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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Deep Thoughts about Field of Dreams
If you build it, he will come.
What better vehicle for the Guy girls to meditate on their relationship with their late father than a movie they once watched with him about a man’s relationship with his late father? With Field of Dreams, the 1989 magical realism baseball film starring Kevin Costner, Tracie brings some deep thoughts about parents and children, gender and emotion, and baseball and race. The filmmakers transformed JD Salinger, a real-life white author featured in the source material, the novel Shoeless Joe, into the fictional Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), a Black icon of sixties counterculture. In so doing, they opened a door to talk about race and racism in baseball and in America, but they never walked through that door. And while much of what was charming about the film 35 years ago remains charming, there’s also a great deal that feels downright unsatisfying.
Go the distance. Grab your earbuds and come with us into an analysis that straddles both the intimate view from the dugout and the big-picture vista afforded by the nosebleed seats.
Mentioned in this episode:
On the movie’s role in expensive stadiums:
https://reason.com/2023/04/01/the-expensive-seductive-nostalgia-of-field-of-dreams/
On the flawed portrayal of the father-son relationship (and a bunch of facts they got wrong):
https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/field-of-dreams-is-absolutely-terrible
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
I also can't believe that that character would have given quite the speech that he gives, with the nostalgia about America that was and could be again. It just doesn't fit with a Black man who loves baseball watching only white players. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1989 film Field of Dreams with my sister, emily Guy-Burken, and with you. Let's dive in. All right, em. I know you remember this film, so share with me. What is the Field of Dreams furniture in your head?
Speaker 2:If you build it, it he will come. That became such a cultural touchstone, just that, that, that line. I really associate this film with dad, in part because our dad lost his dad when our dad was early 20s. He was 20. Yeah, he was 20. And so Kevin Costner's feeling of loss over his father was something that it felt like really resonated with our dad, especially since the Kevin Costner character would have been about dad's age.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was two years younger than dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's something that younger than dad, yeah, that's something that I really carried with me. I remember loving James Earl Jones's character in this film, and part of it is because of his just gorgeous voice. Yeah, I mean, it's just gorgeous. But in part I also really liked Gorgeous, but in part I also I really liked, and I remember being a little heartbroken for the um, archie Graham, moonlight Graham, who in the field of dreams, just like in his real life, he gave up his dreams of baseball to, to be a doctor, to, to, to, to save lives and the only other thing. So at some point in the early 2000s, when I was working at Barnes Noble, that's how I learned I don't think I knew that Field of Dreams was a book before it was a movie, and I don't even know if that's what they called it. No, the book was called Shoeless Joe. That's right. Yeah, and the author's name is JP Kinsella.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Kevin Costner's character's name is John Kinsella, no, kevin Costner's Ray Kinsella. His dad was Kinsella.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. That's right. It's clear that the book was very much, though it's fiction because it's the same story of a you know, ghostly baseball players, but it's clear that it's very much autobiographical and personal to JP Kinsella. One thing I remember about the book is that the main character's wife was a non-entity, and so they gave Holly Hunter a lot more to do it wasn't Holly Hunter?
Speaker 1:No, no, it was. She has that same look. Yeah, amy Madigan. Amy Madigan was the actress Amy Madigan.
Speaker 2:That is not. Oh my goodness, I had no idea. I'm sure that was Holly Hunter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have that same sort of like square jaw and like kind of um breathy voice, but it's not Holly Hunter.
Speaker 2:Okay. So they gave Amy Madigan, um, a lot more to do in the movie, whereas in the book she's she's just a like loving wife and mother who is eternally supportive, and really kind of pissed me off when I read it, even though in other ways I was charmed by the book. And then the one last thing is in the book the Terrence Mann character the James Earl Jones I know was JD Salinger, yeah which I remember when I read the book I was like, can you do that? Uh, which I remember when I read the book I was like, can you do that? So that's, that's uh.
Speaker 2:I've got quite a bit of uh, of background with this and like we were talking offline about how neither of us are sportsy yeah, we did grow up with, um, a baseball loving parents and grand grandmother especially. So, of any sports, I feel closest to baseball, in part because I understand it. Yeah, there, there, I feel a connection to baseball and like this film kind of ties into that connection, which I think is very common among Americans, even those who don't pay attention to baseball. So tell me, why are we talking about this film today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, like you, it definitely is associated with dad in my imagination and when, you know, we were kind of making the list and I was thinking about these foundational texts, if you will, of our childhood. Like this one's there and I haven't thought about it in a while, although in my career in marketing I have said so many times to my colleagues in programming that programming, like doing stuff, is not like field of dreams, it's not. If you build it, they will come that's my line to tell them why they need marketing. So, a little bit, you know it's in the brain because of that Um and so I wanted to kind of look back at it and see what the messages were, because it is just sort of like feel good, like it just kind of in the furniture of my mind. It's just kind of like hi, I'm happy, and I don't trust that this is our 52nd regular episode. I don't trust that. So I decided let's shine a light on it and see what's behind there. So some of the things that I want to talk about I do want to look at gender a little bit and the female characters. There aren't many who show up. I really want to talk a lot about race, because I feel like, especially by choosing to make the JD Salinger character into a fictional black author, they sort of opened a door and didn't walk through it. They sort of opened a door and didn't walk through it. So I want to talk about that, and I also want to talk about the father-son relationship at the core of this film and what the lessons ultimately are about it, and about the power and the danger of nostalgia, because I think the sort of famous line put into James Earl Jones's mouth about how baseball is a proof of what America the good that America was and can be again rings real different in the post-MAGA years. Yeah, so I want to talk a bit about nostalgia and there are commentators who talk about the power of this movie and sort of baseball nostalgia in kind of almost swindling taxpayer dollars for these big stadiums. I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on that, but I do want to lift it up a little bit because I think that that's part of the conversation around this film. So those are some of the buckets that you know when, when we pull this apart a bit, we'll talk about. Um, but before we get there, let me see if I can do a synopsis of the plot of the film, which I have Wikipedia up on my screen too to try and keep me on task, because we both know I'm not great at concise synopses of these films.
