Does ‘Winning Time’ get Claire Rothman and Jeanie Buss right?

Within the male-dominated world of the Showtime Lakers, two ladies emerged as key figures: Jeanie Buss, daughter of and successor to crew proprietor Jerry Buss, and her mentor Claire Rothman, the Discussion board’s normal supervisor and vice chairman.

In Episode 4 of “Binge Sesh,” hosts Matt Brennan and Kareem Maddox study “Profitable Time’s” depiction of ladies, with the assistance of actor Gaby Hoffmann, who performs Rothman, and Rebecca Bertuch, a author for the HBO drama. Sifting by way of what’s reality, what’s fiction and what’s one thing in between, we study whether or not a narrative will be trustworthy with out being absolutely true. And we ask whether or not the sequence solves the issue posed by its womanizing protagonist, Jerry Buss.

Make amends for Episode 3: 4 years. 4 coaches. Contained in the off-court drama that made the Showtime Lakers

Matt Brennan: So I requested Gaby Hoffmann, who performs Claire Rothman in “Profitable Time” — the Discussion board queen, Claire Rothman — how she received into character.

Gaby Hoffmann: The way in which I stood and walked and sat and felt within the fits, to the variety of pins in my hair and the way that pulled at my pores and skin. And the cake of make-up and feeling the lipstick come off on my water bottle, to my toes, my poor bunions, being squeezed into these tremendous slim, silly footwear.

The primary time I noticed all of it come collectively and her voice, you already know, got here out of my mouth, it simply felt true to me. Once more, not as a illustration of Claire Rothman, the true individual, however this character. It’s this metamorphosis that works each time.

Brennan: The factor that struck me about the way in which that she described it was that it felt so restrictive, nearly like a metaphor for what Rothman and girls of her technology would’ve confronted within the workplace working principally with males.

Jerry [Buss] sees in Claire a very gifted businesswoman who can execute his imaginative and prescient for Showtime. And what Claire sees in Jerry is, one, a chance to flee the jerk and hideous sexist Jack Kent Cooke, and, two, a chance to attain ranges of energy and company at work that may have been accessible to only a few ladies in 1979.

Two photographs of Claire Rothman on the Discussion board in 1985.

(Joe Kennedy / Los Angeles Instances)

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But when we’re going to grapple with how the present treats its ladies characters, we actually want to speak to the individuals who helped form them. Like Gaby Hoffmann.

Hoffmann: I believed quite a bit about this after we have been taking pictures, as a result of it’s uncomfortable. How do you precisely depict a time when the tradition was an oppressive and misogynistic area for girls whereas nonetheless being accountable and never exploitative? We are able to’t simply say, effectively, that is what it was like then.

Brennan: Or like “Profitable Time” author Rebecca Bertuch.

Rebecca Bertuch: I believe for the feminine characters — finally the way in which I method our present, and I don’t assume that is how everybody does, however it’s this actual investigation of the prices of masculinity. The ladies in our present are sometimes making an attempt to navigate a very thorny set of psychological bulls— that comes from being on this world that’s hyper masculine and s—y to ladies in a whole lot of methods.

Brennan: This week, we’re asking some large questions in regards to the ladies of “Profitable Time.”

Kareem Maddox: Like: Which issues within the TV present are true, and that are made up?

Brennan: How do the made-up issues have an effect on our understanding of the characters?

Maddox: And possibly greatest of all, does one thing must be actually true so as to be trustworthy? And the place does a TV present primarily based on actual folks draw the road?

I’m Kareem Maddox.

Brennan: And I’m Matt Brennan. Welcome to “Binge Sesh.”

Maddox: We’ll be proper again.

::

Maddox: So, Matt, would you agree that seen by way of the lens of 2022, lots of people may discover Jerry Buss problematic?

Brennan: I believe he would have been seen as problematic when you have been a girl even then, however sure, I agree with that premise.

Maddox: I believe that in “Profitable Time” so far, they’ve achieved just a little little bit of exaggerating to make Jerry Buss appear much less — uh, I believe your phrase could be “icky” — than we in any other case may view him within the present if we have been it from the lens of 2022.

Brennan: Like what? Are you able to give me some examples?

