The Super Bowl is upon us, which means millions of people will be emotionally investing in the man-on-man performance of football.
Despite being a child of a die-hard sports fan whose identity hinged upon the successes and failures of his favorite organization (the Cleveland Browns, I sh*t you not–can you imagine an entire lifetime of being fanatical over the Cleveland Browns?), I don't understand the hype around football.
Albeit, when I was young, I pretty much refused to try to understand sports fandoms. But then I discovered the movie magic of the Sports Film, which somehow manages to capture the glittery allure of men bumping and grinding into each other over a coveted cylindrical object (aside from the obvious).
Only a Sports Film allows me to understand the awe of watching mere men perform strenuous athletic feats and rise to victory–not just over their opponents but always over myriad disadvantages and personal obstacles that beat so many of us down.
So I admit to not caring about the Super Bowl–seriously, who's playing? What time does it start? Where will it be played? Just kidding, none of these questions matter to me; the Amazon Rainforest loses the equivalent of a football field every six seconds due to deforestation, last year most of Colorado caught on f**king fire, and the current global health crisis is only growing worse.
But, to that exact point, change isn't going to happen unless we all practice a little more empathy. I would like to understand why large, beefy men in tight pants grabbing at each other is so integral to our national identity as Americans, as fellow humans in this rat race called life.
In service of that goal, it's far more productive to watch any of the following football movies than tune in to the Super Bowl game between the Carolina Stampeders and the Michigan Divers, or the Nevada Groundhogs and the Florida Snowpiercers, or the New Jersey Nunchucks and the Missouri Landlines, or, you know, that team that's playing against those other guys.
Even I teared up at Friday Night Lights, which shows the sport's undeniable power to lift up young people to better socioeconomic circumstances; at the very least, that's a good reason for the sport existence. Still...you know what else has a similar effect? Beauty pageants. If strong young men were allowed to compete in beauty pageants for scholarships and acclaim, then at least there'd be fewer head injuries.
Rob Brown plays Ernie Davis, the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy. Dennis Quaid plays the head football coach at Syracuse University and encourages Davis to persist in his career despite racism and discrimination in the league.
Hey, did you know football can be racist?
Before Keanu Reeves became an Internet god among men, he would still occasionally play washed up characters who surmount the odds. Inspired by the 1987 NFL players strike, The Replacements stars Reeves as a has-been quarterback who leads a crew of underdogs through one glorious pro season.
A football game as a prisoner redemption story led by Adam Sandler? I don't care what you say; it was funny and used its $82 million production budget to showcase, however comically, just how corrupt and vindictive the prison industrial complex is.
It's Al Pacino; show some respect and respect the magic.
My father obviously loved this movie, starring Kevin Costner as a fictional general manager of the Cleveland Browns. It's not the best movie of all time, but it's a beautiful testament to the wish-fulfillment that keeps sports fans loyal throughout decades of abject failure (hi, dad).
Mark Wahlberg stars in this biopic, based on the real-life story of Vince Papale, a bartender who attended open tryouts for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1976 and played three seasons as their wide receiver.
It's James Van Der Beek's painfully all-American face confronting the gritty side of competitive sports under an abusive coach (played by Jon Voight).
That jersey scene.
No one can watch the jersey scene and not tear up.
No one.
Little Giants was the best football movie ever made, and if you disagree you're wrong and a bigger loser than the Cincinnati Plums in their epic defeat by the Delaware Sporks.