Speaker 1:So Field of Dreams starts with a voiceover where Kevin Costner's Ray Kinsella is telling us a story about his growing up. So he was born in 52. His dad was already old when he was born. That's like the way he talks about. It actually starts with his dad. His dad went away to war, came back a little bit shell-shocked, moved to Chicago, fell in love with the White Sox, had his heart broken when they didn't win the 1919 series and then had his heart broken again a year later when it turned out that they had thrown that series. Then we hear about sort of his growing up. Ray Kevin Costner's character's mom died when he was three and then dad, I guess, did the best that he could but the two of them kind of grew apart. He moved away as soon as he was able, moved as far away as possible. They were in New York and he went to Berkeley for college and then dad died he in Berkeley this is all still in voiceover.
Speaker 1:He went to protest, smoked some grass, tried to like sitar music and met Annie. He and Annie moved to Iowa, bought a farm and now he's a farmer. They had a kid, karen. So now it's like you know, it's the mid eighties and, um, he's this kind of a slightly out of place farmer in Iowa and he's in the cornfield one day and and hears this disembodied kind of whisper voice that says if you build it, he will come. And initially he's like did you hear that? And like Annie didn't hear it, and it and it keeps coming back and he doesn't know what it means he's talking to like the other Iowa farmers at the feed store or whatever Do y'all ever hear voices out in the fields? And they're like are you hearing voices, ray? Anyway, there's a whole thing where he's trying to not look crazy. And then eventually he hears it again and sort of also sees a vision of a baseball field with, like the lights, in the midst of his cornfield and Shoeless.
Speaker 1:Joe Jackson, who was one of the Black Sox so the White Sox players who threw the game, the Black Sox nine, I think they're referred to and was his father's idol and maybe didn't actually throw the game. He took the gambler's money but he still performed really, really well. You can't point to a single thing that would have indicate which we hear as uh through exposition, while um through exposition, while Ray is telling the young Karen about, about Shulish Joe. So he tells Annie that this is what he thinks he's supposed to do and they have this conversation where he's like am I crazy? And she's like, yeah, but I mean, if you think you have to do this, I guess I guess you have to do this. So he plows under the field.
Speaker 1:We see like this montage of him building this baseball field. All of his neighbors are lined up on the road watching, saying that he's crazy and he's going to ruin his farm. Anyway, it goes months Like. We see sort of again through cinematography and cinematic magic. We see this months and months and months that this field is there and nothing's happening. We sort of see him and Annie sitting at the kitchen table with like a calculator and she's saying, you know, with the loss of the acreage we might just barely not break even. So we see that there's financial consequences to this baseball field in the corn field.
Speaker 1:And then Karen, who is maybe eight, is like Daddy, there's a man in the field and, lo and behold, it's Shoeless Joe in the sort of 1919 uniform, even though the man's been dead since 1951. So he and Shoeless Joe hit a few balls around. There's some banter where Shoeless Joe asks if he can pitch. He says yeah, I can pitch. Don't we need a catcher? And Shoeless Joe says not, if you get it near the plate. And so they kind of play as much baseball as two people can. And then Joe asks if he can come back and Ray's like yeah, of course. Anyway, the next day the whole team shows up and they're playing.
Speaker 2:And so now we've got this thing where the, the, the ball, the ballplayers are there kind of you know practicing.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, annie, his wife's family, including her brother Mark, are over busfield who was poindexter in revenge of the nerds. Okay, um, it just he. He's one of those actors where you're like where have I seen him? Yeah, everywhere. It is timothy busfield. Um, so he's uh, ray's brother-in-law mark. Annie's family cannot see the baseball players, so they think that Ray and Karen and Annie are just sitting in the bleachers of this watching this empty, uh, ball field and they think that they're crazy. Mark is trying to convince them to sell him, sell Mark and his investors the farm. He'll let them keep their house.
Speaker 1:So fast forward a bit and Ray gets another message in the fields ease his pain. Same whisper voice. He doesn't know what that means. The whisper voice is not forthcoming with additional information. Last time he got like a vision visual of what he was supposed to do. This time there's nothing, it's just ease his pain. He tells Annie about it. She's like you know, this is kind of frustrating that your field voice is so, it's so enigmatic.
Speaker 1:They end up at a PTA meeting where some of their neighbors are trying to ban books from the school board or from the school library. The school board guy at the front of the room is arguing well about why that's not okay. And the books in particular that are trying to be banned are the boat rocker by Terrence Mann, which she says is pornography. And the guy at the front of the room is like actually the Supreme court says it's not and, um, that he's a pervert and all this stuff. So Annie raises her hand and starts arguing and really pushes back on this whole notion of censorship and book banning and defense Terrence Mann. He's the man who literally coined the phrase make love, not war, in the field of dreams universe, and that you know he was revolutionary and how important Terrence Mann was. And eventually she kind of wins by saying like how many of you want to have rules like there were under Stalin and how many of you you know like who wants to be, uh, like the Nazis kind of a thing, and nobody raises their hand and who believes in freedom and who believes in freedom of speech and liberty and whatever like American ideals. And of course everybody raises their hand and she gets really, really fired up. There's also some like personal beefing with the original um person about in favor of the, of the book burning or book banning.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile Ray is like just I don't know, hyper fixated on his own thing, rushes Annie out because he thinks he knows whose pain he's supposed to ease. He's been like doodling ease his pain on his program. And she's like Annie is fired up, she's so excited Like that was amazing, it was just like the sixies again. And she's like so happy and like he can't put his shit aside for like 30 seconds to let her have this. He has to tell her I know whose pain I'm supposed to ease it's Terrence Mann.
