Sunday, April 14, 2013

42

I'm going soft. Until tonight, I always took pride in the fact that I'd cried at only three movies in my entire life. And only at one significant, poignant moment in each. But tonight, I went to see the movie 42, based on Jackie Robinson and his breaking of the color barrier in baseball. And I cried the whole. way. through. I cried tears of joy, anger, anguish, and laughter. All of them. All of those emotions wrapped up in the masterpiece that is 42.

History aside, the movie is fantastic. The baseball scenes were filmed and staged well, the writing was well done, and the music fitting. The acting was phenomenal. No one could have done a better job with the role of Dodger's general manager Branch Rickey better than Harrison Ford did. Chadwick Boseman was amazing as Jackie, and really, I don't think they could have cast any of the roles better than they did.

At this point, I will give the obligatory spoiler alert. I speak in detail about some of the scenes. If you don't want them spoiled, don't read this until you've seen it. Moving on.

As far as the history goes, I am aware of no distortions. I can't speak to every specific and every ballplayer and every conversation, but there was no "Hollywood corruption" of which I am aware. There was a Huffington Post article published yesterday, written by Eric Metaxas. You can read it here. Metaxas bemoans the missing faith of Robinson and Rickey in the movie. He says there's no trace of the devoted faith of both men; that Hollywood completely ignores it. Metaxas is incorrect, and significantly so. No one watching and paying any attention to the movie could walk out of it unaware that both men were strong believers and Methodists. Rickey even says, "Robinson's a Methodist. I'm a Methodist. God is a Methodist!" Rickey encourages Robinson multiple times, referring to "our Lord," and how He had to take hatred and persecution and turn the other cheek. Multiple times, Rickey referenced the Bible and doing what was right, even calling out Dodgers manager Leo Durocher for adultery, saying the Bible had some strong words on that subject. The Christian faith played significantly into the movie, and was in no way portrayed as anything other than positive.

I have been studying African American history for the last nearly seven years. As I said in a recent blog post, this subject is particularly difficult for me, because I have an over-developed sense of justice. I am not generally an emotional person, but when I see injustice, I become far more emotionally involved than I should. When I read about the horrors and the injustice that are so much a part of African American history, I become incensed by the people committing the crimes, and am heartbroken for those who had to experience those crimes. I still cannot imagine how anyone could hate people so much because of the color of their skin. The hatred I saw in this movie at once enraged, sickened, and saddened me. But the courage and faith I saw likewise inspired me.

Before I go on, I want to make something crystal clear for anyone who may be unaware. By breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball (MLB), Jackie Robinson was absolutely risking his life. Literally. He was also risking the life of his wife, his mother, and his son. He could have been brutally lynched, and it would not stand out from the rest of the lynchings in Jim Crow America as unusual. The fact that a lynch mob did not manage to track him down, dismember him while he was alive (yes, that happened- and not too uncommonly, either), and then hang and burn his body, is actually quite amazing. The fact that they didn't do that to his wife, is pretty amazing too. I mention all of this because I don't want anyone to miss just how significant this was on the part of Robinson and his family. Even Branch Rickey risked his personal safety. Less so than Robinson to be sure, but his personal well-being was absolutely still placed on the line.

I could easily write 10,000 words in this post, but I'll refrain. I'm only going to focus on a few things here. First, I do want to say the filmmakers did a fantastic job showing the resistance of most of the Dodgers players when Robinson first joined the franchise. They also did a masterful job showing the change that came over the team during the season. The racism directed towards Jackie became personal for a lot of them. Some of them started to fight back because Rickey had specifically told Robinson he wanted a black player "with the guts not to fight back." Robinson turned the other cheek over and over, and in many cases, his teammates stepped in to defend him.

One such instance occurred in Philadelphia. Alan Tudyk, who played Phillies manager Ben Chapman was extremely convincing in his role of an exceedingly racist individual. He shouted racial slurs at Robinson all game. Now, all racial slurs are hateful, but these particular ones were especially so. Robinson took it. It did eventually get to him, at which point Robinson walked off the field, took his bat, and hit it over and over against the brick wall, shouting anguished cries that clearly came from the core of his being. I absolutely wept. Rickey came down to talk to Robinson in that hallway, telling him he had to go back on the field. He had to take it. Robinson looked at him and shouted, "Do you have any idea what this is like!?" Rickey looked him square in the eye and said, "No. But our Lord does, and you have to go back up there. They have to live with themselves. You have to do the right thing." Of course, that's a paraphrase, but that is essentially what Rickey said to Robinson. Robinson took the field again, finishing the game. It was during this game that a lot of the Dodgers players started to see just what kinds of things Robinson was having to deal with. One player who had originally signed a petition to get Robinson off the team, stormed over to Chapman and chewed him out. He finally said, "You shut your mouth, or I'll shut it for you." Robinson thanked the teammate later, and the teammate said, "For what? You're my teammate." On the one hand, it wasn't the answer Robinson was looking for, but on the other, it showed a huge improvement in attitude. At least some members were starting to accept him as part of the team.

