“Greatness talk” has surrounded LeBron since junior high school. I simply cannot fathom the pressure such talk places on a kid and how it affects the maturation process. Thankfully, I guess, I’ll never have the burden of being compared to Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and the like. For whatever reason, LeBron couldn’t “get it done” in Cleveland. He didn’t evidence a killer instinct like Jordan or Kobe necessary to lead a team to a championship. But it’s not like Jordan or Kobe won their championships alone. LeBron with either of their supporting casts would most likely be a multiple-title owner.  It must be said that Jordan, with LeBron’s supporting cast, would still have been a multiple-title owner.

So LeBron, like every other athlete and franchise, wants to win now. He leaves money on the table in the process and teams up with fellow superstars that he would ordinarily be competing against just to get to a final, let alone win one. Is this a shortcut to a championship…if they get there? Absolutely! It’ll be one of the most contrived titles in the history of professional sports. But, thankfully, in an era of free agency, players have the right to determine their future. Who among us wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to work with the best people in our field to attain the greatest success? Do we not demand a winning attitude from our superstars? How many times have we chastised professional athletes for chasing the money more than victories? Yet the moment LeBron really embodies an attitude that places winning over the biggest possible salary, fans burn his jersey and call him soft.

Thanks to a reader’s response to Bill Simmons, I was reminded of a key characteristic of King James, a title which, as with all royalty, was bestowed upon him before he could actually earn it. If you watch More Than a Game, the documentary about his high school team, and consider his personal life, LeBron seems to have always wanted to belong rather than lead. His high school team was, as he admitted, a family, not an organization. In fact, family (or at least popular notions of it) might be too hierarchical of a comparison.  He and his teammates all played their parts to perfection to attain greatness and to overcome any divisiveness that developed between them, and they remain close friends to this day.

The most fascinating element to this on-going soap opera is that LeBron just happens to possess supremely superior athletic ability and physical prowess the likes of which we have rarely seen on the basketball court.  Throughout history, anyone who possesses similar ability seems to have either willingly embraced or accepted the role of leader.  It just conveniently seemed to fit their personality too.  For the first time in professional sports, and in our microscopic media, we have encountered a player who is athletically peerless, but possesses a personality that is far more suited to belonging than leading.  As a result, we might have expected too much from LeBron too fast…this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve done that to one of our superstars.  Oddly enough, we never expected as much from the franchise for whom he worked.  Clearly, neither party in this case lived up to our expectations.  I would be far more critical of my front office, were I a Cavaliers fan, than I would be of my departed hero. LeBron is being vehemently criticized for being weak (I wonder how many people would say that to his face?). Yet, perhaps he is being true to himself and to a greater truth that we often forget.  There can be, and often is, greatness in simply belonging. In fact, all of our “individual” superstars have belonged to a community of achievers. It’s hard to think of Jordan without immediately thinking of Jackson or Pippen. Kobe?  Not without Shaq or Pau…or, again, Jackson.  And now LeBron…and Wade and Bosh.

Of course, it will be interesting to see how this dynamic of belonging plays out over the course of subsequent seasons. I don’t feel overwhelming pity for LeBron, nor is this meant to be a defense of another multi-million dollar athlete.  With each passing year, I lose more and more interest in the NBA (as Shaq goes, so goes my interest).  However, I do feel that this whole soap opera reveals just as much about us as it does LeBron.  For now, it might be worth considering that our disappointment with LeBron’s “inability” to lead might be tied up with our own misguided notions of greatness. As a Christian and a sports fan, I’ve found it worthwhile to consider Jesus’ upside down notions of greatness where the last shall be first and the first shall be last. Now that we see a semblance of this playing out in a professional setting, in ways many of us never though possible, it angers and discomforts many us. Perhaps this is a moment in which we can redefine notions of greatness rather than determining who among us is the greatest.

Lars von Trier’s Antichrist is one of the few films that I really want to see this Fall.  Film and religion scholar S. Brent Plate wrote about it over the weekend for Religion Dispatches and will write more about it in the coming weeks.  You can find the link to his article after the jump.  What films are you looking forward to this Fall?