Speaker 1:So montage of research about Mann, because Annie keeps saying what's he got to do with baseball? What's he got to do with you? Ray thinks he knows what he's got to do with baseball. He thinks he needs to go find Terrence Mann in Boston and take him to a ball game. And Annie's like this is not happening. You know, like I, we can't afford it, we're going to lose the farm. Like this is no, just stop. This is not happening. But then he says I think I have. He says I think I have to take him to this ball game at Fenway, at Fenway park. And she says Fenway park, the one with the big green wall, and he says yeah, and then she says she had a dream that he was at Fenway park with Terrence Mann and he says was I sitting on the first base side about halfway up? And she says yeah. And he says, and then she says I was eating up. And they stay together like hot dog. They had the same dream. So they pack a bag.
Speaker 1:He drives to Boston. He has a hard time finding Terrence Mann. Eventually he finds him. Mann doesn't want to have anything to do with him Like tries to kick him out. He pretends to kidnap him. It's like this whole thing shenanigans.
Speaker 1:Eventually convinces Terrence Mann to go to the ballgame with him. They're at the ballgame and he hears the voice again. Go the distance. And when the voice is there, the scoreboard displays the stats for Archibald Moonlight Graham, who played one inning in the 20s, got zero hits, got zero. He had zero stats except for this one inning. And man is like what's wrong? And so Ray's like I guess you didn't have to be here after all. He takes him back to his apartment. Terrence Mann gets out of the car and is like I guess you didn't have to be here after all. He takes him back to his apartment. Terrence Mann gets out of the car and is like what happened. He won't tell him. He says I'm sorry, I wasted your time, whatever. And he flips a U-turn to drive away from Terrence Mann, and then he's standing in the way he heard it too, the way he heard it too. So Mr Mann decides to go with him, with Ray, to find Archibald Graham who lives in Minnesota. How did they know that? How did they know he was in Minnesota?
Speaker 2:I don't remember Was that part of his statistics.
Speaker 1:he was in Minnesota.
Speaker 2:I don't remember how Was that part of his statistics?
Speaker 1:Yes, it was. Yes, yes, it was Chisel, minnesota. It was on the board. You're right, thank you. So man doesn't even like go up to his apartment to like pack a bag or anything, they just start driving. So we see kind of a montage of them driving, taking turns, driving, talking while they're driving. We get the story in that montage of a little bit more about Ray's dad, john.
Speaker 1:So John was a great baseball player, missed his chance at baseball because of the war and then the family, and so he pushed his son on, pushed his son into it anyway. So by 10 ray was like oh god, I don't want to have to play baseball, it was like a chore to him. And so by 14 he started refusing. So man asks why did you? What happened? At 14? He says I read a little book called the boat rocker by terrence man. And terrence is like don't put that on me, that's not my fault, it's not my fault, you wouldn't play catch with your dad. And he's like I know, I know. Anyway, at 17, he said something unforgivable to his father and then left for college and then the son of a bitch died before I could take it back. What did you say? I said I could never respect a man whose idol was a criminal. He met Shoeless Joe. Okay, so that's. That's the core of the hurt between Ray and his dead dad. Come back to that.
Speaker 1:So they get to Minnesota. Moonlight Graham actually became a doctor and he was much beloved and, like a real pillar of the community, took care of the whole community and all the kids regardless of their ability to pay. Like everybody really like has wonderful things to say about him. He's been dead for 10 years, more than 10 years at this point. So they're like they don't. They don't know why they are there. They've interviewed a whole bunch of townspeople about Dr Graham. They look at the newspaper Terrence has been declared missing because he hasn't been answering his phone from his dad, who's from Baltimore. Shout out to Baltimore. So Ray decides to take a walk so that Terrence can call his dad and tell him he's not dead. And somehow Ray steps out of their roadside motel into 1972, which is the year that Dr Graham died. And there's Dr Graham, which he recognizes him because of some of the things that the townspeople had told him about, played by Lankester, by the way, I think it was his last movie.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, yeah. Well, I can remember the, the visual of what, the, what he looked like as a as, as you know, the older man doctor, and like there was just something very reassuring about him.
Speaker 1:Totally, totally, totally. So ray and dr graham have this long conversation about baseball, about the single inning. Does he ever miss it? He sort of wishes he could play just one inning, like even just one at that, so he could like look at the pitcher and wink at him. So he thinks he knows something that the pitcher doesn't.
Speaker 1:Um, and ray's like I like, I think I can, I think I can do that, I think I can do that for you. You're supposed to come with me. And doc Graham's like nah, no, I'm not going to go with you. There are people here that depend on me. And Ray says, like there are those who would say that. You know, it's a tragedy that you had this dream that you didn't get to fulfill, that you only got five minutes of your dream. And doc Graham says you know, if I'd only gotten five minutes as a doctor, that would have been a tragedy. And so he sends Ray on his way.
Speaker 1:And so Ray gets a call or talks to Annie, who lets him know that the bank is foreclosing. He says I need to take Terrence back to Boston and then I'll be home as soon as I can. And Terrence says, no, I'm coming with you to Iowa because I want to see this field. So they're heading home, they see a hitchhiker, a young, uh, a young guy like a teenage teenager boy, um, who they pick up, who says he's, he plays baseball and he hears that in the Midwest they have teams all throughout the Midwest and they'll even help you find a job so that you can play at night. And, um, his name is Archie Graham. So they have picked up the ghost of Doc Graham as a hitchhiker.
Speaker 2:Okay, so they get home. Just you got to hit the I believe button Totally.
Speaker 1:Magical realism. It's magical realism. So they get home, terrence is introduced to Annie, who's a little bit starstruck, and to Karen, and when Ray looks around there's like so many more players. When he left there were nine of them from the White Sox, the 1919 White Sox team, but now there's like dozens. There's so many players warming up on the field and shoeless Joe says I hope you don't mind Like we got tired of just practicing and so we invited we invited some other other guys to come. You can't, you wouldn't believe how many people want to play here and they make a joke about Ty Cobb and and Archie recognizes all these players and he names them and they they're real players that he names. And then he goes to get suited up because he Archie's going to play.