Maddox: The character Jessie Buss within the present is like Jerry Buss’ confidant. That’s his mother. She was not alive on the time that he purchased the Lakers.

[“Winning Time” clip: Jerry Buss character: Forget it. I’ll pay the loan.

Jessie Buss character: You’re broke.

Jerry Buss character: Mother.

Jessie Buss character: You knew the silly league was sinking and you bought it anyway. You tied up every dime you’ve got. I am your mother, goddammit. I’ll drag you on the lifeboat if I have to hogtie you to do it.

Jerry Buss character: Well, thanks, Mom. But I think I’ll take my chances.]

John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss and Sally Subject as Jessie Buss in “Profitable Time.”

(Warrick Web page / HBO)

Maddox: So I believe that it gave “Profitable Time” the chance to point out him in a very shut, motherly relationship. One other instance I believe I’ve is: Do you bear in mind within the first episode, when he was calling his ex-wife to beg her for cash?

Brennan: Yeah, he calls Joanie to attempt to seal the cope with Jack Kent Cooke to purchase the Lakers.

Maddox: Precisely.

[“Winning Time” clip: Jerry Buss character: When have I ever steered you wrong before?

Joanie Buss character: (laughing)

Jerry Buss character: All right. Touche. Yeah. Besides convincing you to marry me, what else?

Joanie Buss character: It’s my f—ing money.

Jerry Buss character: It’s my — I cheated on you. She was a figure skater. This call is not about our marriage. That doesn’t matter. This call is a financial call and I’m begging you.

Joanie Buss character: Uh huh.

Jerry Buss character: I’m begging you. I’m begging you.]

Maddox: Joanie, Jerry Buss’ ex-wife, is in full management of his future.

In actual life, Jerry Buss did make a last-minute name to get the money he wanted — however it wasn’t to Joanie. Essentially, the individual on the opposite finish of the road was Donald Sterling. Now, I’m speaking about the Donald Sterling, who later went on to purchase the Clippers after which in 2014 received caught on tape saying such racist issues that the NBA banned him for all times. That’s why within the first episode of “Profitable Time” there was textual content that described him because the Eighties’ “second-worst Donald.”

Brennan: I wager I can guess who was No. 1.

Maddox: Donald Duck. That man sucked.

So that they acknowledge that Donald Sterling sucks however then don’t acknowledge that Jerry Buss, when he wanted cash in crunch time, went to Donald Sterling. There are a whole lot of outstanding ladies characters in “Profitable Time”: Claire Rothman. Jeanie Buss. Jessie Buss, who was, as we talked about, not alive on the time. And the quantity of company and energy that they’ve is amplified as a result of we see Jerry Buss as nearly utterly depending on ladies. He’s begging his ex-wife for cash. He’s asking his mother for monetary recommendation. His daughter has one of many concepts that retains the Lakers afloat. And it’s actually, it’s not that straightforward.

Brennan: I’m loath to take the pro-Jerry Buss place on this, however I do have a counterargument, which is that the examples that you simply cited — the Joanie mortgage particularly — are comparatively small in comparison with one thing that we really do have stable proof for. Which is that Jerry Buss gave Claire Rothman a major quantity of authority and autonomy, and he or she used it to assist make the Discussion board the epicenter of the fashionable NBA.

READ MORE >>> Claire Rothman: She guidelines the Discussion board

Maddox: I believe the Claire Rothman character goes to emerge as one among folks’s favorites, and he or she is a bad-ass. Objectively Claire Rothman is a bad-ass. You realize, there’s a terrific scene the place she is sort of like sitting again together with her toes kicked up and he or she brings Jeanie Buss in and says, you already know, is your dad like the remainder of these guys?

[“Winning Time” clip: Claire Rothman character: Dando Abrigado, a kid I knew in grade school. First boy whose dick I saw — not by choice. He’d run around the lockers, flashing all the girls, screaming, “Take a good look. Remember this. Remember this!” It didn’t leave a big impression, but he did. Dando. I have been meeting Dandos my whole life. They usually park their asses back in that corner office.]

Maddox: Claire’s character doesn’t appear to have a lot of a shot on the nook workplace. However she does see an opportunity for one thing higher than what she’s had till this level.

