FILM AND THEATER
There is a constant growing list of baseball films echoing through the reverberations of American culture. These movies are perhaps the best illustration to encapsulations of unique cultural beliefs and ideologies within the nation. In "Field of Dreams" we see a corn farmer holding on to the old American Dream against the present change in the modern world away from the pastoral and into the urban. Example the script:
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an`army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game... it's a piece of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good. And that could be again. People will come. People will most definitely come."
- Mann, "Field of Dreams"
There is a constant growing list of baseball films echoing through the reverberations of American culture. These movies are perhaps the best illustration to encapsulations of unique cultural beliefs and ideologies within the nation. In "Field of Dreams" we see a corn farmer holding on to the old American Dream against the present change in the modern world away from the pastoral and into the urban. Example the script:
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an`army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game... it's a piece of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good. And that could be again. People will come. People will most definitely come."
- Mann, "Field of Dreams"
In films like "The Sandlot" we are greeted with a different view of America through its depiction of Los Angeles in the sixties, one of the complex relationships brought on by widespread divorce, ideas of masculinity and childhood, and the urban vs. rural temperaments perpetuating through society. Where "The Sandlot" presents a more current America, "A League of Their Own" displays the rural imagery along with portrayals of women suffrage, gender equality, war vs. peace, powers of capitalism and addiction. The list of baseball films is vast but it is obvious that in their consumption an image is digested not only of baseball as uniquely American but of the ways in which baseball is played and presented as representations of the culture at large.
Even in areas of American theater performance, baseball has been satirized to portray not only the close cultural ties between the product and the culture it presents but American sexuality and ideas of masculinity. Here we see the group SMASH performing "The National Pastime" in comedic flamboyance. The imagery of Marilyn Monroe against the allotment of male baseball players speaks to American lust as desiring white skin, blonde hair, blue-eyed and busty women. The entire scene presents a highly Anglo tone and image as therein most of the baseball players are for the majority of white ancestry which is actually quite factual of the sport. As of 2009, sixty percent of baseball was white, nearly thirty percent of Latin descent, and about ten percent black. What's unique in this clip is the tying of baseball to gender and sexuality. Baseball is a predominately masculine sport, with no female professional league, yet the flamboyancy of the baseball players within SMASH defies this image and presents a modern twist and juxtaposition to past notions of what it means to be male.
WORKS CITED
"Baseball Speech from Field of Dreams - People Will Come." YouTube. YouTube, 03 Oct. 2009. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6U1p0hehtg>.
"SMASH - The National Pastime #SmashBrasil." YouTube. YouTube, 23 Apr. 2013. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RclopMo9Kc>.
"The Sandlot Clip "you Play Ball like a Girl".mov." YouTube. YouTube, 18 May 2010. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVscCNZsYSY>.
"Baseball Speech from Field of Dreams - People Will Come." YouTube. YouTube, 03 Oct. 2009. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6U1p0hehtg>.
"SMASH - The National Pastime #SmashBrasil." YouTube. YouTube, 23 Apr. 2013. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RclopMo9Kc>.
"The Sandlot Clip "you Play Ball like a Girl".mov." YouTube. YouTube, 18 May 2010. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVscCNZsYSY>.