Lars von Trier is the Antichrist Best Film Director in the World

Pop Theology contributor Richard Lindsay and I saw Gus Van Sant’s new film, MILK, last week.  It tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to political office in the United States.  We thought we would provide another dialogue review like we did with another interesting biopic this year, W..  Hope you enjoy.

Ryan: So two really good biopics have come out this Fall, both about very influential and controversial American political figures.  When we reviewed W., we talked quite a bit about the religious and spiritual motivation that spurned Bush in his pursuit of the White House.  Watching MILK, a biopic about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to political office in America, one could quickly notice the lack of a religious or spiritual presence in the film, save Anita Bryant’s apocalyptic rants against homosexuality and bestiality!  We see, from the opening credits and the historical footage and photos of gay men being rounded up by the police and arrested, the socio-historical location from which Milk emerged.  We learn quickly that he is motivated, as a gay man, by personal experience to fight for the rights of not only the members of his community, but all marginalized citizens as well.  Now while I don’t want to totally separate the two, because they are not always separate, it seems like we have drastically different motivating factor(s) at work here between religious beliefs and personal experience.  Milk’s personal experience as a gay man made him a much more effective political leader, don’t you think?  On the other hand, we have Bush who tries to spread freedom and democracy all over the world, speaking FOR the oppressed in the process, when he’s never really had an experience of oppression that could have informed his worldview.

Richard: There’s no question who was more effective from a liberation theology point of view. There was a reason Jesus said the poor in spirit were blessed. There’s a spiritual wisdom that can come out of oppression that isn’t based on religion, although, as with Harvey’s second boyfriend, it can just as easily lead to self-destruction. The sense of family created around Harvey also brought to mind Matthew 12:49, “Who are my mother and brothers?” Family is a spiritual paradigm in the Gospels, not a biological one, and certainly not restricted to the “union of one man and one woman.”

As for secularism in the gay community, I have to think of Harvey’s statement that it’s not that he doesn’t like cops, it’s that the cops don’t like him. Religious institutions have oppressed gay people nearly endlessly (See: “8, Proposition — Mormon, Evangelical, and Catholic Church”), and I’m guessing the gay men and women that flocked to San Francisco in the 70’s would have been the ones that felt braver in casting off traditional religious and family ties. But religious activists have also been a part of the gay liberation movement since the beginning. Metropolitan Community Church, which ministers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, was founded in California in 1968 (the San Francisco congregation in 1970) and played an important role in opposing the Briggs Initiative. And one of the first organizations that brought together “mainstream” community leaders and members of the gay community in San Francisco was the Council on the Church and the Homosexual, starting in 1964. (History wonks, click here: http://www.lgbtran.org/Exhibits/CRH/Exhibit.aspx)

As a gay man, it’s hard for me even to begin sort out my feelings about MILK. And maybe that’s an important place to start. For LGBT viewers, Harvey Milk’s story was never just another movie; it had to work as a political manifesto, a community history, and a tribute to the humanity of its subject. And I have to say it’s a success on all fronts. The film captures the extremely high personal stakes that come with gay rights activism. As Harvey says to Dan White, this isn’t just an “issue,” this is our lives. What the supporters of Prop 8 (and Prop 6 in the film) didn’t realize is that they’re trying to destroy something you just can’t kill. Once the fire in a community is lit for liberation, it doesn’t go out. From that point on, if you’re opposed, you’re just negotiating the terms of surrender. I left the theater with a sense of gratitude for Harvey and the other courageous activists that lit that fire. It’s one of the few films I’ve ever seen to where I can look at characters on the screen and say my life is better because they lived.
One objection: could we pass some kind of a law that forbids naming biopics with the first or last name of the major character? MILK, Ray, Ali, Malcolm X, Gandhi, Capote, etc. etc. Considering these films usually take years in development haggling over who is to play the historic figure (Robin Williams was considered for this role — thank God they waited) you’d think someone could take the time to come up with a title. Not only that, the word “Milk” also doubles as the name of a dairy product, leading to links like the one on Slate.com: “Fresh ‘Milk.’”

What were your thoughts on the film? Best biopic since Malcolm X?

Ryan: Great points Richard.  Your comments on the Gospels’ implications for family are especially important.  I’m not even going to dignify the Robin Williams rumor with a discussion.