Hoffmann: She’s raised two children. She’s been divorced. She’s been doing this job — labored her manner up, in fact — for a few a long time, possibly extra. She is aware of the sport, proper? She is clearly effectively skilled with the gender dynamics. That’s a well mannered manner of claiming it. The outrageous misogyny.

That is all hypothesis on my half, in fact, however I type of think about that after we meet Claire to start with, when Jack Kent Cooke continues to be round, she doesn’t see herself getting a lot additional. Proper? And I can’t think about how annoyed she should really feel, how exhausted she should be by placing up with all of the nonsense. I got here to think about her as type of this coiled spring.

After which Jerry Buss reveals up. And clearly she sees all the problem. She will get a glimpse of who this man is and the way he operates. Clearly he’s all of these items on the one hand, however however, I felt type of seen and identified by him. I believe she seems like, “I don’t know precisely what that is, however it’s one thing new. It’s one thing totally different. It’s positively higher than what I’ve identified earlier than.”

Brennan: Then there’s the present’s dealing with of the Jeanie Buss character. The function that Jeanie performed in constructing the Lakers group isn’t precisely proper in “Profitable Time” — she wasn’t a key participant in 1979. However she did work her manner up within the ’80s, and now she’s accountable for the entire shebang. “Profitable Time” drew inspiration from that — it wished to point out us a glimpse of the mogul Jeanie has turn into, so it confirmed her affect beginning sooner than it really did.

Jeanie Buss, proven in 2021, is CEO, president and controlling proprietor of the Lakers.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)

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Maddox: Oh, her character talks about why she desires to comply with in her father’s footsteps when she’s smoking a doobie within the basement with a number of the different lower-level Lakers workers.

[“Winning Time” clip: Jeanie Buss character: I look at my mom and, you know, she, she has all her charities and her lunches at the club, and honestly, that’s all she’s ever been. I love her more than anything, but nobody needs her. Not like people need my dad. And all those years she spent raising us? My dad, he, he spent chasing what he wanted.

Linda character: F—.

Jeanie Buss character: What?

Linda character: I don’t hate the boss’ daughter.]

Brennan: Rebecca Bertuch defined why the writers thought that teenage Jeanie ought to have extra duty within the present than she could have had in actual life.

Hadley Robinson performs a teenage Jeanie Buss in “Profitable Time.”

(Warrick Web page / HBO)

Bertuch: There’s so many males that get to be mythic figures in our present that we’re unpacking and understanding. Numerous our present is analyzing the impact that masculinity has on these folks and the elements of themselves that they should sort of silence or harm to attain the success that they assume will fulfill them. And I believe a part of that’s understanding how [Jerry] Buss’ actions as a personality formed the folks round him.

Jeanie has this actually fascinating individual normally as a result of she’s charted a very distinctive path in a very masculine male world. And she or he’s extremely sensible. And as she sort of took the mantle from Buss, I imply, she took so many issues about him and ran with it and made it worthwhile and fascinating. I believe exhibiting the origin of that was actually vital to us as a result of we all know the place she goes, we all know who she turns into.

Our dramatized model of Jeanie goes by way of this second the place she’s — it’s that second the place you’re a child and also you idolize your dad. And particularly when her dad is such like a larger-than-life determine and is such a romantic and discuss such an enormous sport and may be very simple to like. And I believe having Jessie as this counterbalance to sort of present her that there’s a darker facet to the way in which that he handles his life, handles his cash, handles ladies and the expectations.

READ MORE >>> Jeanie Buss: Essentially the most highly effective girl in sports activities

Brennan: And right here’s the factor: The present doesn’t draw back from Jerry Buss’ womanizing. We see the discomfort that his conduct prompted the ladies who have been round him — together with Jeanie.

So to me, what the present is doing is asking you to reside within the discomfort of getting somebody who achieved one thing that’s actually close to and expensive to Lakers followers, definitely, who was problematic. “Can the protagonist of your TV present be a problematic fave?” is basically the query that “Profitable Time” asks.

Bertuch: I utterly perceive. I grew up in a really particular expertise of watching folks round me. I had a whole lot of male figures round me that I used to be like, why are you doing that? Why is {that a} factor that you simply really feel such as you want? And I believe, to begin with, John C. Reilly’s efficiency — it’s actually arduous to dislike Jerry Buss, however he additionally brings in, he doesn’t draw back from the factor driving all of that posturing and the women and this entire shtick that he’s received.

