American football movies appeal to American identity

Hardly any sport is as often the subject of feature films as American football. Why is that?

Patriotic symbols and gestures, as seen here at a Penn State University game in November 2022, are part of American football.

Matthew Oharen/USA Today Sports

With the turn of the year, the media in the USA begins to look forward to the country’s most important sporting event – the Super Bowl. Even those who are not very interested in it cannot escape American football. Not even in Europe. On the one hand, this is due to the expansion strategy of the National Football League (NFL). In 2022, three NFL games took place in London and one in Munich. With 5.8 million TV and internet viewers, the game in Munich had the best ratings of any game outside of the USA to date. She was seen on both free TV and pay TV.

On the other hand, American football is present in streaming services. There are now films on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Co. all year round that are about a player or a coach and their career in the NFL.

But what makes American football so attractive to the film industry as a narrative?

Traditional values ​​take center stage

An exemplary example of how the typical American football film is structured is provided by “Hometeam” – to be seen on Netflix. The comedian Kevin James, known from the sitcom “King of Queens”, plays the NFL coach Sean Payton. The film is based on true events. Payton was involved as head coach for the New Oearlens Saints in the 2012 “bounty scandal” in which players intentionally injured their opponents for money.

When Payton was suspended for a season, he coached his son’s football team for a time. In the film, Payton sees it as an opportunity to be a better father to his son, whom he hasn’t seen much of since their divorce.

The family finally helps Payton to survive the sporting crisis. In other films, the relationship is reversed. So it’s American football that helps Pat, played by Bradley Cooper, in Silver Linings Playbook to overcome family and psychological problems. It’s the same in the Oscar-winning film “The Blind Side”, which traces Michael Oher’s path from a difficult milieu to the NFL. This is also a film based on reality. Oher won the Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens in 2012.

The professional crisis of former football coach Sean Payton is suitable for film.

The professional crisis of former football coach Sean Payton is suitable for film.

Tommy Gilligan / USA Today Sports

Family and sport belong together in American films. In any case, many US sports films convey a very traditional set of values. In addition to the family, the focus is on love for the USA, the will to train hard and ambition. Whether in «The Blind Side» or «Hometeam», without hard work and a portion of patriotism there is no success – that’s the motto.

A realization of the American dream is often shown in the films. This is particularly striking in “The Blind Side” or in the film “Brian Banks”, which can be seen on Netflix. The NFL star of the same name was imprisoned for just over five years in the film and in real life. Wrongly, as it turned out. Just two years after his release in 2012, he managed to get into the NFL.

Even Ronald Reagan was in a football movie

This traditional framework of values ​​underlies not only American sports films, but also American sports themselves. This becomes clear, for example, from the national anthem, which is played before every NFL game, but also in basketball or ice hockey. Likewise, military show elements underpin patriotism at such sporting events. Military planes fly over the stadium honoring veterans. All of this is staged in a way that is effective for the media.

Anyone who refuses patriotism in American football must face the consequences. Player Colin Kaepernick found out in 2016 when he knelt during the anthem to take a stand against discrimination. Despite undisputed talent, Kaepernick was unable to find another job with an NFL team after his contract expired.

Former President Donald Trump called him a “son of a bitch” and shouted “he is fired” during a speech. Fans burned Kaepernick shirts. Roger Goodellcommissioner and thus CEO of the NFL, told the AP agency in the context of Kaepernick’s action that the NFL strongly believes in patriotism.

Americans’ ties to the NFL have a long tradition and even preoccupied US Presidents before Trump. Theodore Roosevelt already had to deal with the sport after several deaths had occurred. Roosevelt advocated reform of the Laws of the Game and was instrumental in founding what is now the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the governing body of collegiate athletics. An important institution, because the NFL draws its talent from the university leagues.

Before his political career, Ronald Reagan starred in the biographical adaptation of Knute Rocknes, one of the most famous coaches in football history. And with Barack Obama, the playoff system in college football was even a campaign issue in 2008.

Griezmann talks about himself

If you read through sports biographies, you will discover that there is also material worth telling in many other sports outside of football.

However, there are few of these careers in tennis or ice hockey on the streaming services, but mainly many documentaries about football stars. Cristiano Ronaldo, Antoine Griezmann, Neymar or Pelé are just a few examples.

Such documentaries move somewhere between fan articles and self-portrayal. Accordingly, the subtitle of Griezmann’s documentary is “The Making of a Legend”. The people who have the most say in the film are Griezmann’s father and Griezmann himself. A distanced classification is missing, rather the film is a mystification of the French footballer and ends with winning the 2018 World Cup title.

Unlike films about the NFL, however, such documentaries have almost no patriotic elements, which is related to the global impact of football. Even if individual players are associated with a country, the country has no exclusive claim to the sport. The sport is not intertwined with the land and its inhabitants, but exists independently of it. In these films, Griezmann is not primarily French, nor is Ronaldo Portuguese. They are global stars.

The same goes for many other sports, be it Formula 1, figure skating, boxing, golf or tennis. The film “Rush” tells about the rivalry between the two racing drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. Just as James Hunt is not recognizable as an English or British star in the film, Lauda’s relationship with Austria hardly plays a role.

The film “Rush” tells the rivalry between racing drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda, ​​but little about their national background.

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