatic, he's not qualified to speak on the significance of the Chicago Bulls and Michael's style of play like a Bob Ryan would be. The reason he was in there is that he was a former Chicago resident," he continued.
"It was crazy that the internet being what it is, I've seen people who are investigating whether I'm a Democrat or Republican. I'm a huge Obama fan, so for people to say it's disrespectful and I did that on purpose. I mean, come on. I promise you he will be the president by the end of the series."
Well, he definitely fulfilled that promise—although we are now left wondering if he will become 'Former President Barack Obama' by the final episode.
The Last Dance is available to stream now on Netflix.
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