Big Fan

I just watched Big Fan.

It's a good movie. I'm not usually into the film noir, but this one had it.

The movie stars Patton Oswalt as a sports fan, more obsessed and sad than any anime otaku or bug collector. Granted, most sports fans are hard-working, well-rounded, and successful. But not our protagonist, who has essentially his entire identity locked up in his sports team, to the detriment not only of his personal life, but to his place in society at large. He clings to his job at a parking garage, as it leaves him free to write, not the great American novel, but prepared rants to late night talk radio shows. He and his friend feel they're privileged to be able to watch the big game on a big TV in the parking lot of the stadium, having to forget that there was a time when working-class fans could actually afford to go inside. He is, indeed, proud to be a peasant, and indeed he chooses that life over all other possible opportunities.

It's when he and his friend spot his hero on his way to a party that he cements his place in the world, as a helpless peasant in every sense. In American football, there are class differences as expansive and insurmountable as feudal England. And, clearly, this guy's idea of "reaching for the stars" is perverse, even by the standards of other fans. Indeed, a scene at the end takes place at a proper sports bar, where the warmth of the shared experience of a sports game is closest to that of the local stadium games of old. This movie is about someone who seems to be traveling perpendicular to that, for whom loyalty is everything.

I really don't know how to conclude this post, so I will take a small bow.

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had 12

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I did a bit of ragging on stacebass last week for cock-blocking me once...

but, the truth is, I owe her my entire social life from 2000 through 2009. Everyone I met, I met either through some effort of hers, or because I was in a group or attending an event that she suggested. There are very few exceptions, especially as you add layers of indirection. For example, I joined Livejournal because she did.

Unfortunately, I've been too dependent on her, and on the groups she introduced me to. She's hanging out with a much cooler crowd, and I haven't upheld my part of the bargain by keeping up. The expectation when you help someone get a leg up, is that eventually they start climbing on their own, and perhaps I did for a while, but I didn't keep it up.

So I suppose this is the decade where I find out what my life would have been like if I had to rely on my own wits alone.