First place teams are almost always anonymous villains. Quite often they are overwhelmingly privileged and wealthy. Last place teams are the heroes or heroines who struggle to overcome odds. In other words, if the Bloomfield Force were cast in a movie....
The locus classicus for kids' sports movies in this regard is probably the now (almost) unwatchable Bad New Bears from 1976 (not the Billy Bob Thornton remake of a few years ago). In that film a hastily thrown together team of little league misfits has to compete with a well funded team of superstar kids. The film is unwatchable because of its politically incorrect language, language placed in the mouths of 12 year old boys. The language is racist, anti-semitic, sexist, and homophobic.
While this language is certainly offensive to us today, the film actually sought to counter all these nasty "isms."
The little league team is something like the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise (also ahead of its time in the way it sought a "diverse" crew -- white, black, Asian, Russian, Vulcan -- there was even a Brit that nobody could understand -- albeit everyone was captained by a white guy). Think "Glee" in space or on the Litttle League diamond -- 30 years before Glee was cool.
The underdog Bears feature an African-American kid, a brainy, statistically savvy Jew, a non-English speaking Latino, a kid with a rather difficult to stomach chronic illness, Tatum O'Neal as a girl (for pete's sake! who can play better than the boys), a chain-smoking juvenile delinquent, and, oh my goodness gracious, something we still couldn't tolerate today, an overweight kid who eats junk food on the field. The Bears weren't far enough ahead of their time to feature an openly gay or lesbian character but, then again, neither was Star Trek (that I recall).
The team is coached, too, not by the slick salesman-like pre-yuppy in an upscale California suburb that coaches the first place team, but by a washed up minor leaguer with a drinking problem who now cleans pools for a living. The head coach is a version of what used to be called "white trash." This categorization is undermined a bit by the fact that the character is portrayed by Walter Matthau -- just as Captain Kirk is played by William Shatner. Both actors were Jews who somehow managed to get cast in roles that really suggested Protestant, working class, midwestern Americans. Matthau's character comically secures a team sponsor by contacting the local bail bondsmen (think Dog, the Bounty Hunter).
The "Bears" of the title win by learning how to work together and how to use their marginalized social positions as motivation. At the very end, in fact, the Matthau character realizes he is turning in to the very opposition he despises by relying only on his superstar player (Kelly Leak, an actor never heard from again). He insists in the championship game not to win at all costs but to play for the spirit of the game. The team, the coach recalls, had been formed at the insistence of a wealthy attorney whose own kid had been excluded from the league (I forgot the reason). The ending is overwhelmingly uplifting and, if seen today, you will note the striking shot of all these different types of kids hugging their coach at the middle of the film. Birmingham and Bloomfield Public Schools work hard to get pictures for their pr publications that reflect that kind of diversity and universality.
But, again, the language of the film is so jarring to our ears we would miss this point entirely. The point was probably missed when the film was released, too.
Indeed, the filmic strategy is risky. The generic problems were made clear by Carl Reiner's All in the Family of the same era. In trying to satirize a bigot, Archie Bunker, Reiner inadvertently created a strange social hero. Rather than laugh at the insensitivity of Bunker's language and values audiences more often than not laughed with him. I certainly did. Bunker reminded me of most of the adult males around me. The Bad News Bears was popular, in part, for this reason. That is, kids laughed at the language and may have missed the social point.
Or did they? That is, those "kids" that were laughing were us parents. Socially speaking, our kids are much better at handling these issues than we were. Perhaps films like the Bad News Bears -- language and all -- did their job after all. If you are forty or over you read this post with ease. If you are younger than that you might not follow it at all. And that is probably good news.
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