The season went on. Rickey received death threats against Robinson, his wife, and son. He alerted the FBI. But he never backed down. I would be remiss if I did not mention one of the ugliest receptions Robinson got that entire season, as much as I would like to ignore it and pretend it never happened, but it did. I don't remember when I first learned about this specific road series, but I have known about it for a very long time, because it was particularly vitriolic on the part of the people at the game. It was in Cincinnati. I usually love seeing the Reds in movies or on tv shows. I usually love any reference to my town. But this time I was dreading it, and when that part of the movie arrived, I was so very ashamed. There was a little boy in the crowd with his dad. The boy looked about six or seven- that's how old my dad was at the time. My dad's parents raised him not to see race, but this little boy, who was likely so much like my dad, was shouting out "Nigger!" right alongside his father. I wept again. This time tears of shame. Shame for the way my hometown treated Jackie Robinson. It's so odd. I'm writing my thesis on abolitionism in Cincinnati, because Cincinnati was one of the biggest centers of abolitionism and Underground Railroad activity in the west prior to the Civil War. By no means was racism absent or silent in the city, but what I saw on the screen tonight was such a startling contrast to what I've been working on.

The season drew to an end, and Robinson sealed the pennant win for the Dodgers with a home run. By this time, he had been mostly accepted by his teammates and Dodgers fans. The next season, he was joined by other black players. It would be a long time before the civil rights movement really got started, but Robinson played a significant role in pioneering that movement. Not only did he serve his country admirably during World War II, but he also served America admirably when he came home. He also helped improve the game of baseball, by allowing MLB to contain truly the best players. Without Robinson, such legends as Dave Parker, Joe Morgan, Ken Griffey, Jr., Albert Pujols, Barry Larkin, and Tony Gwynn never would have been allowed on the field. My current favorite player, Brandon Phillips, wouldn't be there either. The fact that Phillips is allowed to play and allowed to make antagonistic comments about the Cardinals is significant. In Robinson's time, that would have been asking to be beaten or lynched. Today, it's just over-enthusiastic idiocy, all in good fun (on his part, granted, the Cardinals fans don't quite see it that way!). As a die hard baseball fan myself, I can't help but be grateful to Robinson for helping to improve the sport.
Robinson wasn't just a civil rights pioneer and man of strong Christian faith. He was a top-notch baseball player as well, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 1962.

I want to close with an observation. The more I study African American history, the more disturbed I become by the comments I hear from many conservatives about how far America has fallen morally, and how we should go back to the morality of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. I often want to shout out that if they truly want to go back to the morality of those decades, they have to accept Jim Crow and overt racism and racial hatred as well. As a historian, I am convinced that each new era only exchanges one set of evils for another. We take some huge steps forward, and also some huge steps back. It's life. But I cannot stand by and listen to people extol the morality of a time in our history in which people made death threats to a baseball player and his family, simply because he was black. That is so wrong. I cannot begin to express just how wrong that is. I do see moral problems in America today, yes. But I cannot in good conscience wish to return to any previous decades in American history, especially prior to about 1980. I am so grateful I was not alive during slavery, Jim Crow, or the civil rights era. We are all made in God's image, and to treat anyone the way Jackie Robinson and his fellow African Americans (as well as Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, etc.) were treated is to spit on that image, and I cannot wish back an era in which that was so prevalent.

All in all, I absolutely recommend this movie. Personally, it's the best movie I've ever seen, but take that with a grain of salt, because this is my area of expertise. I was so emotionally impacted by this movie only because I have studied the topic in such depth for the better part of a decade. Even so, it was a fantastic movie, and I recommend it wholeheartedly. The story of faith and courage is one we all can learn from, no matter what the era of history is in which we reside. I may write another post on the movie after I see it again, focusing on many of the things I left out here, but the best thing I can tell you is to simply go see it.

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