Join us for our first Modern Mythic Tales, where we look at contemporary works of art for their mythic and symbolic meaning. Today's Modern Mythic Tale is Bull Durham, a movie about America's other favorite pastime (SEX!). Released in 1988 and enjoying its 35th anniversary this year, Bull Durham was voted the best sports movie of all time by Sports Illustrated - but like most sports movies, it's about life more than it's about baseball, specifically a life where the main characters have constructed their own mythologies.
Bull Durham Criterion Collection
Brendan Hunt (Coach Bear and Ted Lasso Co-Creator/ Writer) Interview in the Observer about Ted Lasso Season 2 in which he briefly discusses Bull Durham
The Gospel of Bull Durham According to Ron Shelton
The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham by Ron Shelton
Faith, Hope and Love: Bull Durham - The Cooler movie blog
The Best Baseball Movie Ever? Bull Durham - The Atlantic
The Inner Game of Tennis: the Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance by W. Timothy Gallwey
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihalyi Czikczentmihalyi
We want to hear from you! Please rate and review us wherever you find this podcast. Join our Patreon: patreon.com/yourmythicu
Join us for our first Modern Mythic Tales, where we look at contemporary works of art for their mythic and symbolic meaning. Today's Modern Mythic Tale is Bull Durham, a movie about America's other favorite pastime (SEX!). Released in 1988 and enjoying its 35th anniversary this year, Bull Durham was voted the best sports movie of all time by Sports Illustrated - but like most sports movies, it's about life more than it's about baseball, specifically a life where the main characters have constructed their own mythologies.
Bull Durham Criterion Collection
Brendan Hunt (Coach Bear and Ted Lasso Co-Creator/ Writer) Interview in the Observer about Ted Lasso Season 2 in which he briefly discusses Bull Durham
The Gospel of Bull Durham According to Ron Shelton
The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham by Ron Shelton
Faith, Hope and Love: Bull Durham - The Cooler movie blog
The Best Baseball Movie Ever? Bull Durham - The Atlantic
The Inner Game of Tennis: the Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance by W. Timothy Gallwey
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihalyi Czikczentmihalyi
We want to hear from you! Please rate and review us wherever you find this podcast. Join our Patreon: patreon.com/yourmythicu
Hello, and welcome back to Mythic U. I'm your host, Erin Branham
Karen Foglesong:and I'm your other host, Karen Fogelsong.
Erin Branham:Today we're going to be kicking off what we hope will be a regular sort of an episode - Modern Mythic Tales, looking at pieces of contemporary art and literature that hit on mythological themes. But before we start, we want to do a quick little promo. Karen want to roll?
Karen Foglesong:Absolutely, please visit our website you guys at mythicu.buzzsprout.com. For more great information on choreographing your own spirituality. Leave us a comment and donate if you have the means and the interest. If you'd like to support our work more regularly, you can always visit our Patreon page and become a member of Mythic U, depending on the level at which you join members receive early access to new episodes, bonus episodes and free Mythic U gifts. So come on over.
Erin Branham:All right, we want to hear from everybody what you're thinking about this what kind of questions or stories you have from your life and how stories and your mythology have served you and what else you would like to hear us talk about here on Mythic U. We love to hear some input.
Karen Foglesong:Absolutely.
Erin Branham:So in honor of we're recording this on June 19. And on June 17 was the 35th anniversary of the movie Bull Durham. We're going to take a deep dive into this film which purports to be - its movie tagline that was on its poster was this is a movie about America's other favorite pastime. So it is supposedly a baseball movie that's really about sex, but actually it's really really about building your own mythology.
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:If you don't know the film, you should. The Sports Illustrated staff list of Greatest Sports Movies of All Time ranked Bull Durham number one. Its screenplay was nominated for an Oscar as well. Feel free to pause this right now and go have a watch. It is currently available on HBO, now Max, Hulu and Amazon Prime for free. It has also been cited as a major influence on the wildly popular Apple Plus series, Ted Lasso. In fact, one of its creators, who plays the fabulous Coach Beard noted it as his favorite sports movie of all time. So it's no wonder that it got mixed in a little bit on that show.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, I mean, if some of you guys are like, What the heck, why are we talking about a sports movie on a mythology show? I am with you. I went kicking and screaming. When Erin introduced me to this movie way back in the, what, 90s? It would have been after it was out a little while. And I have to tell you, you got to be careful about your own prejudices and perceptions because this movie is brilliant.
