Regular readers here should have seen complaints that the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Believeland lacked women among its expert commentators on the travails of Cleveland sports teams and fans for 50 years. And a rewrite didn’t really fix that, as you can see when it reruns on ESPN2 at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The folks at ESPN said they had contacted some women before the documentary first aired, but things had not worked out. Actually, Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot was interviewed early in the process, but not included in the final cut. And the Beacon Journal’s Marla Ridenour was never even asked.
When the Cleveland Cavaliers’ NBA championship ended the decades of agony, the producers of Believeland had a chance to narrow their gender gap when they put a new ending on the film by adding Cabot, Ridenour or both.
Ridenour is in the revised cut. But you would have to know what she looks like; while others are identified in onscreen graphics, she is not.
And, if you turn off the show before the credits run, you’ll miss her entirely. She appears only in video alongside the credits as the program ends.
It’s a minimal, grudging adjustment. No more.
— Rich Heldenfels