A bit of a silly conversation started on Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog the other day when he mentioned the fact that he's a Dallas Cowboys fan.
I commented, asking for an explanation, and, today, he responded, sparking a beauty of a comment thread.
After trying to imagine growing up without lovable home teams and reading TNC's explanation, I respect his love for the Cowboys. I don't like it. But I'm ok with it. I think it's real, and I think real love for a team is something to celebrate.
Which reminds me of something one of my cousins said as we wandered around the ballpark before going in for Game 4 of the World Series.
Everyone was wearing red and chanting and singing for the Phils, and one of us noted the fact that it couldn't possibly be like it was in Philly in Tampa Bay. Fans were probably way into it, but some of those fans were Phils fans, and that makes for a totally different dynamic. There's tension there. Home vs. Away. Red vs. Blue.
In Philly there wasn't tension. We were all Home, all Red, all Good Guys. No Bad Guys would have come close to that pregame party.
And then came the observation.
We shouldn't be celebrating our exclusivity. We should love the fact that there's no anger in the pregame crowd, but we should welcome Tampa Bay fans. We should be excited to have rival fans in the house. We should party together before the game. We should make fun of each other during the game. And we should party together again after the game.
We should be able to celebrate our losses as wins for other fans.
And that's a pretty powerful thought. Mature. Idealistic. Symbolic of way more than professional sports. And powerful.
Not an easy one to put into practice, however. Certainly not in Philadelphia. And certainly not when it pertains to the Dallas Cowboys. But worth keeping in mind regardless.
I think one reason we like watching TV and going to the mall is that, when we hit a certain age, those things become what we're culturally expected to like.
At a certain point in childhood, it becomes less cool to say your favorite thing to do when you go home from school is draw or build with legos or wrestle with the dog or put on a silly hat and pretend to be Robin Hood. At a certain point, it becomes less cool to be creative in your spare time, less cool to let your imagination entertain you.
Unless, of course, you're the main characters of Step Brothers. And, maybe I'm crazy, but I think that movie was brilliant social commentary, intentional or not.
(Also tangentially relevant here might be Clay Shirky's thoughts on our cognitive surplus and the future of media: we grew up consuming, but the barriers preventing us from producing and sharing are crumbling, so the days of TV as we know it might be over.)
A little off topic with the Clay Shirky there, but I'm glad to have at least tried to spread some Step Brothers love.
My only complaint about that movie is that they didn't show us any Talladega Nights style outtakes during the credits. I suspect they're saving them for the DVD, which, while certainly a good way to sell DVDs, makes me love the movie a little less. It makes me love it a little more again, however, to know that there are some deleted scenes on Funny or Die.