Whack Attacks
Jun. 19th, 2004 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrdreamjeansI just finished reading a review in the Houston Chronicle about the movie "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story". As far as I am concerned anything to do with dodgeball is a dog of a story. Just reading about another misguided Ben Stiller film, particularly this one where violence as humor is celebrated, makes my blood boil.
Why? Because, it takes me right back to physical education classes in Junior High and High School in Houston and the lack of imagination that my school district employed in making sure the students were fit.
In my district east of Houston, our PE curriculum consisted of two activities: softball played outdoors in the heat and humidity, in our bare feet and in grass filled with stickers; or dodgeball, where even the coaches participated, taking turns with the bullies in humiliating any student who was trying to figure out how slamming a heavy mush ball into various parts of a weaker student's anatomy was sport.
I wasn't a coward, or weak, but I didn't throw well or accurately. I also was quick and often was the last one "dodging" 15 or so balls; I soon learned to cut deals with my friends. They'd hit me with a ball right at the beginning and I'd say "Oh, I've been hit, I'm out" and go sit on the bleachers with the other smart kids who had figured out that it was more fun watching the bloodbath on the court from the sidelines.
I saw fellow students hit in the head so hard that they were knocked out; I saw noses bloodied; I saw guys hit in the balls so hard they were writhing in pain on the wood floor for several minutes. How is this sport? At best, it's a trash sport. What lessons were we learning? Certainly, it wasn't how to compete honorably.
I had to wait until college to get fit and understand that I really liked to play sports and was actually good at them. I also understood that we could have played volleyball or soccer with those very same balls if the faculty had had some imagination.
As the Chronicle reviewer states, "whaling on people.... is perhaps an offshoot of our reality-TV era of public humiliation and gladitorial pain. When someone gets bashed or smashed, why, that's entertainment." It's not entertainment to me. It just brings back difficult and sometimes painful memories.
The participants, particularly the recipients of the bashing and smashing, were scarred in ways beyond the crude game of dodgeball. The lessons taught? From my point of view - That it is ok to pick on the weak or the different; that is more important to be cruel than to be kind...especially in victory; that coaches will often use a sadistic game for their guilty pleasure and as a way to get out of having to actually inspire students to be healthy and fit!
I realize I am acknowledging a prejudice here. I think most coaches are simply the grown-up bullies of dodgeball. The sad thing, particularly in Texas, is that these same coaches become principals and administrators and show the same lack of imagination and ability in running our schools....a sad state of affairs. Dodgeball! ARRRRGH!
Why? Because, it takes me right back to physical education classes in Junior High and High School in Houston and the lack of imagination that my school district employed in making sure the students were fit.
In my district east of Houston, our PE curriculum consisted of two activities: softball played outdoors in the heat and humidity, in our bare feet and in grass filled with stickers; or dodgeball, where even the coaches participated, taking turns with the bullies in humiliating any student who was trying to figure out how slamming a heavy mush ball into various parts of a weaker student's anatomy was sport.
I wasn't a coward, or weak, but I didn't throw well or accurately. I also was quick and often was the last one "dodging" 15 or so balls; I soon learned to cut deals with my friends. They'd hit me with a ball right at the beginning and I'd say "Oh, I've been hit, I'm out" and go sit on the bleachers with the other smart kids who had figured out that it was more fun watching the bloodbath on the court from the sidelines.
I saw fellow students hit in the head so hard that they were knocked out; I saw noses bloodied; I saw guys hit in the balls so hard they were writhing in pain on the wood floor for several minutes. How is this sport? At best, it's a trash sport. What lessons were we learning? Certainly, it wasn't how to compete honorably.
I had to wait until college to get fit and understand that I really liked to play sports and was actually good at them. I also understood that we could have played volleyball or soccer with those very same balls if the faculty had had some imagination.
As the Chronicle reviewer states, "whaling on people.... is perhaps an offshoot of our reality-TV era of public humiliation and gladitorial pain. When someone gets bashed or smashed, why, that's entertainment." It's not entertainment to me. It just brings back difficult and sometimes painful memories.
The participants, particularly the recipients of the bashing and smashing, were scarred in ways beyond the crude game of dodgeball. The lessons taught? From my point of view - That it is ok to pick on the weak or the different; that is more important to be cruel than to be kind...especially in victory; that coaches will often use a sadistic game for their guilty pleasure and as a way to get out of having to actually inspire students to be healthy and fit!
I realize I am acknowledging a prejudice here. I think most coaches are simply the grown-up bullies of dodgeball. The sad thing, particularly in Texas, is that these same coaches become principals and administrators and show the same lack of imagination and ability in running our schools....a sad state of affairs. Dodgeball! ARRRRGH!
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