Speaker 1:So they sit down and they're watching a game and Mark shows up, the brother-in-law, and he walks right through the game across the field and you know it's kind of funny because the players are like holding each other back from, like beating on him and stuff and he just barely misses um getting hit by a pitch and stuff like that. And he's telling them how, telling annie and and ray how crazy they are and how nuts this is and stupid and whatever. And they're gonna lose the farm and just sell to me anyway anyway. And Karen then says you don't need to sell the farms, addie. And eventually she says how people will? People will come and they won't even know why, and they'll. They'll ask if you look around and you'll say sure, you know, no problem, you can look around and give me 20 bucks and they'll hand over 20 bucks and they won't even know why they're giving you, but then they'll relive. And then he says that line about you know, um, the proof that America was good and can be again, or something along those lines. And Mark is like you all are insane.
Speaker 1:And then Karen says something else that makes Mark really frustrated. So he climbs up the bleachers and he picks up Karen by the shoulders and says you're brainwashing your kid. And then race like agitated by the fact that Mark is holding Karen and they sort of like lunge at one another and Karen ends up falling off the back of the bleachers. So you know good, like I don't know 15 feet or something. And then she's just lying there and she's not breathing. And Archie from the field sees what's happening because all the guys are watching. They stopped playing and started listening when Terrence Mann was talking and Archie starts rushing forward. He stops at the warning track there's like a gravel warning track which we've learned earlier that the ghosts can't pass and he steps over it and his cleats become the dress shoes that brock lancaster was wearing.
Speaker 1:And now the, the, you know, the teenage boy, is now the, the elderly, um brock lancaster doctor. He comes and um saves k Karen, who was choking on a piece of hot dog, and Mark sees him. And now Mark can see all the baseball players and it's like don't you know? You can't sell this farm. So shoeless Joe says, do you want to come with us, maybe? And well, she was sure, says we're going to, we're going to break for the day.
Speaker 1:So all the guys are sort of headed out into the back, into the corn, where they. They walk into the corn and then disappear. That's kind of the shtick. And um, shoeless Joe says, do you want to come with us? And Ray thinks he means him and he's like, yeah, I want to see what's out there. And she was just as no, no, I didn't mean you, I meant him. So he wants to take Terrence man. And there's a. Ray throws a little bit of a temper tantrum. Uh, because he, he wants to go and Terrence is like I'm gonna write this story. I mean, terrence hasn't written in like 20 years or something. Um, he's like a computer software engineer or something now and he was completely what's the word? Disillusioned and bitter. And he and and all of a sudden not all of a sudden, but because of this experience and the baseball he's like reinvigorated and wants to write a story about the baseball players in the corn reinvigorated and wants to write a story about the baseball players in the corn.
Speaker 2:I actually I have a very visceral memory of just the huge grin and the laughter when he steps into the corn, like he gets close to it and he looks back and he's like he has this giant smile on his face and he's laughing and it's just the joy, yeah, and like just it's just a reminder of what an excellent actor James Earl Jones is yeah, he did.
Speaker 1:They linger on that and you know, with his sort of delight and that he sort of puts his arm in and pulls it back and he's like scared but excited it's, it's, it's lovely. So he goes off, he goes into the corn and disappears and then shoeless Joe is there, um, and says I can't remember exactly what it is, but he brings Ray's attention to the catcher. It's one more guy and I think I think she was. She actually says if you build it, he will come. And we look over and it's John Kinsella, it's Ray's dad as a very young man.
Speaker 2:we had seen a photo of him in the opening montage with the voiceover.
Speaker 1:Very handsome actor, by the way, playing the young John Kinsella, just for the record Not that we pay much attention to that on Deep Thoughts. His name was Dwyer Brown and yeah, he looked good. Anyway, he comes over, introduces himself as John, thanks him, thanks Ray and Annie, you know, for building the field and how great it is to play. And Ray says to't, I don't even know what to do. And she's like why don't you introduce him to his granddaughter? So you know, this is still calling him. John introduced him to Karen. Annie and Karen go off to the house to leave them to talk. So they're kind of chatting a little bit, still using the first name. And then, um, john starts to like follow the other players into the corn and Ray says dad, and John turns around and he says do you want to have a catch? And John says yeah, I'd like that. And then the movie ends with the two of them throwing the ball back and forth. And then this you can see this pans away and we see this line of headlights in the background of all these cars that are heading their way to pay their 20 bucks a pop to see the um, to see the nostalgic baseball field.
Speaker 1:So that was my not particularly concise synopsis. I'm so bad at this. I anyway, anyway, I'm going to actually gonna. I'm going to start with gender, just to get it out of the way, because that's where we so often start and I don't want to lose it and I want to spend a little more time talking about race. So you said I haven't read the book. You said in the book the Annie is just sort of a cardboard cutout cardboard cutout supportive.
Speaker 2:She's nothing but supportive, which really irritated me when I read it Because, if I recall correctly because it's been 20 years since I read it she didn't even give like token protests of like you sure about this, is this a good idea? Or anything like that. It was like just all right, sweetheart, whatever you need. And then she didn't have that connection to JD Saling to make Annie not just a cardboard cutout.
Speaker 1:And I appreciate that, and same with Karen, the daughter. What's interesting is that they sort of became like cardboard oracles.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about that with Karen going daddy, people will come.
Speaker 1:She did the, she did the same. Uh, she also was the one like there was another moment, the moment when they realize it has worked after months of it just sitting there. It's because Karen saw shoeless Joe out the window. So, Karen, is this sort of Oracle? Um plot device, because also it was her choking that led to the um the choice that that doc Graham made again.
Speaker 1:And Annie is certainly more than just supportive but also ultimately like just supportive, like she's, she gets there, she. She protests a bit before she gets there, but once she gets there, I don't, it still felt like too quick to me, sort of.