Best biopic since X?  I think so.  Certainly one of the best.  MILK will still be up there even when we finally get an MLK biopic.

I’m probably stealing this from hundreds of other reviewers, but we’ve both touched on it already.  MILK does this incredible job of blending the personal and the political/public, where so many other biopics fail or fall short.  As an aside, I thought this was one of the great strengths of W. as well.  For MILK, this is again a testament to both the director, Gus Van Sant, and the Oscar front runner for best actor, in my opinion, Sean Penn.  But the supporting cast strengthened this theme as well, with James Franco turning in a fantastic performance as a somewhat jilted partner.  Emile Hirsch is great as well playing a tortured soul of a kind.  Here, we have a young, brash kid who has certainly embraced his sexuality in his move to San Francisco, but still isn’t quite sure where he fits in politically or professionally.  Harvey sees something in him and brings him into the political machine.  I imagine that Harvey had and continues to have this kind of effect on people across the country, and so will MILK.  I am torn in regards to Diego Luna, who I normally enjoy in films.  He plays yet another jilted partner who cannot handle the sense of exclusion that he feels from Harvey’s political success, commitments, and popularity.  I think James Franco overshadows Luna in this type of character, but of course, it is important for audiences to see that some partners have reacted in quite different, severe ways.  This helped strengthen, as you put it, the idea that this is not just about an “issue.”

I couldn’t agree more with your thoughts on that as well.  I think Van Sant does a great job of diffusing so much tension and expectation in MILK by opening the scene with (spoiler everyone!) the news footage of Harvey’s assassination.  We no longer wait for the gunshot and, as such, are more focused on the life at hand, rather than its eventual death.  Then, the life on screen forces us to see that Harvey’s political career was never about an issue, it was about the lives and rights of millions of people across the country, but first and foremost for him, gay rights.

Watching films like this…films about such controversial, “liberal,” or progressive leaders…I feel like I have two simultaneous viewings.  I don’t know if this is a good thing or not, but I sometimes watch these films with an eye towards how people who are a bit more conservative than me might see the film.  First, I think we could obviously agree that people who believe homosexuality is a choice, a sin, or just plain wrong will not like this film.  Even though it is, in my opinion, extremely restrained in its physical sexuality, I think some viewers will still be hung up on that.  For those who are on the fence, I believe this film will work wonders in shaping their thought process.

Now there’s one character that I haven’t mentioned.  Josh Brolin as Dan White.  Brolin as given two fantastic performances in these two recent biopics that we have discussed.  He’s on something of a cinematic roll as of late.  His performance is fantastic, but I wonder if Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black couldn’t have taken a few more chances with this character.  In the film, a drunken White says, “Dan White’s got an issue!”  Yet we never get a clear picture of what this issue is.  Is he a closet homosexual?  Does he suffer from unresolved family issues similar to W.’s?  This film is not entitled WHITE, but something extra in this regard might have strengthened the film because it would have strengthened the presentation of the opposition that Harvey fought to overcome by taking Dan White more seriously than Anita Bryant.

Richard: I agree that Penn has to be in the lead for Best Actor. After Prop 8, I can see the Hollywood community wanting to reward this film in a major way. But whatever the political issues, this role really expanded Sean Penn’s range. You don’t usually hear terms like “charming,” “witty,” or “flirtatious” to describe a Sean Penn performance — more like “brooding,” “intense,” and “barely-contained rage.”

You’re right that Brolin (and Van Sant) did a good job of complexifying Dan White. It would have been easy simply to cast him as the “villain,” but the reality was he represented a lot of people who felt profoundly threatened by the social upheavals of the 60’s and 70’s, that Harvey Milk’s election represented.  I don’t think it was necessary to explain his actions, as Harvey Milk is portrayed as saying in the film, that White was a closeted gay man. As I suggested in my review of Mad Men, the expectations placed on heterosexual men in an unquestioned patriarchy could be soul-destroying.