Erin Branham:I will tell you even that the first time I saw it, I was like oh, that was a cute romantic comedy. It did not fully penetrate. It was after a couple of viewings on cable, where so many of us Gen X people found all of our really core mythological material on cable late at night, rewatching and rewatching. Just to give you a taste we're going to tell a little bit about this. Bull Durham is basically a movie version of what we're talking about here. Its two main characters live very symbolically animated lives. To give you a sense, Bull Durham begins with a very brilliant and memorable monologue as you're watching Annie Savoy, the main character played by Susan Sarandon, as you're watching her, leaving her house, which you - the camera pans through and shows you her house which is decorated very idiosyncratically, and then you see her walking to the ballpark. Meanwhile, you hear this voiceover that begins this way. I believe in the church of baseball. I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan, I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in the Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches on a baseball. When I heard that I gave Jesus a chance, but it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball and it's never boring, which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball - you got to relax and concentrate. It's a long season and you got to trust. I've tried them all I really have. And the only church that truly feeds the soul day in and day out, is the church of baseball.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah. It's a brilliant piece of writing and she delivered it so great and you just read it off of to.
Erin Branham:It is really - but it sets the scene for what is going on here. We meet Annie Savoy, who is this person who has developed her own mythology, her own religion, essentially around the church of baseball. And it works brilliantly for her as we see throughout the course of the movie. So I'm gonna give you a little synopsis. And Karen is gonna hop in here and there with interesting observations.
Karen Foglesong:So we've created interruptions.
Erin Branham:So we've met Annie, we see her go in, she takes up her box seat, which is obviously hers. It's decorated by her like she knows. Then we meet Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, a young, talented, dumb ass of a rookie pitcher, who has a 95 mile an hour fastball. He's plainly destined for the major leagues in short order. We meet him by the way with his pants down two minutes before the game starts. He's having a little bang with Annie's sidekick Millie, who's another one of the baseball groupies. Interestingly, Karen I found out that they named Annie Annie because that's what ballplayers call the groupies. They call them Annies. Really? Yes.
Karen Foglesong:So they're not baseball bunnies. They're Annies.
Erin Branham:They call them Annies. This according to the screenplay author who was also the writer and the director of this film, Ron Shelton, who was himself a minor league baseball player for many years. He also wrote Tin Cup, which was another Kevin Costner movie and White Men Can't Jump. Those are the ones he's probably best well known for.
Karen Foglesong:Oh, really? That was funny. Well, yeah. The first one was funny. I don't know about the second one.
Erin Branham:Was there a second one?
Karen Foglesong:They remade it just recentl.
Erin Branham:They're doing a TV show now.
Karen Foglesong:Oh, my God, oh,
Erin Branham:White Men Can't Jump. So how Ebby Calvin LaLoosh is going to get to the major leagues is via Crash Davis, a very good but aging minor league player who was never really quite good enough to secure a spot in the majors. The club, that is the owners, have bought Crash's contract so he can quote mature the kid, stay on his back all year. Now he hates this idea. But as he is told what he gets out of this deal is that he can keep going to the ballpark and keep getting paid to do it.
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:That turns out to be enough.
Karen Foglesong:It's enough to take it because if you love something you want to be there. You want to touch it, right?
Erin Branham:Absolutely.
Karen Foglesong:This is a scary place. If you're an actor or a professional player of any kind. This moment can happen in your career where you don't quite make it to the movie or the ball big ballpark or the big court, whatever it is, but you're good enough to stay around and help the person that has been chosen to be the star. Right?
