When I was growing up, there was a determined cabal of sports watchers in my home who succeeded in making regular incursions into what was rightfully movie time.
In addition to not having videos in those days, we also didn’t have any, whatever you call it, second TV, either. We did have library cards, so it's okay, I kept busy. But if I read more Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle than other kids did, I also saw fewer movies than did the kids in homes where they didn't let the sports cut into the movie time. That is why I will spend the rest of my life as someone who as a kid saw fewer movies than he might have because of the way sports were allowed to cut into the movie time. Bitter? You bet I'm bitter, bubba. Bananas, bath, bildung, borscht! I am bitter and alliterative, a lot!
Movie theaters. Okay. I remember seeing the last two thirds of Beneath the Planet of the Apes and the first third of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, in that order, in the theater. (Time to go, Dad decided; this is where we came in. Yeah, just throw the celluloid at me in whatever order, I'll rearrange it in my brain later.) The next movie I remember seeing in the theater was Star Wars. So for most of my years growing up it was TV fare or bust. Did I also see the original Roller Ball in the theater, the one with James Caan? Possibly. It sort of rings a bell, or maybe I just saw it more than once on TV. I remember liking it well enough.
So now you're saying, ah hah, you, Brown, like a movie "about sports," therefore you like sports as well, gotcha! Nice try smart guy, but no, a movie "about sports" is not the same thing as "sports." I like many movies "about sports." But if you look hard enough they usually turn out to be about people and conflicts.
Sports, by contrast, are about human-looking mannequins running around on a field of some sort, or in a boxing ring, trying to achieve some sort of point advantage, or make "first down" or whatever. (In one of the sports games the players keep trying to put a ball through a hoop, and the more times you put it through the hoop, the more points you get...people watch this.)
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - The Theory
Thank you for your opinion... And your opinion works very well for you. Congradulations.
And in regards to the title of your piece, your opinion does a good job of clearing that up.
I, however, like sports to a major degree. Why? Because unlike movies (which I can also enjoy, btw) I can't go to a website and get a summary of the game before it shows live on television. I can get predictions of what might happen... or what should happen. Theoretically, the team that averages the most ammount of points per game should win the match... yet the beauty of sports is that if it was as simple as that the games wouldn't get played. The upset of will versus will.
Not to mention that you have a specific team that you follow blood and tears. The sport is not JUST those players battling players of another team. The fans are apart of it, too. At my job there is a guy who comes in who is a hardcore Redskins fan... and I'm a hardcore Eagles fan. We have these great verbal spars (good-naturedly, of course) so that when the Eagles win, by proxy I win, too. (This year I did a lot of loosing... and I was ok with that so long as the Redskins lost eventually.)
But sport's greatest asset is the way it brings people together. Super Bowl parties, for instance. You've got everyone together in a room with an endless stream of chips and beer and hotdogs. People wrestling for the best spot on the couch. Perhaps someone comes painted in one of the teams colours and everyone laughs and someone punches him on the upper arm.
So if I was to sum up the best part all in one word, it would be "community." Sports brings people together the way movies don't.
There are subtle things to sports that don't require the community aspect that can be enjoyed. The things which are a subtle "art" of sorts. When a running back in football twists past various tackles and obsticles to get a first down. When in baseball the batter hits a short fly ball and the outfielder has to jump and dive to catch it. The recognition that he wasn't diving just so that he could enjoy his next paycheck... but because he was in the game and was willing to risk life and limb for the win. It becomes very metaphorical with real life and how we approach it... thus sports are an inspirational part of life. "If he can jump and catch a ball while landing on his chest for the win, then I can speak out the next time a co-worker harrasses me."
I don't know. It just seems kind of silly to pit sports and movies against each other. Neither one has it in for the other. Both make people happy... both make people sad.
I'm pretty sure none of the above made sense. This post is rather sream of consiousness and I don't have the time to really organize it. But maybe you'll catch my drift. Just recognize that I'm not criticizing you for not liking sports. I'm criticizing you with making the foolhardy assumption that because you don't like sports that sports aren't worth liking at all by any intelligent person.
2 - David M. Brown
Thanks for your thoughts, Theory. Alas, I don't accept your objection. You're just going to have to abandon sports immediately and find an actual topic to argue about with your colleague. Sorry.
3 - Purple Tigress
I like sports, but I don't spend that much time watching sports or watching movies.
I like sports because it was through sports that I developed confidence and poise. It is through sports that I have kept my body fit and made friends.