Speaker 1:Um and like I don't know. There there's a degree of like. If you think you need to do it, then I guess you need to do it. That's what she says, which which I actually it resonates for me. And also, maybe like offer alternatives. Maybe like offer alternatives, yeah, like I'm sure there are lots of minor league baseball teams within driving distance of wherever they are in Iowa. Like, let's go to a game, you don't have to build your own. And, um, by the way, um, I, I, I know that there's some therapists in town. We could go together, you know. I just anyway, it, it felt, I'm based on what you've said.
Speaker 1:It feels clear to me that they did work to flesh out, uh, a character who was just a name and also, I would have appreciated more. She still fell a little flat and Ray treated her with flatness. The way that he responds at the PTA meeting pissed me off. Yeah, so there's that. It does pass Bechdel, because Annie and Karen talk about dinner, oh boy, and I don't know if the woman at the um PTA meeting she may have had a name and they talk about parents, man, so it does pass back tail, but it's still like it's very male, heavy storytelling. So so there's that, but I'm going to move on to race.
Speaker 1:Actually, they made the choice to transfer the JDD Salinger character into a fictional Black author. They have him say in well, ray finds an article where he talks about having a dream of playing at Ebbets Field, about meeting Jackie Robinson, about you know sort of, and I think, names another Black player as well, aaron's man's race is not insignificant Even to his characterization in this film. They make a point of the fact that he's Black. It's not like blind casting. It's important that the character is Black. It's important that the character is black. And yet all of the ghost players on this Iowa field are white. They're all pre-integration, although some, I think, who are named, played after 47, when Robinson broke the color barrier. But regardless, even if you didn't, even if you wanted to keep it sort of pre-integration there, were so many Negro leagues and they say, like Shula's show says, you wouldn't believe how many people want to play here.
Speaker 1:And so I think you know, if it had only ever been the nine White Sox players, that was an all white team Cause it was pre-integration, and like okay, I mean okay, but it wasn't. They opened it up and they didn't bring in any black players. And Terrence Mann doesn't respond to that, he doesn't remark on that, and that feels actually not just a missed opportunity, actually not just a missed opportunity, but like the way, the way to use language that you have used before they did, terrence.
Speaker 2:Mann dirty. I think, yeah, well, that's. That's just not how the character would react Exactly.
Speaker 1:Like they've created a character.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things that is lovely about the film is they have created this fully fleshed character in Terrence Mann and they have this amazing actor embody him.
Speaker 2:I for years thought that and please remember if you're listening, this was pre-Google I thought that this was a real author, just because it seemed realistic, like I knew james earl jones was playing, playing the character, but I was just like I could, I believed that this could be a real author. Basically, yeah and uh, because they do such a nice job of of writing that character and james earl jones does such a masterful job of embodying him. Like I just that that part where where Ray is trying to get into him and to see him and man has been a basically a recluse for so long and he's like, oh, I know what's going on. You read my books and it's just like peace, love, dope, like the, the, the bitterness and humor like that, that, that combination of like cynicism, but he still has his sense of humor, is just it's amazing. And that character would have been like hey, shoeless Joe, where are the other? Where the black baseball players? Yeah, I mean, what's going on here?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. I also can't believe that that character would have given quite the speech that he gives, with the nostalgia about america that was and could be again. It just doesn't fit. Oh God, yeah, the black man who loves baseball, watching only white players. Yeah, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:I was just talking to my kids about nostalgia. We were in a, we were in the car and we were at a stop sign or stoplight and the car in front of us had in, like the back seat, like facing out, was a, was a MAGA hat. And so I was like, and the kids were like what, what are you? What are you reacting to? I was like there's America great again hat. And we talked a little bit about like why is that their slogan? I was like well, nostalgia is an important part of fascism. It's one of the many natural human responses that is twisted by fascists to create. You know what they want.
Speaker 2:And so I personally have been wary of nostalgia within myself ever since. It was actually a daily show piece from. It's got to be 10 or 15 years ago now, when the correspondents were like, okay, when was the world better? Because they were going based on something I think it was. Glenn Beck was just like you remember when it was great and he was thinking of like the late 70s and early 80s, when he was a kid, and so they go back to someone who was an adult. Then they're like yeah, no, there was all kinds of awful stuff going on and then like they kept going back and it was just like it's.
Speaker 2:Nostalgia is really just about remembering what it was like to be a child, not really about remembering a better world, and so ever since then, I've been very wary of when I feel like, oh, I miss this thing from my childhood. It was like is what, is that what I miss? Or is it do I miss not having the kinds of responsibilities that I have as an adult and being able to take things like what we're doing with this project, being able to take things uncritically, like being able to enjoy media uncritically. I do miss that, but that doesn't mean I want to go back to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I don't know that I have much else to share on that like, but it it really struck me as I was. It struck me as I was watching it, as I was watch, re-watching the movie and watching the players, that once they have, you know, two full teams saying this feels like a missed opportunity because they could have invited the Negro Leagues. That's's what I said as I watched it. And the more I thought about it and the more I thought about Terrence Mann, the character that they created, and then read some additional commentary, it just got deeper and deeper for me as a not just a missed opportunity but actual disservice to the character, to the viewer, to baseball.
Speaker 2:So american history yeah, yeah, because I mean this. This entire film is about the, the, the black socks and who had done this awful thing right, and it's giving them a redemption, and but doing so by continuing to segregate black players. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, so I'm going to. I want to move on to actually the sort of the central arc. That is the reason that like resonated so strongly with dad and, having lost his father and so many adult men who maybe subscribe to some of the toxic ideas that men can't cry, they'll cry for this movie, right, like. This is one that they're, they let themselves cry for.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, this movie. And when the Cubs win the world series, right.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk about that, the this relationship between Ray and John and the way the movie addresses it and the way the movie suggested is healed or somehow redeemed, which, to be fair, in the 90s, you know, when I was watching this and in my memory and even watching it surface level. Now it works. It's a beautifully scored, beautifully shot, beautifully acted movie that pulls on your feels in the way that it intends. But when I start to dig a little deeper, as we do on Deep Thoughts, I'm a little perturbed by the lessons here about intergenerational misunderstanding and the relationship between parents and children and sort of what is required. So let me pull that apart a little bit.
