Field of Dreams: Deep Thoughts About Whitewashed Boomer Nostalgia and the Psychology of Grief

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. If you build it, he will come. What better vehicle for the Guy girls to meditate on their relationship with their late father than a film they once watched with him about a man’s relationship with his late father? With Field of Dreams, the 1989 magical realism baseball fantasy film starring Kevin Costner, Tracie brings some deep thoughts about parents and children, gender and emotion, and baseball and race, psychology and guilt.The filmmakers transformed JD Salinger--a real-life white author featured in the source material, the novel Shoeless Joe--into the fictional Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), a Black icon of sixties counterculture. In so doing, they opened a door to talk about race and racism in baseball and in America, but they never walked through that door. And while much of what was charming about the film 35 years ago remains charming, there’s also a great deal that feels downright unsatisfying.Go the distance. Grab your earbuds and come with us into an analysis that straddles both the intimate view from the dugout and the big-picture vista afforded by the nosebleed seats.Mentioned in this episode:On the movie’s role in expensive stadiums:https://reason.com/2023/04/01/the-expensive-seductive-nostalgia-of-field-of-dreams/On the flawed portrayal of the father-son relationship (and a bunch of facts they got wrong): https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/field-of-dreams-is-absolutely-terribleOur theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon. We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!