By KIERSTEN SCHMIDHEISER
STAFF WRITER
42 debuted on April 12 to great success, grossing over $27 million on opening weekend. This adaptation of the life story of Jackie Robinson, the first African American in Major League Baseball, stars Chadwick Boseman (“All My Children”) as the legendary player and Harrison Ford as the man who put him there, former manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey.
Critics gave the film positive reviews, and moviegoers raved over it. More interesting than the movie’s cinematic quality, however, is what its success reflects about audiences today.
Jackie Robinson started from humble beginnings: He was born in Cairo, Ga. in 1919 and was raised by a single mom in a sharecropper family. He eventually continued on to school at the University of California, Los Angeles. The movie explores his journey from a player on the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs to major league player on the Brooklyn Dodgers, his breaking the color barrier in professional athletics in the United States and his gradual acceptance from his teammates and baseball fans alike. Robinson met great success in his the baseball career; he earned the title of National League Rookie of the Year and, in 1949, was selected as the National League’s MVP. In 1962, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and his number, 42, is the only number that is retired from all teams in the League.
42 does not gloss over the instances when Jackie Robinson faced vehement racism as the lone African American in the league. His own teammates started a petition to keep him from playing, and fans and other teams heckled him, including one particularly disturbing encounter in which Phillies manager Ben Chapman, played by Alan Tudyk, taunts Robinson while he’s at the plate.
Because we live in a different era today, hearing such blatant racism may come as a shock to many viewers. But, Hegleland takes the correct path by keeping these emotionally-charged encounters in his movie. It reminds viewers of the struggle faced by so many Americans in the face of discrimination and of the ignorance of such a point of view.
Movie trends today indicate that audiences are willing and ready to take a closer look at difficult parts of our past as a nation. Lincoln, starring Academy Award-winner Daniel Day Lewis, explored the President’s struggles in moving a nation so firmly rooted in slavery toward an ideal that he knew as the morally correct direction for the country to take. It shows the biased viewpoints of many people during the time period, not only of average citizens but of politicians as well. Django Unchained, although more of an action movie, also includes raw depictions of some of the atrocities that took place under the institution of slavery.
The growing dominance and popularity of historically based films speaks to the mindset of society. These movies are not seen as an attack on the history of the South. They are met with warm regard, and they seem to inspire audiences about the growth that the country has and will continue to achieve.