Speaker 1:So the main thing that we're given about what went wrong, if you will, or what the friction was between Ray and his dad, john, is that in Ray's mind John was a sellout because he went away to war and came home and made adult choices like getting a job because he had a kid and then raising a kid by himself because he was a widower, instead of playing baseball. Sellout, okay, uh, all right. Um, we never hear anything about the toll that their grief from losing the mom played on these two men, or man and child or whatever. We never hear in what ways John bristled at Ray. We hear Ray bristling at John, but never the other way around.
Speaker 1:And I'm sorry, I don't believe it. I don't believe it was all about just Ray insulting a baseball player who had been dead for almost 20 years when he said what he said. Like what? No, I that, no, it's just too simplistic. And the whole redemptive arc, the thing that they then heal it. I mean I didn't share this in the synopsis, but Ray keeps saying like one of the reasons he feels he needs to do this seemingly insane and definitely irrational thing of building a baseball field in the middle of his cornfield is because he doesn't want to end up like his father, who always just did as was expected and never did anything spontaneous in his life. Oof yeah.
Speaker 2:You know we've talked a little bit before about the idea of selling out and how that was particularly for Gen X, but it sounds like I mean for boomers as well. It was like that's a bad thing to do is to sell out, even though, like in this case, like what that meant was he made John Kinsella made responsible choices to take care of the people who are depending on him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think there's something really interesting the 60s are almost like their own character in this movie.
Speaker 1:But again, it's sort of the way that it's a cardboard cutout of a character, if you will, and I do think there's something that a lot of boomer makers I do think there's something that a lot of boomer makers, creators kind of, were wondering about, having the 1960s being sort of the formative years that was all about counterculture and about questioning authority and, you know, sex, love, dope or whatever. How does one carry those ideals forward into a responsible adulthood? What does that look like? And I think that's part of what was some of the questions that are underlying this. But I'm not sure that the answers are actually very useful from Field of Dreams, especially because if this is in fact the story of, you know, father son kind of reconciliation, it's fucked up because Ray doesn't reconcile with the man that he knew, he doesn't reconcile with the man who made the choices for Ray's own good, who made the choices for Ray's own good. He reconciles with a teenage version of his dad who hadn't yet made those choices and that doesn't seem like a reconciliation at all.
Speaker 1:And on the one hand, I'll argue with myself and say I think another piece of this is remembering, reminding, learning that our parents are in fact human, you know, and not kind of gods, and that they have feet of clay and regrets and desires and dreams and whatever, and and they did the best they could and kind of embracing the full humanity of our parents, but, on the other hand, the full humanity of John Kinsella was the old man who chose not to pursue baseball because it would have been irresponsible.
Speaker 1:And so like, like there's some friction in my relationship with our late father and if I were given a magical realism method to reconcile, I might like to meet our 20-year-old dad, but that's not the man I need to reconcile with, you know. I need to reconcile with the 63 year old man who said things that hurt me. So once I start kind of digging into this thing that makes adult men cry, I'm like, well, even that is kind of a like rose colored portrait, like-colored glasses, on what this can and should be well it's, it's decontextualizing because it's decontextualizing the relationship.
Speaker 2:Even so, he's like he's creating this relationship with this like younger version, with the one who he had all of the issues with, like, so it's as if there's this, like the movie suggests, there's a purity to like, play and catch with the young version of his dad. In the same way that a lot of times you'll see, people will try to decontextualize arguments about things like well, what if you know? What if a white woman said that you know that sort of thing, yeah, whereas like, but that's not what happened. What happened was his dad was in his 50s when he was born and he was, you know, was a widower when he was born and he was a, you know, was a widower when he was only three. And you know, like that, this you can't decontextualize that relationship and trying to do so is just magical thinking. Yeah, which I mean. Obviously it's a magical realism story, but it's also something that you said offline that I've been thinking about is you were saying about how, like, the importance of John's dreams compared to Ray's dreams.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And how, like Ray tells Terrence that by 10, playing baseball was a chore and at 14 he refused to play catch with his dad anymore. I have a college friend who I didn't know this when we were in college together. I learned it relatively recently. Her mother was a world or is still is a world class sailor, like competitive sailing and it like that's very much a boys club and her mom is amazing. But her mom wanted her to do the same and like really pushed my friend to take up sailing, which is just not who my friend is. And so it wasn't until my friend was.
Speaker 2:I think she was saying in her early teens, like 12, 14, somewhere around there that her mom finally recognized that her daughter is a different person and doesn't like the same things and they could find a way to enjoy the water together rather than it being this constant push to have the same dream. And I was really. This friend told the story because a mutual friend was lamenting that her daughter wasn't a reader and all of us were English majors, all of us were readers. And so my friend, whose mother was a sailor, told this story to be like, let your kid be who your kid is kid is and it's really stuck with me because it is so important to me that I don't put my views of what a good life would be on my kids. You know it's up to them. The movie, as I recall, gives a sense that if left alone, ray would have loved baseball, but because his dad pushed him, he pushed back.
Speaker 1:Certainly yes.
Speaker 1:That is accurate. That is the implication. It's interesting that you're bringing this up, though, because in the you know, sort of travel montage, one of the things that is said between Terrence and Ray is that this is your penance, and that's the word that's used penance. So in your friend's example, right, like if this were, if we're iterating this out for the sailing story now, your friend never liked sailing and now her mom is dead and now she's like traveling around the world to like collect the ghosts of dead sailors as penance for not sailing more, yeah, or for telling her mom that she didn't like to say oh, or for like, I mean ultimately, if, if you're, if this, if your friend's sailing example is to be illustrative here, than what Ray did by insulting Shoeless Joe when he was 17, was actually finally say something to get through to his dad, who wasn't understanding. He had to say something outrageous in order to be heard, and then his dad died before they could reconcile, and that sucks.
Speaker 1:I don't want to suggest otherwise, but the suggestion that he needs penance does not fit with the lesson that you're trying to share with us, or that your friend was trying to share with you, and and the circle of readers.
