We
all were watching “42,” the new film that purports to give us the story of
Jackie Robinson’s beginning in baseball back in the years following the Second
World War.
THE
FILM HAS the potential for controversy because the producers didn’t go out of
their way to couch the ways in which southern ballplayers and fans (both Yankee
and Dixie) were blunt in their use of epithets and other means of expressing
their displeasure with the breakdown of the major leagues as a white-only
entity.
I
have no doubt that such words really were used. In fact, there was hardly
anything in the film’s facts that hadn’t been documented excessively elsewhere.
This film does not give us any new information or different understanding of
the facts.
It
does depict anecdotes that we have all had the opportunity to read for decades.
I suppose for people who don’t want to read and need things visualized, this
film is a plus.
So
for me, the intriguing part of seeing this film was literally listening to the
reactions of the people sitting around me. They were appalled at so much of
what came from the mouths of actors portraying Dodger ballplayers Dixie Walker
and Kirby Higbe and Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman.
I
CAN’T RECALL the last time I heard so much booing and hissing and chants of “You
suck!” being hurled at the screen every time somebody said something
scurrilous, scandalous or just downright mean and vile!
And
no, this wasn’t in a movie theater in a predominantly African-American
neighborhood. I’m sure at least a few of the people who were in attendance were
amongst the types of individuals who believe that racism is something that
certain people in our society exaggerate in order to gain something for
themselves at the expense of the greater good! (My fingers feel like they went
to the toilet just typing up that line of hooey).
To
see that so many were so offended at a reminder of just how blunt and guttural the
racist expressions once were is truly evidence of how much our society has
changed for the better. Perhaps we need more reminders of what “Jim Crow” once
was to keep us from reverting back as a society?
If
anything, that scene where actor Alan Tudyk (who portrayed Chapman) is the part
that will forevermore stick in my mind. The endless flow of slurs – taken from
what really happened when Brooklyn first played the Phillies in ’47 – sticks in
my mind more than anything actor Chadwick Boseman said or did while portraying
Robinson himself.
PERSONALLY,
I WONDER if those people who wanted to make a campaign issue back in 2008 about
Barack Obama and his family once being members of a congregation presided over
by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (he who has been captured on video saying “God Damn
America”) have second thoughts.
Since
what Wright was expressing anger over with such rhetoric was a society that
once thought people like Chapman were completely acceptable – and ones who
bought into the explanation that Chapman really did give to reporters to
explain his on-field rhetoric.
That
ballplayers like Hank Greenberg and Joe DiMaggio were able to “laugh about it”
when they were hit with on-field taunts for being Jewish and Italian,
respectively. Anybody who has ever read anything about Greenberg, at least,
knows he didn’t think it was humorous.
We
are now able to look back and see just how ridiculous such trash-thought truly
was. Just like last year’s BIG film “Lincoln” made some political interests
look downright ignorant for the way they tried defending the institution of
slavery.
IF
ONLY WE could keep this thought in mind – how will people some 50 years from
now look back at us when they have to think about an issue such as gay
marriage, or perhaps the immigration reform spectacle?
Which
means Jackie Robinson’s life story may still be teaching us some life’s lessons
– or at least more than the 1950 film “The Jackie Robinson Story,” notable only
because it starred Robinson as himself in a fictionalized account of his life.
-30-
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