Commentary: ‘Ballers’ And ‘Homeland’ Take A Similar Approach To Their Stories
by Frank Martin
It’s no surprise stories are often inspired by real life. Even if it isn’t a story strictly based on true events, bits and pieces of reality could be used as inspiration to tell a fictionalized plot with fictionalized characters. But then there are stories that blend reality and fiction so well, it’s hard to tell the difference. These stories may have fictional characters who are placed in real locations and use elements of the real world to tell a fictionalized plot that mirrors something that happened in reality. Even though Homeland and Ballers are two totally different shows with two totally different styles, they both take this similar approach to their storytelling.
Ballers follows an ex-football player named Spencer Strassmore (Dwayne Johnson). After making a series of bad financial decisions, he seeks to become a money manager for up-and-coming players to prevent them from making the mistakes that he did. Along the way, Spencer’s deals become bigger, even mirroring deals that are happening in real life. The biggest example: he sought to move the Oakland Raiders out of California to Las Vegas. Although this is a fictional storyline with a fictional character, the Raiders really did move to Las Vegas in real life.
By contrast, Homeland isn’t about sports at all. It’s about a CIA agent named Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) who seeks to stop terrorist plots against the United States. The show’s first few seasons had a very sequential storyline involving an American POW becoming a terrorist sleeper agent. However, the show’s later seasons took a completely different approach with each drawing inspiration from real life geopolitical events. One season focused on a siege at an American embassy similar to what happened in Benghazi. Another season dealt with Russian propaganda farms using social media to create disinformation in America. Although both what was happening in Ballers and Homeland was completely fictional, both shows mirrored their storylines on real life events. It’s interesting to see two completely operates so similarly.
Ballers is now streaming on Netflix. Homeland is now streaming on Hulu.