Speaker 2:It's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because, like I do, jp Kinsella, who wrote the book, and the filmmakers they got to the core of something.
Speaker 2:That is like wanting to reconnect with someone who's no longer with us, particularly when they died, when you were on bad terms, like there is something very compelling about that and I think that there is some fairness maybe, maybe within the story, and I haven't seen it in years. So this is just based on remembering what you've described. But that Ray is. He didn't want to end up like his father and so that's why he's doing this spontaneous thing and he's still in his head kind of punishing his dad, and so there is possibly this sense of like being able to see his dad as a full human. By seeing him as a young man, like I can see where that you know, see where there could be some storytelling usefulness in that. Um, just in the same way that, like with the ways that dad did things that were hurtful, in some ways it would be useful for me to see him as a 20 year old and see the ways in which he had these wounds that never completely healed himself.
Speaker 1:Lately. That's not what field of dream gives us. Yeah, that's true, I'm with you, year old Jim, and and see the ways in which he has been wounded, when the wounds were still fresh and not like scabbed over and and scarred into the ways that then hurt me and you. That is not what field of dreams gave us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's more of Ray's apology.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it is Ray's apology is apology.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it is Ray's apology and I, you know, I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. I agree In that, like there. But it's, there's no, there's no other side to it, there's no, like you don't see John's apology, right?
Speaker 1:And and there's no, like you don't see John's apology Right, and they do acknowledge that, Like at one point, Ray, when the dad is revealed, Ray says to Shula's show it was you and Shula's show says no, Ray, it was you.
Speaker 1:So like this is all somehow Ray manifesting that, and so it's one way. Okay, all right. And I don't know if the like if I'm I'm feeling dissatisfied with it, I'm that, that's, that's where I'm ultimately landing is that it just feels dissatisfying because of some of the like when I spin it out, when I iterate it out, you know that, like these wild, irrational actions, um, in order to convey an apology, that that that cannot be received any longer. And there's no, the reciprocity is not what I, what I, what I would need it to be, and so there's anyway, I totally projecting, which is what people do to this movie, so I'm not going to apologize, um but, you know, I there's.
Speaker 1:I do think that there's there's something there in in the one way nature that can't just be kind of explained away through the nature of storytelling or even kind of trying to understand the magical realism of it of you know, this is all somehow manifest through, manifested through Ray, because the core of the lesson, which is why we do deep thoughts, really feels like too much pressure placed on the younger generation for the repair that's. That's what I'm trying to get at.
Speaker 2:This is bringing up to me, so I can't remember if it was on Deep Thoughts or also on Deep Thoughts or just on Lightbringers. But we've talked before about how much of current media is giving opportunities for parents to apologize to their children. So that happened in Lucifer, with the, the Danis Haysbert's character of God saying to, to to Lucifer. I tried and I did it wrong, but I was. I have the best of intentions and, like I'm, I'm, I love you and I'm proud of the man you've become. But we also see it in everything, everywhere all at once. We see it in in All at Once. We see it in Uncanto.
Speaker 2:There is a lot of media being produced by, I suspect, people who were Karen's age when Field of Dreams came out, who are our age, asking their parents and wanting their parents to acknowledge the harms that they have done intentionally or unintentionally. And I tend to be very optimistic I'm such a Pollyanna. So my thinking is I doubt that people in our age group are going to get those apologies. Our age group are going to get those apologies, but we have us and the people coming after us now have scripts for it. Right, because we have Unconto.
Speaker 2:We have everything everywhere all at once we have Lucifer Right, but it's, I think, in the eighties. It's very possible the. This was a step forward, and this was a step forward particularly between men and their fathers, in terms of what it means to kind of try to repair that relationship when toxic masculinity says you can't cry Right. And so this movie was something that was meaningful and a step forward in a like emotionally constipated America, and now we're 35 years on, we're better able to recognize like that was still pretty emotionally constipated, so now we're expecting more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well put, well put, all right. One final thing, because I mentioned it and then I'm going to wrap up, or, unless you have something you want to add, I just want to name and I don't need to talk about this at length, but there are some commentators who have noted that Field of Dreams and the nostalgia that it leaned on about baseball led to some very expensive baseball stadiums, the first of which being right here in Baltimore, camden Yards, which became the model with this sort of historic looking arches, and it really did try to hearken back to an earlier age in that same sort of like what baseball used to be and can be again. And even that speech from James Earl Jones gets played in these stadiums on, you know, should in in in some commentators minds and I maybe agree, like would have been better spends on, you know, like, feeding or housing or, you know care educating or or medical even filling in potholes yeah, so, uh, so I just wanted to name that as well.
Speaker 1:It's sort of because part of our project is thinking about the, the, the cultural implications of the specific pieces of media, and it's not just this movie. Like there were a bunch of baseball movies in this time frame. There was also like league of their own and and um, in this timeframe there was also like League of their Own and and um, uh, there there were others. So there was like a some of the, the you know, the top 10 baseball movies of all time. Like five of them were within, you know, a couple five years of of this movie. So it wasn't just Field of Dreams, but Field of Dreams powerfully leaned on that nostalgia.
Speaker 1:So I just wanted to name, to name that before before I wrap up. Is there anything that we didn't talk about, that you wanted to make sure that we lifted up for our listeners?
