42, movie, psychoanalysis, psychology, Jackie Robinson
What a weird confluence of events in this COVID weirdest of
weird years. The shortened baseball year
celebrated Jackie Robinson Day, usually celebrated in the spring, with all
players, as usual wearing his number 42 on Friday. This was also the 57th anniversary
of the “I have a dream” speech by MLK, Jr., and it was the day that Chadwick Boseman, the
actor most famous for playing the
Black Panther (T'Challa) in the Marvel Universe, but also for portraying Jackie
Robinson in 42, died. So last night, we
decided to watch 42, a film that we have not yet seen – and one that was better
suited for a date night than some of our more recent, darker fare.
Don’t get me wrong, the film is portraying very dark aspects
of our culture – and it hinges on the relationship between Branch Rickey, who
is ultimately revealed to be the guilt ridden owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers,
and Robinson, the first player to cross the color line in 1947 and play in
Major League Baseball. While it is
Rickey who is pulling the strings and shooting a shot across the bow of
complacent, segregated America, it is Robinson who must bear the burden of the storm
of hatred that this transgression unleashes.
But it is presented as a triumphal movie that charts the
course of a team, a town, and ultimately a country that shifts its position
regarding the inclusion of people of color in the American dream. And I think, even if this weren’t the summer of
Black Lives Matter’s ascendancy, and the naked ways in which we have seen that
this dream has not been realized, it falls flattest in depicting this
transition.
The characters who are pro integration from the beginning of
this film are the most likeable, but most importantly, the most
believable. Jackie Robinson’s character,
his aggressive questioning of the crazy laws and limits that surround America’s
treatment of blacks, and then his agreement to turn that aggression against
himself, to use it to quell the tremendous fury that is unleashed in him but
that cannot be displayed at any time because of the repercussions it would reap
for him, is brilliantly brought to life by Chadwick.
We briefly sampled “The Jackie Robinson Story”, a film in
which a middle aged and paunchy Jackie Robinson plays himself, where all of
that fire has long been sealed over, and we see the long term impact not just
of the violence that was done to him, but of the violence he did to himself to
keep himself contained within himself.
He figured out how to slow down the questions from reporters just as he
slowed down the opposing team’s pitches to figure out how to address each of them
– and, in the process, built a shell around his core. Chadwick portrayed what lay underneath that
shell in the best tradition of artistically recreating a character – just as Lin
Manuel-Miranda’s portrayal in Hamilton!
gets under the skin of the character to show its essence.
The sense of the presence of Chadwick’s persona – his own
contribution to the character – is an intriguing question, especially in light
of the revelation that he has been struggling to manage colon cancer during
many of his recent roles, including as the doomed leader of the Vietnam War Vets
in Da
5 Bloods. His portrayal of the character in that film seems more authentically worldly weary in light of this
revelation. Do we know the person behind
the persona? Could a white man (or woman
for that matter) have accurately portrayed Robinson?
Branch Rickey, nicely portrayed by Harrison Ford, is at the
center of this film. And, when Robinson wants to know if Rickey can understand the pain he is experiencing, Rickey acknowledges that he cannot. His position of privilege prevents it. It was Rickey's inspiration and insistence that brought Robinson to Brooklyn. And the question that looms throughout the
film is, why? And the answer, as it
should be, is multi-determined. The first
reason, and certainly an important one, is financial. He would get a great player at a bargain
price, improve the quality of the team, and draw more African Americans to the
ball park.
The deeper question – one that Robinson keeps wondering
about as he takes more and more abuse – is the moral reason. That comes, at least in part, from Rickey’s
Methodist beliefs in the equality of all humans in God’s eyes. But more deeply it lies in the sympathy – he clarifies
that sympathy is a Greek term that means suffering with another – that he felt
for a fellow player, a catcher, at Ohio Wesleyan when they were teammates and
the catcher, who was black, was refused housing at a hotel.
I think this critical question – how does this white man
come to feel sympathy for this black man is a question that is at the center of
the film and one that the film does not clearly address. For Rickey, I think the psychodynamic
interpretation would have to do with his failed efforts to repress his guilt
for not having helped his old teammate enough. But we would still want to know what caused the sense of connection in the first place? Why do we connect with this person, but pity - and therefore not care about - that one? Once Rickey cares about an individual, how does that generalize to wanting to help
the entire race – including Robinson – whom he wanted to help even before he
met him? And how is that related to his
ability to suppress his sympathy for the Robinson he knew enough to not step in
to stop the necessary abuse that would be coming his way (was there a way he
could do this?), but more importantly to step in and push him to go back and
take some more, with the consolation that winning the game would be the reward.
Robinson got the message from Rickey – that Rickey was there
to support him. It was less clear that
the other teammates got it. The fans
were taken with Robinson’s daring on the base paths – and with the excitement
that having him in the game provided. I
had a taste of this when Deon Sanders played for our local team. When he got on base, the entire game
changed. The pitcher had to pay
attention to him and when he did, the batter suddenly had the upper hand, and
we just knew that we might get to see a stolen base or something beyond that –
scoring from first on a single by the next hitter.
The other players are portrayed as being angry at being part
of the sideshow – and by this they are manifestly referring to the hoopla that went along with
Robinson’s crossing the invisible but tangible color barrier. But I think it was more than that – though the
film doesn’t capture it. The team won
the pennant largely because of a player they did not want to play with at the
beginning of the year. Some of them warmed to him, some did not. But the
shifts were wooden and not convincing.
Jackie Robinson was a person – but also a symbol. He lived inside an odd bubble. Isolated from his teammates – at least for the first year, uncertain of their loyalty, he was supported by Rickey, by a black reporter that Rickey hired to look after him, and by his wife. In life he had support from others – including his mother and his brother – but there is a portrayal here of a man who has to rely on himself more and more to carry him through very difficult times. He does this with a certain grace – and a certain rigidity – he is uncertain that others can be relied on, so he holds himself apart – from them, but also from some of the natural joy that was generally his.
Generally a tragedy is when a person relies on his character
in ways that drive him, unwittingly, towards a destructive end. In this film, the crucible that creates
Robinson’s character mirrors the repression that Rickey failed to manage so
that he would try to help a race after he had failed to help a member of that
race (I know race is a construction – and it was certainly a visceral
construction during the time this movie portrays). So the tragedy is that the culture prevents
this man from playing this sport as joyfully as his natural spirit, ability,
and hard work should have allowed him to do.
He becomes a hero, but the personal cost of this heroism is
tremendous. And, while the effects of
his actions are necessarily great, they are not great enough, in and of
themselves, to come close to effecting the kinds of changes that we are still very
much in pursuit of achieving. We have
much more to do than allotting police money to various social supports. We have to deinstitutionalize racism. This turned out to be a momentous, but, in
the scale of things, small step on a very long road. Changing an individual is difficult. Changing a culture magnifies that difficulty
many times over.
In Black Panther, T'Challa is the king of a hidden African country that has escaped the ravages of colonialism. In his role as king, but more importantly of citizen of a country where he does not feel isolated by his race, he is able to realize his potential. I think that our largely successful efforts to repress our collective role in that colonialism, including here in the colony that revolted, lies at the heart of our unwillingness to let go of the repressive barriers that we have erected to people realizing themselves. Branch Rickey's exposure of his own feelings of guilt, and Robinson's hiding his feelings of righteous indignation are the recipe for change in this film. I think we need many more ingredients to create a stew that will warm and connect us all.
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