I believe that asking the query of why is sort of a extra fascinating sort of pursuit for us. Like why do these guys really feel like they want success? Why do they really feel like they want the ladies to bolster that?

Nobody is inbuilt a vacuum, and Buss is a product of a whole lot of totally different stuff, however his relationship to ladies is admittedly sophisticated. And the way in which that his actions formed the ladies round him and challenged them, I believe is admittedly fascinating to see from these feminine characters’ views.

Maddox: So we’ve torn aside what’s actual about “Profitable Time’s” ladies characters and what could have been embellished only a contact. However I’m curious as to why these decisions have been made.

Brennan: You’re in luck. We’re about to listen to from a man who teaches a course on that very factor — proper after the break.

Maddox: Yippee.

READ MORE >>> Lakers’ Jeanie Buss tells Patt Morrison about life at Pickfair mansion

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Brennan: Welcome again to “Binge Sesh.” So, Kareem, since a lot of “Profitable Time” walks the road between reality and, um, creativity, I interviewed James Goodman, who’s a professor at Rutgers College Newark and an professional within the relationship between historical past and fiction. One factor Goodman explores in his work is that there isn’t a type of nonfiction narrative that has just one reality — that you possibly can inform in just one manner — as a result of everybody who skilled that occasion skilled it by way of a unique lens or from a unique perspective.

Jim Goodman: It’s a shifting goal. It’s not a hard and fast line. You usher in 10 historians, you’re going to have 10 totally different views of this. I believe it relies upon partially in regards to the topic. It relies upon partially in regards to the stakes. If you already know Abraham Lincoln or Jerry West was in a spot at a selected time and mentioned a selected factor to any person, you don’t change it for dramatic impact if you’re considering of your self as a card-carrying historian.

On the similar time, filling gaps the place there isn’t a document of the place Jerry West was and what he mentioned — to me, that’s a unique matter. The historic document is extra hole than it’s substance, and there’s plenty of room for creativeness.

Brennan: Which I believe you get in a literal sense in “Profitable Time,” in that Jerry Buss isn’t the one one that talks to the digicam and tells you what he’s considering. You get that from Claire Rothman. You get that from Frank Mariani. You get that from different characters.

[“Winning Time” clip: Jack Kent Cooke character: Just get it done so I can give the c— her f—ing money.

Claire Rothman character: Oh, I am not the c— he’s talking about. That’s his soon-to-be ex-wife.]

Brennan: Gaby Hoffmann informed us what that stylistic alternative, which we see for the primary time in Episode 1 of the present, is telling us about “Profitable Time’s” a number of views.

Hoffmann: You’re like, oh, OK. Oh, OK. We’re going to get in on that girl. We’d not get it quite a bit on this first season, however we all know — we’re being given just a little promissory be aware, I really feel like, by the present, of — you might have entry to this individual’s internal expertise, and that’s going to be one of many key defining components of how this story will get informed. And that instantly, to me, deepens and enriches the expertise.

Maddox: A few of the most impactful moments in “Profitable Time” have been fictionalized, however like Professor Goodman informed us, possibly it’s OK to make use of our creativeness to fill within the gaps. Take Jeanie being this fountain of excellent concepts that helped get the Showtime Lakers off the bottom. Like in Episode 4, the place she performs a key function within the creation of what would turn into the Laker Women.

[“Winning Time” clip: Claire Rothman character: A cheer squad is a good idea — for 1963. Our girls are tailored for the ’80s. They’re sexy. Cool. They won’t cheer. They’ll dance.]

Jeanie Buss claps through the Lakers’ NBA championship ring ceremony in October 2010.

(Chris Carlson / Related Press)

Brennan: And the identical is true of Jessie Buss, who actually was very near Jerry, and who actually did preserve the books for the Mariani-Buss actual property empire for a time. The way in which that “Profitable Time” co-creator Jim Hecht defined it was, like, they wished to seize the emotional reality of that relationship.

