Hollywood's America Gilder Lehrman Home Hypertext History Historical Glossaries Annotated Documents Great Debates Contemporary Controversies Ethnic America Hollywood's America Private Life Interactive Exercises Annotated Links Classroom Handouts Back to Hollywood's America Sports in American Film Until relatively recently, sports films rarely succeeded at the box office. Sports films, which were considered movies for young boys, were associated with hero worship, nostalgia, sentimentality, fantasy, and crude melodrama-qualities that repelled film critics. While the appeal of many of these recent films lies in heartwarming stories of victories over great odds, sports films have also served as a serious way to explore human psychology, especially the challenges of adjusting to aging or the contrast between childhood fantasies and the harsh realities of adulthood. Rarely are sports movies simply about the joys of athletic competition. Rather, Hollywood has used sports symbolically, as an arena where individual character is revealed or manhood is achieved or as a screen on which larger themes can be projected, such as heroism, aging, maturity, competitiveness, corruption, or the costs of victory.
Many sports films create mythologies.
Many sports films aimed primarily at a children are highly didactic, designed to teach lessons about the values of teamwork, self-control, sacrifice, the possibility of triumphing over great odds, and the need to obey rules. Since then, baseball, boxing, football, and basketball have appeared regularly on the screen in comedies, mysteries, musicals, romances, fantasies, and many other genres. Certain constants tend to run through sports films. The hero is generally a youthful outsider who encounters a series of frustrations and humiliations before proving his gumption. Sports has often served as a metaphor for patriotism, enduring American values, and the link between generations.