Though the idea of redemption has decidedly religious roots, ultimately tied to the particular madness of Christianity, it can be fairly stated that in more recent incarnations, the redeemed are more likely to be found on the silver screen than in church. Hollywood, not Jesus, has sought to save more souls over the past century and change, usually with half-baked denouements, unseemly and obvious plot turns, and melodramatic twists straight out of a cheap novel. Where we find evil, Tinseltown seeks a simpleminded corrective, one usually accompanied by tears, regret, and the standard gnashing of teeth. Folks have got to change, lest the entire enterprise risk implosion.
In lives not cobbled together by screenplays and the like, the reality is much different. Not only is the child father to the man, the man remains forever a child, both in word and deed. If we’re rotten, we die rotten, with only minor adjustments on the margins to avoid prison. Lip service, then, becomes the national pastime. From New Year’s resolutions to the entire cottage industry of self-help tomes, seminars, and retreats, humanity is endlessly chasing a big fucking lie. We are always found wanting, never measuring up, and it will remain as such until we finally commit the collective suicide most of us have been relishing for the better part of a half-century. We will not, in fact, be redeemed, savior or no. Our collective experience proves it, again and again.
Curious, then, that as the cinema insists on peddling an obvious fiction, the most important, lasting stories involve the polar opposite. Just as the biography of a saint is an unreadable slog, a movie about the triumph of our better angels never quite achieves the desired success as entertainment. Sure, we might accept a bad seed getting their just desserts (as close to “justice” as we’ll allow), but we’re never looking for a good seed to emerge. If he dies, he dies with every irredeemable feature intact. Like Morris Buttermaker from 1976’s The Bad News Bears. No, he doesn’t die, per se – at least not while we have the pleasure of his company – but he ends his time a decidedly unchanged man. A scoundrel, a bum, an unreliable sot. He drank before, he’ll drink again. The alcohol, if we’re being honest, is just about the only thing holding him together.
Matthau’s Buttermaker is, more than ever, a man so out of time, he may as well be from another planet. He’s neither warm nor cuddly, and his attitude about children so refreshingly old school, we half expect a call from social services, if not the FBI. But none is made, nor will it ever be in 1976 America. As the Bicentennial loomed, our young people roamed the streets like wolves in the night; some came home, others did not, and well, that was just the risk we were willing to take. Life in the big city, as they say. For most of those glorious years in the Me Decade, kids all but raised themselves. As parents slept around, took off, begged for divorce, and inhaled every pill not nailed down, the kids wandered. Found their own fun. Learned about life and love from those even worse off than they were. We came home from school to empty abodes, making do with what passed for scraps. We were unloved, cast aside, and exceedingly low on any adult priority list. And that’s the way we wanted it. Say what you will, but not one of us ever shot up a classroom.
Buttermaker, then, with his collection of oddballs, is the Fagin of his day, though no one ever had to be forced into the life. Parents happily dropped off their wee ones, maybe seeing them now and again at one of the games. That said, attendance was optional. After all, if I wanted to spend the summer with the little shit, I’d have gone on a family vacation. Let someone else pick up the slack for a change. And if he’s a scruffy layabout with beer on his breath, so much the better. He seems to check out, even if anything resembling a background check was a possibility somewhere between remote and GTFO. Not one of the Bears is worth a damn on the diamond – and yes, both mom and dad know it – but hell, maybe they can learn a new skill or two. Give them all credit (and the time) for not even suspecting that Buttermaker might be a pedophile. That hysteria, at least for America, was yet to come. In 1976, we sent our kids to strangers. Trust? Maybe, but more likely an overwhelming indifference.
At every turn, The Bad News Bears, channeling its era as well any film ever has, avoids the cloying sentimentality and rah-rah unholiness soon unleashed by that year’s Rocky. Sure, Balboa himself also lost, but in doing so, he in fact “won” – the girl, the fame, his long-forgotten self-respect. Perhaps the Bears had a similar track, given that they met the Yankees’ condescending “cheer” with a defiant appeal to cram it up their ass, but we all know the truth that no one, certainly not Buttermaker, would ever avoid: if the Bears played beyond their capacity – and they did – it was due entirely to a ringer. No Kelly Leak, no run for the roses. Rocky had grit, by god, but the Bears, absent Leak and Amanda’s arm, might never have scored a run. And this, of course, is the key difference, the very reason why this film achieves a rare grandeur. To a boy, they stink. At the beginning, the middle, and most importantly, the end. Sure, the effort counts – showing up day after day despite the long odds – but they aren’t hoisting any trophies. And they never will. More importantly, they don’t wipe away the snot and grime and become the little cherubs everyone else might want them to be.
Yes, Buttermaker stands tall because he lets the kids drink beer, swear, mock other kids, and adhere to their rotten (and often racist) instincts, but he achieves Consequence by reminding them all that life will let you down and it’s best to learn that fact as early as possible. Sure, he all but pimped out Amanda to get Leak on board (never before has air hockey been so fraught with possibility), but even then, it’s a life lesson. The Yankees of our world will always have the better sponsors, cleaner uniforms, and more fanatically devoted managers, but Buttermaker would never resort to physical violence. Coach Turner strikes his own son, for chrissakes, because his ethic is to win at all costs. Get the prize, polish the medal. Secure that headline.
Buttermaker’s counter-ethic is not to embrace losing, but rather to accept its inevitability. If you’re scrawny, myopic, and physically awkward, life is going to beat you bloody. Period. And in athletics, where meritocracy reigns? Even more so. The Bears, then, should not even exist. They sure won’t in the adult world to come. But here, in childhood? Sure, it’s all about fun on a July afternoon. Only it’s not. Get used to this – Tanner, Ogilvie, Lupus, Engelberg, et al – because as bad as this is, it’s still very much artificial. Secure, with guardrails. Maybe someone will wipe your nose. That all ends once you leave the ball field.
It’s my firm contention that after a summer with Buttermaker, the kids may continue to get knocked around, picked on, and ignored, but they’ll have a greater understanding. Maybe they too will become like Buttermaker – no steady work, relationships as fractured as the windshield on their rust bucket of a car – but they won’t succumb to illusions. They’ll forever have one eye open. Knowledge, especially concerning life as it is actually lived, without the phony uplift, is the only victory worth pursuing. Knowing who you are, how you’ll react, and the very real limitations that keep us grounded. We all need dreams, even as they ebb, but never can they devolve into delusions. Rocky, then, is what we hope we can be. The Bad News Bears, through Buttermaker, is what we actually are.
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