I think movies can bring people together and make people think. But I don't think movies bring people together in a way that is intimate or useful to daily life.
I think sports can develop people's characters and personalities in both good and bad ways.
When I do pay attention to sports, it is to admire people who are much better than I and to inspire me to be better or to try something or even to learn about someone (such as when I went to see "Riding Giants" I learned more about surfing and friends who surfed and so then I followed up by learning more about Greg Nole and Laird Hamilton).
I did at one time write sports for a small newspaper and faced so much prejudice that I no longer really like sports writers.
From your article, I think your household spent too much time watching television. My last year in high school I was training six days a week and getting As and practicing piano so I guess I missed a lot of television, but I don't think I really missed out on life because of it.
4 - David M. Brown
"From your article, I think your household spent too much time watching television"
From my article, Tigress, you know very little about the proportion of TV time to non-TV time spent by "the household." But in order to clear this up I'll distribute a poll to the others to find out what they remember from the 1970s about ratio of TV-time to non-TV-time and do a statistical analysis. Stay tuned.
I was a bookworm growing up, so if anything, I spent too much time reading books. There was no piano practice.
5 - Not Really Dave M. Brown
Let me clear up what I am saying:
I hate sports, but all of this analysis is just crap. I loathe sports and I want all of you to do so as well.
But you've gotta love my blog entry. In it, I mentioned wrestling. Professional (read: FAKE) wrestling. What a great example for me to point in out in discussing SPORTS.
I say this "a sports game, not at all interesting in itself," like it's a FACT, when it's just my OPINION. Funny how I like to shovel out my opinion as if it were fact.
I also fail to point out that to fully appreciate a movie, you must be quiet. No talking. SHHHH. But in sports, you watch and enjoy sports and still talk and be social. Sorry I didn't point out that when I watch all those hours of movies instead of sports, I am being very anti-social. But that doesn't help my "Argument," now does it?
Although I hate sports, I am so CLOSED-MINDED that I cannot understand how anyone would like sports. Of course I'd never say that in my blog, because that would weaken my "argument" where I pass off opinion as fact.
Simply put, sports (The watching of it) is a kind of soap opera, geared towards males. Sports hating females have their soaps for nonstop year round drama, men (except me) have sports.
And although I tell you this, I am too closed-minded to appreciate that people can like sports and I do not.
**this was not written by David M. Brown. It is simply a clever way to point out the flaws of David M. Brown's opinion as fact blog entry re: sports**
6 - David M. Brown
I love clever satires that close with an announcement about how clever they are.
Overruled.
7 - Rodney Welch
As a major non-enthusiast of sports of every kind -- and who has no understanding of football wheatsoever, and generally avoids mentioning the fact for fear some kind soul will explain it to me -- I find your opinion weird. The proper position to dislikes in general is indifference. I think of sports the way I do beef liver -- if you like it, fine, just don't serve me any.
8 - David M. Brown
I guess I never learned to assume the Proper Position, Rodney. But I don't eat liver either--we're soulmates on that question.
9 - Tyler Newton
I have to agree with "Not really Dave M. Brown."
You are just spewing out opinion as fact. It's not a fact that sports are dull, it's your opinion.
It's not a fact that you are closed-minded, but it's just the opinion of many of us here.
You are not closed-minded for hating sports, mind you, you are simply closed-minded for hating people that like sports and closed-minded for passing off opinion as fact.
10 - Roger
"I love clever satires that close with an announcement about how clever they are.
Overruled.
"
Actually, the satirical post is the best post here, even better than your original entry. It's good because it points out the flaws of pretending that opinion = fact.
I mean, seriously, your opinion is fact? That's news to me and everyone else in the world today.
11 - Not Really Dave M. Brown
""I love clever satires that close with an announcement about how clever they are.
Overruled."
It's shame you can't even give a proper response to my post. Maybe I should post it again and you'll decide to become open-minded, THINK about what I said, and reply:
Let me clear up what I am saying:
I hate sports, but all of this analysis is just crap. I loathe sports and I want all of you to do so as well.
But you've gotta love my blog entry. In it, I mentioned wrestling. Professional (read: FAKE) wrestling. What a great example for me to point in out in discussing SPORTS.
I say this "a sports game, not at all interesting in itself," like it's a FACT, when it's just my OPINION. Funny how I like to shovel out my opinion as if it were fact.