Jim Hecht: The actual fact of the matter is she died two or three years earlier than that season. So it’s a dramatic liberty. We felt like, one, it was a vital relationship to him, forming who he was and the issues that he wished. You realize, that was our evaluation of Jerry Buss, that there was this fixed need to make his mother proud and do proper by her as a result of she had had lots of people do mistaken by her.

The important thing relationship, I believe, that fashioned him into turning into a person is the connection that he has together with his mother. However to us, it was like, you wanted to grasp that relationship to grasp the essence of the person. And though they happen in the identical timeframe within the story, and we moved some issues round to make that occur, there isn’t a whole lot of factual intersection between the Laker story and the non-public story that he has together with his mom. So moderately than do it as like flash forwards and flashbacks, we set them in the identical time interval. Though it’s not, you already know, the dates should not right, I really feel prefer it’s true to the story entry to the person that he was and true to their relationship.

Maddox: So when you nitpick it, a few of these liberties the writers took don’t add as much as the real-life story of Jerry Buss. However it’s simple that he was a visionary when it got here to sports activities leisure. It was true that Magic Johnson was a generational expertise, which is a phrase I’ve heard a trillion instances currently.

And you may nearly say the identical about Claire Rothman. She deserves a ton of credit score for what Showtime grew to become. And she or he’s getting that respect now in “Profitable Time.”

Bertuch: Claire Rothman is a f—ing legend. I imply, she broke obstacles that folks didn’t assume would ever be damaged and he or she kicked ass and was infamous and well-known in her line of labor for being that lady.

So I believe [Jerry] Buss’ factor is that he’s a really sensible one that respects folks for being sensible in our present, and he desires the most effective, and Claire is the most effective, so he’ll prop her up. And I believe that his relationship with Jessie is sort of like — a part of why we constructed up that character was to point out that his relationship to ladies isn’t minimize and dry, of like, “ladies are intercourse objects.” His relationship together with his mother is admittedly sophisticated and nuanced. And he acknowledges, I believe, an intelligence in Claire and a usefulness in her.

And he has such large objectives and aspirations that he simply desires to construct principally like he does for basketball, the most effective crew potential. His fame with ladies casts an enormous shadow. And so she’s actually cautious about it, however her studying to sort of discover her place and belief him and see a future in working with Jeanie is one thing that develops over the course of this season.

Brennan: “Profitable Time” offers Claire Rothman what she deserved all alongside, which is recognition for the way instrumental she was within the creation and success of the Showtime Laker phenomenon. And she or he’s the one character within the present who I believe will get that extra from the present than she did from historical past. I’m glad that many, many extra folks will know the identify Claire Rothman after watching “Profitable Time” than they did getting in, even when it doesn’t get each literal reality about her proper. And if Claire is the least identified of the key “Profitable Time” characters, essentially the most maligned might be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and it corrects the document on him too.

Maddox: Subsequent week on “Binge Sesh.”

::

Brennan: So, Kareem is touring for a marriage this week which I really feel signifies that I get to make use of the submit credit time as I want. So I’m going to speak just a little bit a few present that I really like known as “Mad Males.” And the explanation “Profitable Time” jogs my memory of “Mad Males” is admittedly solely in a method, which is the connection between Jerry Buss and Claire Rothman.

I see a lot of the DNA of “Mad Males” in that relationship, particularly the connection between Don Draper and Peggy Olson, who begins out as his secretary and finally turns into his protege. He’s so arduous on her, however he’s arduous on her as a result of he acknowledges her expertise.

My editor, Lauren Raab, is telling me to wrap up, and I haven’t even really gotten to the purpose but the place, so, [his words begin to fade out] Claire and Peggy Olson are about the identical age, they have been born across the similar time, they’d have had the identical work experiences within the ’60s.

Wait, hear me out. That relationship, oh, it’s so fascinating …

[his words fade out, then back in]

… the best TV drama of all time, and, maintain on, don’t minimize me off. Simply give me a second to talk my piece after which you possibly can fade out. I actually might do an entire episode simply on the ways in which I think about Claire being … [his words fade out]

Further assets

Jeanie Buss with Steve Springer, “Laker Lady” (2013)

Pablo Goldstein, “Recreation 12: Claire Rothman” (2019)

Jeff Pearlman, “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the Eighties” (2013)

Matthew Weiner, creator, “Mad Males” (2007-2015)