Diksha Sundriyal
Criticism rains on Isla Gordon in Netflix’s ‘Running Point’ after she is made the president of her family-owned basketball team, the LA Waves. Despite her passion for the sport, she is sidelined from the family’s business for the majority of her life. However, she finally gets her chance in the spotlight when her elder brother, Cam, puts her in charge of the business in his absence. Isla doesn’t expect much support, but she is also not prepared for the barrage of criticism that comes her way. One of her most vocal critics is Sean Murphy, who repeatedly talks about her ineligibility for the job in his show.
The Sean Murphy Show Reflects the Real Criticism Faced by the President of the LA Lakers
‘Running Point’ presents the story of Jeanie Buss, the president of the Lakers, from a fictional lens. The show is inspired by the struggles and challenges she faced in her personal and professional life over the years. However, instead of faithfully following her journey every step of the way, the creators of the show took a fictional approach where they stuck to the themes of her story but brought their own twist to it. The Sean Murphy Show is also one of the fictitious things used to present one of the many sides of the story.
For Isla, the criticism comes in about all aspects of her life. Everyone first notices that she is a woman, which, in itself, becomes the cause for the rest of the arguments against her. She is labeled a nepo-baby, or nepo-crone, so to speak. Her past is used against her, which includes her lack of educational qualifications, as well as her posing almost nude for Playboy, along with the troubled years of her youth. All of her decisions, for or against, are put under a microscope, and Sean Murphy is always the loudest voice to declare that Isla Gordon should not be the president of the team.
Jeanie Buss has faced similar criticism over the course of her life as well, though there are some major differences between her and Isla. To begin with, Jeanie’s educational qualifications and experience could not be questioned because she didn’t just graduate with honors in business from USC, but she was also involved in the family business, in differing capacities, since she was nineteen. However, her being a woman and making some radical decisions for the team did come under scrutiny, also including her posing nude for Playboy in the 1990s.
In the fictional Sean Murphy and his popular podcast, ‘Running Point’ gives a medium to all this criticism. From the writing point of view, it would have been a task unto itself to channel the real-life arguments against Jeanie Buss into the story. So, an entirely original character was created to direct the hate received by Isla. At the same time, the character and his show also serve as an important plot device in forwarding some major points in the story, including the acceptance that Isla finally receives, cementing her reputation in the field.
Read More: Is Hoopli a Real Sports Streaming App?
