I stumbled across a review for the film Big Fan today. I remember hearing about it when The Wrestler came out, as Robert Siegel wrote both scripts. The film’s been out since August, but it barely made a blip on any radar screens; It broke the top 50 in box office receipts just one weekend. But the review I saw today makes me more intrigued than ever to see it.
The film is about a hardcore New York Giants fan, Paul. Blue-collar guy. This reviewer, Kim Nicolini, ties the fan’s intense love for the Giants and their star quarterback to the protagonist’s repressed homosexuality.
In telling Paul’s story, Big Fan is an incredibly tender, painful, and tragic look at the state of masculine identity, social pressures of masculinity, and how masculinity relates to homophobia and class in America via the seemingly heteronormative industry of pro football.
I’ll definitely be renting Big Fan to find out if I see the same thing. It’s not often the NFL allows the use of their brand and team names, so I’m hoping it’s something special.
on Nov 18th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Thanks for sharing this, Cyd. If there is a homophobic slant to the movie or not, I still look forward to watching it.
on Nov 20th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I saw it a couple weeks ago (it played here in SF for barely a week) and there is definitely that repressed-homo subtext. Check out the pictures of the big black muscular football player on the dweeby white guy’s wall. I’m surprised more critics haven’t picked up on it. It’s one of my favorite movies of the year, actually. I’m a big Patton
Oswalt fan and he’s terrific.
on Nov 21st, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Was this film really based on Outsports demographics?
on Nov 27th, 2009 at 10:00 am
This movie opens this weekend in Toronto. Patton Oswalt is on the cover of the Now (free weekly newspaper), which gave the movie a 4/5 rating.
http://www.nowtoronto.com/movies/story.cfm?content=172614