Big Fan: Religious War

I am not a sports fan. I do not understand sports rivalries, Super Bowl Sunday is just another day, and March Madness lives up to its name for when I tell the 1000th person each year that, no, I do not want to be a part of your bracket, I nearly go insane. I also don't like, for the most part, sports movies. Like romantic comedies, the hit-to-miss ratio for me seems extremely skewed, with nearly 100% of them being about how some ragtag group of misfits overcomes their differences and wins the big game (yes, I know Rocky didn't win in Rocky and I know that I watch things like Glee which is about a group of misfits, but it subverts more stereotypes and cliches than it subscribes to). So one would not think that I'd be as excited for Big Fan as I was, but Big Fan isn't about sports. It is about fandom, nay, devotion, religious fanaticism. And as a fanboy, I can relate on some level.

The trailer refers to football as one of America's most wide-spread religion, and I certainly believe that's true (just like pop culture fandom; my personal gods are Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman, Tina Fey, Brian K. Vaughan, and Steven Spielberg). The level of devotion people show to sports teams is incredible; people live and die by how well a group of people they've never met perform in games that have no consequences except for the players getting paid millions of dollars and the citizens of the city they represent getting bragging rights until the next game/year. I remember when I was still an undergrad in Ann Arbor, half my fraternity got severe depression when the Tigers lost the World Series. A few years earlier, Boston and Chicago went crazy when their teams won the World Series in consecutive years. Of course, the same could be said of people who are too into film/TV/books/comics (on one side, we "get to know" the people involved, but on the other, none of them actually exist). For the most part, in American society, a sports fanatic is more accepted than the fanatic devoted to fictional worlds. But Big Fan introduces us to Paul Aufiero, a sports fan who is so obsessed with the New York Giants that he has alienated nearly everyone in his life.

The Giants are all Paul cares about. He works in a parking garage taking tickets, earning minimum wage. He lives with his mother and spends his days writing speeches that he presents as off-the-cuff on a late-night sports call-in show. He and Sal, his only friend, think that his calls are pure brilliance, philosophy even, when in reality, he only inarticulately states that the Giants will win the upcoming game and engages in a battle of "wits" with a Philadelphia Eagles fan who calls in (the equivalent of a flame war). When he is forced to spend time with his family, he couldn't be more depressed; at his nephew's birthday party, he spends the whole time moping. But he's his happiest when he goes to every home Giants game... even though he doesn't have the money to actually buy a ticket. Paul and Sal actually spend gas money to drive to Giants Stadium and jerryrig their engine to power a small TV set in the parking lot.

Paul's life changes when he gets the chance to meet his favorite player at a club. While eating at a small pizza joint in Staten Island, Paul and Sal see the player and follow him to Manhattan in an effort to say hi. High on coke, the player becomes enraged upon learning that they stalked him and beat Paul within an inch of his life. When he woke up three days later in the hospital, his lawyer brother encouraged him to file suit while a Manhattan cop who seemed all-too-eager to put the player away tried to get Paul to reveal details of the event. But the player is Paul's god, and he will not betray him. After the player's long suspension is lifted, Paul blames himself for letting the player get "rusty," which results in the Giants losing the game. Paul's brother eventually filed suit in Paul's name, claiming that Paul was incompetent and that someone had to manage his affairs on his behalf. And a good case could be made for Paul being incompetent. He is very much a man-child in the way that many films and TV shows portray grown comic book fans. He is unwilling to address that he has an addiction/obsession and resorts to childish defense mechanisms when confronted, which usually involves raising his voice and going into hysterics.

The shit really hits the fan for him when the Philadelphia fan, who is definitely a devoted follower of football but is not as debilitatingly affected as Paul, learns that "Paul from Staten Island" on the radio show is the same Paul who filed (so it seems to the world at large) a lawsuit against his favorite player. Philadelphia Phil and Paul's mother simultaneously push him a little too far one night while he is on the phone with the sports show that Paul starts swearing, causing the show to cut off his call. All this pushes Paul to engage in what may amount to a one-man religious war against Philadelphia Phil and the Eagles. I don't know if writer/director Robert Siegel meant for us to feel this, or maybe it's just my own views on religion, but I saw Paul as someone who believed he was fighting in the name of his church (the Giants) and his god (the player), while the player did not give two thoughts about him. To Paul, he was nobly sacrificing himself by choosing not to sue, thinking he would earn forgiveness or favor with the player, who probably didn't care about him at all. If anything, he only felt more anger because of his suspension. I also don't know if this was done because a large number of people in Staten Island are devout Catholics (as in, I don't know whether they are or not) or if it was done for juxtaposition, but Paul and his family were likely very religious (as noted by all the religious items in their cars, as well as some conversations the characters had together), and it was interesting to see Paul mock Christianity in certain ways (some of which were merited, notably the conversation he had with his mom about what was worse, him saying that his brother fucked his secretary while married to someone else, or for his brother to actually do it after his mother scolded him for saying that his brother fucked the secretary) while he illogically and unwaveringly devoted himself to the Giants.

I had the good fortune of seeing this movie at a special screening in which Patton Oswalt and Robert Siegel attended and gave a Q&A session at the close, and the pair were great.

Up next: Clowns to the left of me, zombies to the right...