A short march of days ago, I watched a part of “The Day After Tomorrow.” I’ve seen the movie before and it is a standard sermon that I will not comment on at length. You can go to any number of other sources and find all the discussion that you want on the central beliefs of the films. That is not what I am writing about.
I did notice something in characterization. Notice that the son of the lead Cassandra like scientist, who is reported as doing calculus in his head, makes a condescending remark about a group of stereotypical nerds. Isn’t that odd? Does the ability to do higher math with neither paper nor calculator make you a jock or something? When my memory used to work, I did things like that all the time. I also understood that you have to show your work because you are being tested on technique more than just answers. Why would such a character look down on other people who value intellectual pursuits?
This is understandable with Hollywood. Hollywood is an evangelistic capital for its own religion and the rest of the world doesn’t seem eager to convert. “Soak the rich” sounds a little bit much like “beat the snot out of the nerd.” I remember what that was like. Breaking the grade curve deprives the rest of the class of unmerited points. It’s the same argument, feeding on the zero-sum-game myth, that is used to blame poverty on economic achievers. Expect no sympathy from Hollywood.
It never bothers me that I am chosen last for teams. I play volleyball on a church league, two seasons a year. Maybe the athletic minister assigns me to a team that has too many good players in order to balance the teams. They do let me play and I never try to hurt the team. My area is just not athletics.
Hollywood would like to deny us even the ground on which we excel. Everything you know closes your mind to alternatives. Nothing can be both true and false at once. The truth is that we disappoint Hollywood by countering its weakest dogmas.
That got me thinking. Why aren’t jocks unpopular? Not everybody can slam dunk. I cannot run a 4 minute mile?can you? Do jocks not show up the performance of the rest of the class?
Is it that athletic grades are not given based upon athletic merit? Jocks simply do not blow out the grade curve for the rest of the class and the rest of the class is not graded on its inability to match its top achievers? Could it be that the jocks can and will stand up and fight for themselves? Why are jocks so popular.
I guess that we will have to settle for running the world around the jocks that everybody else looks up to.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 9:39 am and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.