Consider This from NPR - What Makes A Football Movie Great?

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Hollywood films have long tried to capture America's obsession with its most popular sport. So on this Super Bowl weekend, we ask: what do the best football movies have in common?Is it the "Big Speech" with the team down a point and only seconds to go? Or what about the classic underdog story?Scott Detrow discusses that with Brittany Luse, host of NPR's It's Been a Minute, and with Stephen Thompson of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives. All comes down to today. You know the moment when the team morale is low, when it's do or die. You find out life's a game of inches. So is football. I'm talking, of course, about the big speech. And Al Pacino gives one of the most memorable ones ever in the 1999 football movie Any Given Sunday. On this team, we fight for that itch.

On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that itch. Another staple of football movies, The Underdog Story. Like in Rudy from 1993. Ever since I was a kid, everybody said it couldn't be done. I always listened to them, believed what they said. I don't want to do that anymore. Rudy has become such a shorthand in sports fandom for that person at the end of the bench

who practices with the team, bleeds and sweats and cries along with everybody else but doesn't get to play like that person has still made a sacrifice. Stephen Thompson is a host of NPR's pop culture happy hour and a self-described sucker for underdog stories. It's not necessarily about like a dominant athlete winning it all or whatever it's just about how important to a person it can be to get to play. And just as important in many football movies are the bonds formed on the field, often under extreme pressure. Like in the 2000 film, Remember the Titans. I've seen Remember the Titans no fewer than 25 to 40 times.

Brittany Luce is the host of It's Been a Minute. There's something about that teamwork aspect and that connection on that emotional level that to me shines through more in a football movie than almost any other type of sports film. Consider this. The best football movies capture America's obsession with its most popular sport. Coming up, we talk about what makes a great football movie and why it feels like Hollywood doesn't make them anymore. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Friday, February 9th.

It's Consider This from NPR. And on this Super Bowl weekend, we are asking the question, what makes a great football movie? Here to help answer it are Brittany Luce, the host of fellow NPR show It's Been a Minute. Hey, Brittany. Hey, Scott. Thanks for having me. Good to talk to you. And Stephen Thompson, host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Hey, Stephen. Hey, Scott.

I know you're a big Packers fan. I'm sorry about the Kansas City Chiefs kind of supplanting them in many fronts. I hope you're right. I have no regrets. It was a great season. So, look, sports movies are such a staple of American pop culture. You've got iconic basketball movies like White Men Can't Jump and I Will Add Space Jam. Boxing films, obviously Rocky, many other examples.

Baseball films, A League of Their Own and many others. But, Stephen, let me start with you. What makes a football film special in your opinion? I think the best ones are about more than just football. And so, you know, when we talk about a movie like Brian's song from 1971. It is to a certain subset of film viewers what Old Yeller is to kids. It is a guaranteed tearjerker. I love Brian Piccolo.

And I'd like all of you to love him too. And tonight, hit your knees. And I'd like all of you to love him too. And tonight, hit your knees. Please ask God to love him. It is about the real-life friendship between members of my least favorite football team, the Chicago Bears, Brian Piccolo and Gail Sayers. And Brian Piccolo was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And the film is about their friendship and the way their friendship unfolds. And it is more than just about football, even though it is about a real

life football team and real life football players. It is capturing and trafficking in real human emotions in ways that really work for it. So for me, the football films that work best for me aren't just necessarily like, we have to win the big game, or this plucky underdog can rise from the ashes, or there's nothing in the rulebook that says a mule can't kick a football in an NFL game and win the Super Bowl, a la the 1976 film Gus. I like football films that are weaving in different storylines. What about you, Brittany?

Okay, so I have a slightly different perspective because I don't watch football. I don't understand it. So it's not something that like, it's not part of my daily life. What do you think the appeal of a sports movie is, whether it's football or any other sport? Why do you think these movies work so well, even with non-sports fans? I think it's really similar to a good action film. I'm not really that into action films, but when I saw John Wick and also when I saw the second, I never saw the first one, admittedly.

To me, it's like the elements that make that film work or that make John Wick and also when I saw the second, I never saw the first one admittedly. To me, it's like the elements that make that film work or that make John Wick films work are the same ones that make a good football movie work, which is that there is a very clear goal and everybody knows what we have to do to accomplish it. It is like, there is just a beautiful, simple story that is laid out in front of you. You know that it's about coming together or winning or not winning but learning an emotional lesson. You don't have to follow the gameplay or even understand what a snap is or a yard down. I don't know what any of that means. I don't know what any of that means.