What was impressive about the film was its ability to portray the epic scope of the history and still retain an experimental indie feel. I’m thinking of the shot framed as a reflection in the whistle dropped by the gay bashing victim, and the improvisational antics of the supporting characters that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in one of Van Sant’s early films like My Own Private Idaho. Like Spike Lee with Malcolm X, Van Sant didn’t use the biopic as an excuse to stop innovating.

The performance I thought best captured the spirit of the film’s era was Emile Hirsch. There’s an intensity and innocence in his face that I’ve seen in historical photos of the early gay rights movement, like, “Are we really doing this? Are we marching on city hall? I think we are.” The bless God/curse God moment for me was knowing that things only got worse for the community after Milk’s death — about a third to half of the young men portrayed in the film would have died from AIDS during the next 15 years. The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice, but sometimes a lot of people die in the process.

MILK (128 mins.) is rated R for language, some sexual content, and brief violence and is currently in theaters.

In the first essay, Price examines the myriad ways in which sports and religion relate: sports conflicting with religion, sports commingling with religion, religion conscripting sports, sports co-opting religion, and sports supplanting religion. In this final segment, he discusses the evolution of institutionalized sports in America to something of a religion itself and how this allows for Super Bowl Sunday to become such a sacred day. He writes, “It is possible, as we have seen from several of our earliest examples of the fusion of sports and religion, for sports to co-opt the allegiance elicited by religion and to become, in effect, a religion as such.” He continues, “[...] Institutionalized sports have become such a dominant religious force in America that they indeed constitute a religion, secular or profane though it might be” (34, 36).

The essays that follow bear out examples of religious devotion to sports from college basketball to professional wrestling. Price’s essay about, more of a reflection on, the Super Bowl is a more than fitting one. He begins by tracing the long history of sports’ relationship to religion or the spiritual, citing Greek attitudes towards the Olympics or the Mayans intertwining of sports and their sacred stories. For many modern day Americans, “the Super Bowl functions as a major religious festival for American culture, for the event signals a convergence of sports, politics, and myth” (137). If anything, the hype surrounding this event is more intense than anything accompanying an ecclesiastical ceremony. What church service have you attended that has a FOUR HOUR LONG pre-game program?

Yet the event itself, as do most football games, bears distinct similarities to a church service. Price writes, “The invocation is a series of political rituals: the singing of the national anthem and the unfurling of a fifty-yard-long American flag, followed by an Air Force flight tactics squadron air show” (138). The event is complete with its own saints as well with the return of Hall-of-Famers who are celebrated in the pre-game show, at the coin-toss, and at half time. Price even links the game of football to America’s concept of manifest destiny. Teams must work together to advance the ball into their opponents’ territory, a conquest of land so to speak.

Price claims, “Amidst the ritual of the forceful quest, there is the extended ‘time out’ of half time, a time of turning from the aggressions of the game to the fantasies of the spirit” (139). I disagree, as would the NFL, with Price’s assertion that this half-time celebration is a time of innocence when compared to the violence on the field. Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfuction secured less scandalous performances for perpetuity. Although I must admit I would rather listen to Tom Petty than Rihanna.

The connections between sports and religion are strong and cannot be ignored. If you are still skeptical, listen to the language used throughout the day to describe the athletes. Commentators use divine, invincible language to describe players and plays. Watch the players knel in the end zone after a touchdown for a quick prayer. Listen to the players and coaches in post-game interviews. Chances are, you’ll hear God’s name tossed around just as much as the football.

The Super Bowl kicks off at 3:30 ET today on FOX. The pre-game talking heads have already begun.

George Dohrmann and Farrell Evans’ article, “The Road to Bad Newz,” adds some complexity to what might be seen as an easy case of good quarterback gone bad.

Each panelist briefly discussed their interests and current research, all the while playfully insulting one anothers’ favorite team or alma mater, and then fielded questions from an audience of about 25 people. Topics of interest ranged from research into late 1800s/early 1900s Methodist colleges’ athletic programs to the social context of sports teams and its influence on sport as representative of civil religion. Joe Price, a pioneer in the field, discussed the use of religious language to inspire players or to reflect on a win. Greg Sapp talked about a fan’s association with a team as, in part, a determinant of self-worth. Marc Jolley discussed how and when football surpassed baseball as the powerhouse sport in American culture. Craig Forney researches the location of sports and its influence on American civil religion. Eric Bain-Selbo questions football as the new opiate of the masses and also researches the links between the South’s cultural/military history to its emphasis on football superiority as a compensating factor. Christopher Anderson is a research librarian at Drew University and the librarian for the Methodist Church, so his interests obviously lie in the early 1900s Methodist college athletic programs.

