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| Talkin’ Baseball | |||||||
| Our columnist revisits the Sarandon-Robbins ‘Bull Durham’ debacle—both the Hall of Fame’s decision to cancel its tribute to the film as well as the ‘shallow’ movie itself | |||||||
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| May 5 — Lost in last month’s hysteria about the Baseball Hall of Fame’s cancellation of a 15th-anniversary screening of the movie “Bull Durham” was this thought: What kind of a world do we live in that would even schedule a 15th-anniversary screening of the movie “Bull Durham”? |
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THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION has been unfortunately shelved, thanks to the ham-handed way in which Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey scrubbed the tribute because two of the movie’s stars—Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon—had publicly spoken out against the war in Iraq. So instead of a legitimate—and, I would argue, vital—debate about the quality of this film, the nation was plunged into a debate about Robbins and Sarandon’s right to speak their mind without fear of retribution against a movie that the New York Times originally panned as “unsteady,” “strained” and “grandstanding.” Subsequent debate was again delayed when the Brooklyn Academy of Music offered to host the very same tribute that the Hall of Fame had canceled. (This was accomplished in the way that all things are accomplished in New York: Robbins’ publicist just happens to be a board member of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. One phone call later, the deal was done, proving the New York City version of that old adage: It’s not what you know or who you know, but what board your flak is on.) Considering that I pride myself on being the country’s most important online columnist who lives in walking distance from BAM, I knew I had to be at Wednesday night’s tribute. My motive was not merely to begin the nationwide debate over the quality of “Bull Durham,” but to hobnob with the stars of a movie that many people consider to be difficult to remember exactly. And suddenly, there they were! Director Ron Shelton! Actor Robert Wuhl! Actress Susan Sarandon! And Tim Robbins! All of them jumping out of a chauffeur-driven SUV (an SUV?! Tim, I thought you stood for something!). A TV camera crew cornered Sarandon, her red hair cascading in concupiscent curls over a blue satin “Durham Bulls” jacket. “What does this night mean to you?” the correspondent asked in a stultifying, made-for-TV tone. “I just want to make sure ...” Sarandon giggled, knowing she had already screwed up one of the most-important and most-quoted lines in the movie: “I’m just happy to be here and I hope I can help the ballclub.” So Shelton—who wrote the line years ago anyway—cut off Sarandon and finished the vital baseball cliche for her. Satisfied that they’d captured a cute—albeit entirely vacuous—Actual Celebrity Moment on tape, the crew turned to Robbins, who was walking behind Sarandon. “Do you have anything you want to tell the Hall of Fame?” the TV correspondent asked. Robbins stopped. The cameras rolled. Maybe, just maybe, we’d have a sound-bite to make our editors’ happy. But Robbins—who, if you believe Dale Petroskey, is one of America’s most-dangerous, most-controversial political thinkers—smiled again, pulled out a Durham Bulls baseball from his pocket, and pushed it into the camera lens. Discretion may be valorous, but it makes for weak copy. Inside, the president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music introduced the movie’s stars and asked the sellout crowd to make donations to the Cooperstown Food Bank. Everyone laughed, assuming that she was making a joke at the expense of the Hall of Fame. No, she explained, the screening was actually a benefit for an actual food bank in Cooperstown, an actual town in upstate New York. The crowd of over-educated movie snobs seemed to suddenly remember that, ah yes, there are people who are less fortunate and sometimes we are called upon to help them. Finally, the film unspooled. Watching “Bull Durham” after 15 years is to be reminded anew how depressing it is to live in a society that willingly confers great power to people whose main gift is the ability to memorize other peoples’ words and recite them on demand. In “Bull Durham,” Robbins plays an oafish, immature pitcher. True, he was just playing a role, but at this point in his career, Robbins was hardly a household name—and, more important—hardly known for on-screen or off-screen gravitas. The idea that he would someday grow-up and become a spokesman for anything except chewing tobacco is more a statement of our nation’s screwed up priorities than any inherent genius of Tim Robbins. Sure, he’s been eloquent over the past 12 years on a variety of political subjects, but never forget, this guy was in “Howard the Duck”! |
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And while there are some great moments in “Bull Durham”—specifically, a scene in which Kevin Costner’s character screams obscenities so vile that they can’t even be printed on a Web site—there are some moments that are the cinematic equivalent of dropping an infield fly. One of them comes early in the movie, when Costner’s character—a brooding, wise-cracking, drunkard—is asked if there’s anything he actually believes in. His reply is meant to sound as if it’s being devised on the spot, but instead sounds like the result of a long brainstorming session in the writer’s room: “I believe in the soul ... the small of a woman’s back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good Scotch, long foreplay, slow tunes, and that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap,” he says. “I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe that there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astro-turf and the designated hitter, I believe in the ‘sweet spot,’ voting every election, soft-core pornography, chocolate chip cookies, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas eve, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last for three whole days.” (Seriously, who believes in soft-core pornography?) Now, had Petroskey canceled the “Bull Durham” tribute because the movie is ultimately shallow mainstream entertainment, he would’ve been celebrated for a bold stand against Hollywood pap. Instead, he foolishly decided to make it a political issue, claiming that Robbins’ “very public criticism of President Bush at this important—and sensitive—time in our nation’s history helps undermine the U.S. position, which ultimately could put our troops in more danger.” The predictable liberal outrage—how dare he violate Robbins’ free-speech rights!—hit the Hall of Fame immediately, quickly followed by the even-more-predictable conservative backlash: the actors’ have every right to speak their minds and the Hall has every right to speak its. The backlashers also like to point out that the First Amendment only bars government from infringing upon a citizen’s free speech. Private institutions like the Hall of Fame—or the New York Stock Exchange when it barred two reporters from al Jazeera or the record buyers who stopped buying Dixie Chicks albums—can do what they want. And they do—with horrible ramifications. Just last week, for example, the Smithsonian Institution scaled back a photo exhibit by a guy named Subhankar Banerjee, who spent months capturing the physical beauty and diverse wildlife of a part of Alaska that the Bush administration just happens to want to fill with oil rigs. Under pressure from pro-drilling lawmakers, the Smithsonian removed some photos of the supposed wasteland’s abundant wildlife, edited the photographer’s opinions and relocated the exhibit from a prominent spot in the main rotunda to a room downstairs. “It’s a sad day when the Smithsonian, the keeper of our national treasures, is so fearful,” Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) told The New York Times, promising to hold his own exhibition of Banerjee’s pulled photos and commentary. The Smithsonian responded that Banerjee’s commentary “bordered on advocacy.” Perhaps, but isn’t that Banerjee’s prerogative as someone who’s actually been to the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, a place that the rest of us only know as either a rallying cry or a big oil patch? No, apparently all of us need to be protected from Banerjee’s opinion on the subject. On one picture, for example, Banerjee’s caption was changed from, “The refuge has the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen and is so remote and untamed that many peaks, valleys and lakes are still without names,” to the watered-down version, “Unnamed Peak, Romanzof Mountains.” I’m sure Tim Robbins is outraged about such things. But considering he has a movie coming out later this year and considering what happens in this country when people voice unpopular opinions, my guess is he’ll just lay low for a while. After all, if there’s one thing that “Bull Durham” teaches us, sometimes you just have to play ball. Gersh Kuntzman is also a columnist for The New York Post. His website is at http://www.gersh.tv © 2003 Newsweek, Inc. | ||||||||||||||||||
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