Speaker 2:The nationalism of baseball, just that that, like you know, mom, baseball and apple pie, you know, being the being, the, it's just, it's very interesting. It's an interesting connection that I've never really understood because, you know, basketball was invented in America. So why is baseball the national pastime and like proudly, it's proudly the national pastime. So I think that that's very an interesting aspect of it, especially with that nostalgia that James Earl Jones taps into in that speech. It's fascinating that this kind of silly sport I mean I really do like baseball, I really do, but it's silly, just as any sport is kind of silly we hold such reverence for it and we create this art about it. Yeah, that's not to say we don't create art about other sports, but you know it's not like baseball movies, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, let me see if I can remember the highlights of what we talked about. So first off, there's gender. When I give props to the movie makers for fleshing out annie a bit from the source material in the book shoeless joe by jp cance, and also she still remains not quite as fully formed as I would like, does pass Bechdel, but barely Karen is not a cardboard cutout but sort of a cardboard oracle where she somehow, perhaps because she's a child, is able to see slash predict the magical present and the magical future Race. In this movie there was not just missed opportunities, in that it doesn't mention or lean on Negro Leagues or post-integration like Jackie Robinson players. It also really, by by transforming JD Salinger into Terrence Mann, played by James Earl Jones, it it whitewashes. It whitewashes black baseball by creating this, this, this black author who was a radical and countercultural 1960s icon, who loved baseball, who talked about Jackie Robinson, whose blackness mattered to him, to the character, and then have him completely ignore this segregated ghost game that he's that he's watching.
Speaker 2:I'm also. I'm also feeling like, cause there's that man versus bear thing going around, Also thinking like would Terrence man like willingly go into this like middle of nowhere, like magical other realm, with just a bunch of white folks from like 70 years before, Like that seems like it could be dangerous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good call.
Speaker 2:Like I love the scene of him, like being so delighted and walking into the corn. I love that scene but thinking about it like rationally, like, it would have been a lot more believable if jackie robinson had been like yeah, it's okay man, we're all right, it's okay man yeah, like I promise we're good, like you're not just gonna follow ray leota and a whole bunch of white people who were all part of a segregationist league and did not see any problem with that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right, who are armed? They have baseball bats, right.
Speaker 1:Right. So we also talked a lot about sort of the lessons underscoring the repair between the father and son, which I think to your point near the end is that it was a stepance for the ways in which they may have harmed or been disrespectful or I don't know, not seeing the fullness of their parents. There's also something in their deeper meta of kind of boomers wrestling with how to bring their idealism of their adolescence of the 1960s into responsible adulthood, like what does that look like? And sort of a fear around it. You know this, this idea that Ray was so terrified he'd become his father because his father never did a spontaneous thing in his life, like that was. That was part of what sold Annie on that you know he should do this. Uh, kind of irrational thing, not kind of this irrational thing.
Speaker 1:So, so kind of wrestling with that fear and that I don't know like notion of of what it means to to grow up, having been an adolescent in the sixties, is baked into this, to this film.
Speaker 1:There's also like really interesting aliveness in the tension around kind of dreams and when they don't match across generations and whose fault that is and and what consequences there are of that and what is required of the younger generation whose dream doesn't match that of their parents, that you brought in stories from friends of yours who seem to have landed in different places than the movie.
Speaker 1:Makers of field of dreams, though maybe not as diametrically opposed as I was kind of suggesting, still like there's some tension in the way uh, field of dreams lands, in terms of him doing penance, um, versus what your friend, whose mom is a sailor, wanted to say to to you all as parents.
Speaker 1:At the end I named the fact that this movie was in least in part responsible for some very expensive baseball stadiums around this country, and I also was thinking about the ways in which it trades very uncomfortable in the post-Trump or, I guess, current Trump I don't even know what to call this time. But now that MAGA is a thing, the baseball speech about what America or what things were, what things were and could be, again feel very different now than they did when I was, you know, when I was younger, we didn't talk a whole lot about the sort of the deeper lesson, but I I am just going to lift up again. I think it's. It's really interesting that the movie itself kind of pushed Archie chose it again to save Karen, because I think that actually feels like a much healthier lesson than the sort of decontextualized reconnecting with the 20-something dad who never existed in Ray's lifetime.
Speaker 2:Well, and with Archie, that story we get this like because he hesitates. Young Archie hesitates before he steps off to save Karen, but it's very clear that like he is making the responsible choice in both incarnations of his life and in some ways it's not even as if like they had to pick him up to let him go the distance. I mean, like it gave him the opportunity to wink at the pitcher, which is what he wanted to do.
Speaker 1:Who then threw the ball directly at his head three times three times, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's still like it's an interesting treatise on on what it is to have a dream, because, like, the dream of playing baseball is sort of like the dream of, you know, getting a novel published. I mean, I think the novel's a little easier to do, but in that it's something that you want so badly but life happens elsewhere, can't work out, can can be even more fulfilling and more important. Like that's part of what Ray's healing is recognizing, like it's not that his dad sold out, it's that he chose something more important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, cause Archie says he has no regrets. He says it multiple times, he says it again. The ghost Archie says it no, no regrets. So you know he made the right choice. I want that to be what Ray realizes. I'm not sure that the movie makers actually deliver that message, neither with the writing nor with the acting. But again, anyway, did I miss anything in the highlights tour? No, I don't think so. Well, all right. Well, that was fun. I thank you for um for going on this one with me. If it was much more like middle of the road for me, then it was much more intellectual exercise than these sometimes are Like. Sometimes they're really really fun or really really painful. This one was just kind of like oh, wow, oh wow. I never thought of it that way. So that was it's, it's, it's been fun, it's been fun. Um, so, uh, next time, and what? What are we doing?
Speaker 2:I am going to be bringing you my deep thoughts on the movie city slickers.
Speaker 1:Oh, another one I associate really strongly with dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was, uh, that was the one that started our tradition of taking dad to the movies on father's day, I remember. So, yeah, I'm a little worried. I hope it holds up, and so I think you have, uh, some listener comments, do you? Do you want to share?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I, I do. I have one. I have one comment from our patron, Marina, Marina B. Hey, Marina. Um, so on our revenge of the nerds episode, Marina said great analysis. You both could make a book out of all the podcasts. There are some good. There are some good Greek organizations out there these days, like the one Kamala Harris belongs to.
Speaker 2:So thank you, Marina, I love it that you are enjoying our analyses, and hooray for Kamala.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, indeed All right.
Speaker 2:Well, it's been fun. I look forward to your deep thoughts on City Slickers next week Sounds good.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from Incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?