I don't know what any of it means. But it doesn't matter. There's a scoreboard that shows you exactly where you are in the story. Exactly. I just think there's something that's so easy to root for and easy to get behind and easy to get swept up in. The idea of there being this one big common goal that everybody's got to get on board with. All comes down to today. Either we heal as a team or we're going to crumble. Yeah, I think I agree with that completely. I mean, Brittany mentioned action movies.

One of the most frustrating things in a lot of action movies is these long, boring, expository sequences where all they're really trying to say is they have this MacGuffin and I want it. So they wind up building up 45 minutes of boring lore that nobody's going to remember. A sports movie cuts right to the heart of it.

This team has X number of points. We need Y number of points. And it just keeps the story on rails in ways that are very relatable. And anybody who's ever participated in any kind of athletic competition, I am not an athlete. I've never really competed in sports at any level outside of co-ed rec league softball, which I was very, very bad at. You can still relate to it. If you've ever watched a sport

on TV, if you've ever played a sport at any level, you understand kind of some of the feeling that goes into what it would be like to win or lose. And so I think it's an extremely relatable pathway to a lot of emotion. I wonder what either of you make of this. We were thinking about this, and I feel like it kind of hasn't been a good football movie in a while. And the last few football movies I can think of were really more about football fandom than football players. Silver Linings Playbook, that 80 for Brady movie. 80 for Brady. 80 for Brady, I've seen it. I mean, do either of you have any thoughts on why that may be? I think, I mean, I'll say this as somebody who's very far outside of football, something that I've seen really progress over the last 10 years, whether we're talking about racism within the league and the way some people

think about the NFL combines, whether we're talking about some of the domestic disputes and instances of intimate partner violence that have been caught on tape or whatever of players and their partners, or even all of the health risks that come along with playing tackle football. Right. We just know way more about CTE than we did before. Exactly. I think that maybe in the 90s and the earlier 2000s, before a lot of those things entered

the sort of mainstream consciousness, I think that it was easier to lionize football. And I think that you can feel that lionization all over a lot of the not-so-nice underbelly of the celebrity machine and the corporatization of the football league. I just think we know too much, and it's hard to be able to look at the game the same way. I would also add that there's been a little bit of a hollowing out in the movie industry of mid-budget kind of uh kind of middle for lack of a better term middle class films uh films that aren't low budget indies and aren't big budget tentpole ip driven yeah films and so we've lost a lot of rom-coms. We've lost a lot of underdog sports movies. We've lost a lot of these kind of mid-tier movies that, you know, you can imagine watching on basic cable at 2 o'clock in the afternoon back before streaming was a thing.

I think that contributes to it as much as any larger kind of self-awareness around football. And I think, Scott, you brought up something interesting in the question you asked, which was, you mentioned that several of the most recent films have been about football fandom. You mentioned Silver Linings Playbook. You mentioned 80 for Brady. One other film that I would throw out there that fits into that category,

and I have to be careful when I talk about this because the writer-director is a friend of mine. There's a film called Big Fan from 2009 that is, I think, as relevant to this Super Bowl as any football film that has ever been made. Big Fan, it stars Patton Oswalt as a super fan of the New York Giants. Let's go to my boy Paul in Staten Island. He always brings the leverage. Hey, sports dog. I can't tell you how sick I am of all these bozos getting a receipt. Paul.

Do you mind? Yes, I do. Go to bed, Mom. And his life is upended when he's beaten up by his favorite player. Whoa. And if you want an examination of parasocial relationships with athletes and the way that fandom can be taken to extremes where it can subsume your identity and then leave you vulnerable to having your life upended, this film really gets at the heart of that. There is not a lot of gridiron action in this film, but it is extremely relevant to a lot of the conversations that we have around these parasocial relationships with athletes. Stephen Thompson is a host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, and Brittany Luce is the host of NPR's It's Been a Minute. Thanks to both of you for joining us.

Thank you. Thank you. This episode was produced by Mark Rivers. It was edited by William Troop, and our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. As we wrap up this week, a thank you to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the show. If that's not you, it could be. Supporters also hear every episode without sponsored messages. You can learn more at the link in our episode notes. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.