Bull's D
Bull Durham is a
classic baseball film directed by Rom Shelton in 1988. In this movie, “Crash” Davis is the protagonist,
and is sent down to advanced A-ball to help mentor a new young prospect with a
lot of potential. This prospect’s name
is Ebby LaLoosh, and is as stubborn as the worst of us. The entire movie take place in one summer,
which highlights the relationship between Crash and Ebby and the progress he
makes as a ball player, but also the progress they both make off the field with
the prospective “cleat chasers”.
The
Representation Test is designed to test a movies ability to touch a broad
spectrum of cultures and races. When I
put Bull Durham up against this test,
it does not fair well with a solid score of a D. The test is broken up into six different
categories; Women, Men, Race, Ethnicity, and Culture, LGBT People, People with
Disabilities, and Bonus Points.
In the
Women portion of this test, Bull Durham
scored zero points. This is not honestly
a surprise considering that this was filmed back in 1988, and takes place in
about that point in time. Women did not
star in that many movies back then, and even more so, there was not a woman to
date that had starred in a sports related movie. And if there had not been a white woman who
had starred up to that point, the idea of a woman of color starring is
ludicrous. In fact, the only roles that
black woman played in this film are purely as background characters, there was
not one meaningful line said by a woman of color. In one of the opening scenes of the movie, Ebby
is having sex with Millie, the manager’s daughter. The film is also quick to point out that
Annie picks a different ball player every summer to sleep with. Within the first 5 minutes of the film, women
are already objectified as “objects for the male gaze”. For the entire duration of the film, the
lives of the women completely revolve around the men’s agenda. The protagonist in the film is a male, but
there is a strong female role played by Susan Sarandon. Even though the film did not receive a point
for this, she is around the age of 45 and many may consider this one a judgment
call on whether or not it deserves a point.
The last question in this section includes, “does it pass the Bechdel
Test?” This test features two or more
women, who must talk about something other than a male character. And once again, this movie fails the
test. Because the women’s lives are
centered on the male characters in the film, all they talk about with each
other is other males. Although this one
may be a judgment call as well, seeing as they do talk a lot about
baseball. Some would argue that baseball
is played by a group of men, so they are still talking about the male gender,
but some would say that baseball is a game, and it doesn’t matter who is
playing it.
Next up on
the test is the Male section. Bull Durham did manage to scrape up one
point from this category. This point was
from “Does the film avoid perpetuating and extreme and unhealthy body ideal for
men?” Because the main characters in the
movie are all professional baseball players, they make a living on how well in
shape they are. It is no surprise that
all of the males in the film are in great shape. There are only a few scenes in this film in
which they show angry baseball players throwing equipment and cursing through
the air. These few scenes, though they may seem minor, give off the perception
that is this okay to do. Another
judgment call on this one, but in my opinion I think that the little kids who see
this violence occur will feel inclined to imitate them. And because this movie has done so well in
the box office, the citizens who have seen it obviously have no issue with it.
The film
does avoid celebrating “offensive racial, ethnic, and cultural
stereotypes.” There are small amounts of
praying and references to the Christianity religion, but no stereotypes occur
in which are offensive to any culture.
And because of this, Bull Durham gains another point from this section
of the test.
The next
section focuses on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender roles within a
movie. There are no characters in the
film that fit this description and the movie does not gain a point from this
section.
There are
also no characters in this film with any sort of disability. Once again the protagonist is a professional
baseball players and heavily relies on his body to make a living. No points are received from this section as
well.
As for the
last section, a white male directs the movie, whom is straight, and does not
have any sort of disabilities. Because
this does not fit any of the bonus questions, no points are received.
I believe
that this film does not get a fair rating from The Representation Test. A D seems a little low for such a classic of
a movie. A lot of these questions came
down to personal opinion, such as “does the film avoid glorifying violent
men.” If the text could manage to be
more specific, then I believe that this scoring system would be more
effective.
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