Recently, I found myself at the end-of-season banquet for my alma mater’s football team, on which my friend’s brother plays. After an unremarkable meal, the head varsity coach took the podium. He proceeded to make a heartwarming speech about how hard the kids worked this season (of course) and how proud he was to coach such a fine group of young men (of course). Immediately following that, the forces of God must have seized the young coach, because he chose to comment on the recent film “Concussion.”
Now, on account of the speaker and his less-than-intelligent manner of oral discourse, and my seemingly ever-declining memory, I’ll neglect to directly quote his little speech; however, I’ll do my best to phrase through my interpretation. Essentially: Hollywood has a tendency to obscure facts and perspectives with its romanticization of events.
From my perspective, this is due to the fact that film is indeed an art, and (just as importantly, considering it is an industry) those who produce movies must ensure that their investment will pay, as any investment is expected to. Additionally, film is one of the biggest industries of our time, so for a movie to hit theaters, it must fulfill certain criteria for viewer enjoyment; therefore, it can hardly be expected that a blockbuster hit, featuring A-class actors, will be entirely dedicated to covering a story without the truth becoming secondary. So the coach was not wrong in indicating that Hollywood can muddle our perspective on events and ideas.
However, the coach tossed one phrase in that got me really thinking: “They’re trying to take our game." I went through a series of opinions and feelings after the banquet and speech. At first it seemed as though he was dismissing potentially sound scientific claims that constantly bashing your head, even with a helmet, against other people’s may cause neurological brain damage. I mean, of course, science can be wrong, and possibly not all the evidence is out yet, so really I guess it is safe to let a group of kids, whose brains are still developing, spend hours practicing ramming their heads into things.
And you know what? Maybe those Hollywood phonies are trying to take our game! It makes total sense, especially coming from such an earnest, influential character. Why else would someone dedicate themselves to carrying out grotesque amounts of deep scientific research to prove that there could be an issue within a popular sport that countless people are involved with and could be subject to? After hearing the heartfelt speech of the high school football coach, it’s clear to me that our values are under attack.
And that leaves us with only one solution: Given recent events, it’s obvious we must make like Injuns and head for the hills, guns and pigskins in hands where them there Hollywood folk can’t take our game!