I also fail to point out that to fully appreciate a movie, you must be quiet. No talking. SHHHH. But in sports, you watch and enjoy sports and still talk and be social. Sorry I didn't point out that when I watch all those hours of movies instead of sports, I am being very anti-social. But that doesn't help my "Argument," now does it?
Although I hate sports, I am so CLOSED-MINDED that I cannot understand how anyone would like sports. Of course I'd never say that in my blog, because that would weaken my "argument" where I pass off opinion as fact.
Simply put, sports (The watching of it) is a kind of soap opera, geared towards males. Sports hating females have their soaps for nonstop year round drama, men (except me) have sports.
And although I tell you this, I am too closed-minded to appreciate that people can like sports and I do not.
12 - Christopher Rose
I find it highly amusing that the person allegedly engaging in "satire" has exactly the same IP address as his supporters Tyler and Roger.
Oh yes, I'm still laughing over that one; you see, he pretended to be Tyler! Then he did it again!! Brilliant!!!
If I wasn't the Comments Editor, I'd probably sign off "LOSER!", but I am so I won't.
13 - David M. Brown
Okay, Not Really, I'm going to take up that thinking thing you're talking about real soon and get back to you just as soon as I've figured out how to turn on the neurons. I thank you for your support.
14 - David M. Brown
"hating people that like sports"
News to me, Tyler/Not Really/Roger. Some of my best friends and family members mindlessly fritter away their time sports-watching. They are managing to do something with their lives in the rest of their time though, so they are not utterly beyond redemption.
15 - Matthew T. Sussman
My life is a sham
16 - RJ Elliott
Watching sports is a leisure activity. It is not meant to be "productive" time. It is "leisure" time.
Some people, for instance, watch soap operas as a leisure activity. I cannot fathom what exactly the appeal of a soap opera might be, but to each their own. I do not demonize those who enjoy soap operas. Nor, for that matter, do I malign those who enjoy "professional" wrestling. Or any other inane bit of temporary escapism.
Some other rather common leisure activities include drug use, graffiti, and crossword puzzles.
Personally, I think watching sports is superior to any/all of those activities.
But that's, you know, just my opinion... :-/
17 - Matthew T. Sussman
Music is nothing more than series of sound waves at different frequencies alternating and repeating, while white people awkwardly attempt to move their bodies to a "rhythm" of those frequencies. If there was no music then they wouldn't have to do any of that. It's quite pedestrian if you ask me.
(Sips latte.)
18 - David M. Brown
I give Sussman points for effort, but deduct even more for being wrong. Music rocks. After all, the tones in music add up to something, whereas the sundry wrigglings in sports are as dull and numbing to look at in ensemble as they are in isolation.
19 - Matthew T. Sussman
Anything you can assert, I can assert better.
In 2001, Dale Earnhardt died during the final laps of the Daytona 500. The next NASCAR race at occured at that track was won by Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Now tell me there's no beauty, no passion, no reality in sports.
(And if you play the "well he died doing driving around and around in circles so that's boring and it doesn't count" card, then it's Lynyrd Skynyrd's fault for being famous, or else Ronnie Van Zant wouldn't have died in that plane crash, the dumb fool, plus some crotchety grumbling about how Freebird is a dull, repetitive, overrated song.)
20 - David M. Brown
Uh, okay. But...latte?
21 - Matthew T. Sussman
I finished my latte. It was mostly foam.
22 - Aaman
In my universe, sports does not exist, sports channels are mere inconveniences to be skipped over to the long stack of movie channels.
Of course, that's because the yahoos hereabouts don't have cricket on any channel
23 - chantal stone
For the most part, I hate sports too, but I love movies about sports, especially, for some odd reason, football movies. Varsity Blues, The Longest Yard, Remember the Titans...all great movies, in my opinion.
It's the passion of the players, the thrill of the game, the suspense of the underdog coming up from behind for the big win. I always get chills when I watch these movies, and (embarassed to admit) sometimes I'm moved to tears.
Then I think, well maybe I really do like football, I just don't realize it yet. Maybe I'm a football-fan-in-denial. I could be in the "football closet".
So I force myself to watch an actual football game, and I'm reminded that yes, I really do hate sports.
I love latte, though, even with all that foam.
24 - -E
Awww I like sports. And I'd say about half the movies I have seen "about" sports are some of the worst movies out there.
25 - Matthew T. Sussman
Chantal, the more you watch a sport and know about it, the more you appreciate it, and then you become a fan. It's just a rule with any sport.