The most promising points in the forum are the on-going conferences about religion and sport at York Univeristy in York, England, and at St. Olaf University. Furthermore, a new journal will release in the summer of 2008 called The Journal of Religion and Sport, with an editorial board composed of members from seven different countries with extreme interest from the United Kingdom. The forum was sponsored by Mercer University Press which also publishes a sports and religion book series that includes, so far, these titles:

• From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion, edited by Joseph L. Price
• The Great God Baseball: Religion in Modern Baseball Fiction, by Allen E. Hye
• An Unholy Alliance: The Sacred and Modern Sports, by Robert J. Higgs and Michael C. Braswell
• Safe at Home: A Memoir of God, Baseball, and Family, by Marc A. Jolley
• Rounding the Bases: Baseball and Religion in America, by Joseph L. Price
• The Holy Trinity of American Sports: Civil Religion in Football, Baseball, and Basketball, by Craig A. Forney

I certainly look forward to more work in this emerging field.

Rockies to Share Post-season Payout

Given the controversy surrounding the NFL this summer, Costas’ interview with Tomlinson was a breath of fresh air. Here is a man who seems to carry himself off the field like he scores touchdowns on it, with quiet dignity. The interview focused mainly on Tomlinson’s heritage in rural Texas and the place where his slave ancestors first heard the Emancipation Proclamation. Tomlinson is as clearly aware of and respectful of those who came before as he is of his family and neighbors back in Texas. He has benefitted from the absence of hangers-on, yet one can quickly sense that he would be quick to support anyone in a time of need.

Costas’ interviews with both Goodell and Upshaw signal another ethical problem in the NFL, the health and financial well-being of retired players. The issue is much too complex to discuss here in full and is certainly one that demands further consideration, especially as so many critics heap praise on the NFL as one of the greatest professional sports leagues ever. Its fame was clearly built on the arms, legs, and backs of an underserved work force whose salaries pale in comparison to today’s league minimums. These men are also facing the delayed on-set of physical ailments as a result of not only a physically demanding game, but inferior protection (helmets, pads, treatment, etc.) as well. Costas’ panel discussion with Simms and Irvin was especially insightful as Irvin, only a few years removed from the league and still relatively young, already compains of daily aches and pains. Both Simms and Irvin recognized the need for current players to be willing to give more (financially first and foremost) to the great generation who helped bring the league thus far.

Costas’ final segment on former Houston Oilers running back Earl Campbell was saddening and sobering. After a career as one of the greatest running backs of all time and certainly the most punishing, a 52-year-old Campbell movels like he is 90 years old. When compared to Tony Dorsett who is a year older than Campbell but ran with a different style, Campbell’s poor health seems even more tragic. Thankfully, the NFL is paying greater attention to the threat of multiple concussions and trying to improve the regulations on players returning to the game after suffering a concussion. However, many questions still remain and improvements can always be made to protective gear as well. One question that immediately sprung to mind, however, while watching Campbell struggle to take a few steps was what current NFL superstars will look like in the future, both physically and financially. Will they suffer the same aches and pains as Campbell and other stars of his generation? Of course, NFL players make infinitely larger salaries than their predecessors; however, the spend infinitely more amounts of money on cars, homes, clothes, etc. than their football ancestors could have ever dreamed of. In the not too distant future, will the NFL be forced to financially compensate these players if they cannot pay their medical bills? Are current players being warned adequately enough and instructed on life after the game?

On a somewhat different note, HBO Sports has quickly become the source for serious sports journalism and analysis. While ESPN, and especially Sportscenter, tries to figure out how many graphics they can fit on a television screen, HBO Sports has remained true to all that really matters, probing interviews and intelligent analysis. Costas Now airs on Wednesday nights as does two other fantastic sports programs, Hard Knocks which focuses on the Kansas City Chiefs training camp and Inside the NFL.