Erin Branham:This - yeah. And this also really hits on I mean, one of the interesting things about Bull Durham is it really looks at masculinity, it looks at, it uses sports as a backdrop to sort of explore different ideas about masculinity. And so you have these two poles, you have the young rookie player who is hot and fast, and he's got all the power but none of the wisdom. And then you have this other character who is the aging out of the sport, right? He's got all the wisdom and he doesn't have all the flash and the power anymore. So we set these two guys up. Now that evening Crash, Annie and Ebby Calvin are all at the same bar. Crash starts a fight with Ebby Calvin, because he's getting in there to start riding the kid, right? So he humiliates him in front of the whole team because he dares him to throw a baseball at him, to start the fight. He says hit me in the chest with this. He taunts him and Ebby goes oh my god, I'd kill you. And Crash just looks at him and goes really? Because from what I hear you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a fucking boat.
Karen Foglesong:OHHHHH
Erin Branham:And the guy's all like prance around behind him. Oh, dude, you got to do it now, you got to do it now! And Crash is taunting him. So it's like you're not going to do it. You're not going to hit me because starting to think about it. Aren't you, Meat, come on, throw it, throw it. Of course. He throws it. He misses him. He's totally humiliated and all that stuff. Well, this is how Crash introduces himself to him and says, Look, I'm your new pitcher. You need to listen to me and he tags him with the nickname, Meat, because he's not very bright.
Karen Foglesong:Wait he's the new catcher right?
Erin Branham:He's the new catcher. So he tells them I'm your new catcher. Now it turns out that Annie wants to do some riding herself. So she invites both men back to her place. Which is a hilarious scene when she goes up to them and she's like You too come on back with me and Ebby's like excuse me, both of us, what? And Crash just downs the rest of his drink, pats him on the shoulder, like, let's go! So we're already in there we're mixing up some sexual ideas there. They all head back to Annie's place where we learn that she hooks up with one ballplayer a season. And this is her own spring training, as she says. Crash, however, says No thanks. Because after 20 years in the minors, he says I don't try out. And I'm not interested in any woman who's interested in - that boy. So he uses it as yet another opportunity to sort of humiliate Ebby Calvin. Before leaving now, Crash gives his own "I believe" speech, which we will turn to at some point because he gives an equally Remember, Annie's speech starts with I believe in the church of baseball. At this point, she says to him, Well, what do you believe in then? And he turns around, and he gives her a classic speech. That's very well known. He says something he goes, I believe, well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the hanging curveball, good fiber, good scotch, and he gives his whole wonderful speech about what he believes as well.
Karen Foglesong:And it's not exactly the same as Annie's.
Erin Branham:Oh, no, it's quite different. In fact, she's already given him her little speech about metaphysics. And he turns around, and he says, I don't believe in quantum mechanics when it comes to matters of the heart. So they're set up in a little, I believe war.
Karen Foglesong:But you know, they may have different perspectives that they like, I believe this, and I believe this, like, their, their beliefs are a little bit different. But what's important right here is that you find out that both characters have in fact developed their own belief system. And so this is something that they can have common ground about.
Erin Branham:Definitely, they both invented their own set of beliefs and they have them, they fully own them. Annie and Crash are pretty self actualized people, they are not shown as perfectly happy.
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:Which I think is part of the reason why this is a great film, because self actualization does not lead to a state of you know, silly joy forever and ever, but they're quite fulfilled human beings
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:So anyway, Crash walks out, Annie is shocked that wow, nobody's ever said no to date for me before. Meanwhile, Ebby's like, into it, so she takes Ebby back into her bedroom. She just gives him the more pleasant nickname Nuke, because he's so eager. She calls him a nuclear meltdown. And then he becomes Nuke. And then she asks very provocatively, if he's ever been tied up in bed. She produces some very nice ropes. He's excited, but once she's got him restrained, she just reads Walt Whitman's poetry to him all night long.
Karen Foglesong:I loved that scene. I thought it was so great.
Erin Branham:My favorite part is when he drags ass into the dugout the next morning and says that he was with Annie and the assistant coach is very excited because that means he's gonna have a great year. And Nuke goes, No, I mean, we didn't fuck. She read poetry to me all night. It's more tiring than fucking. Very funny. So at this point, we start to follow Nuke as Crash gives him a hard time and tries to impart some basic you know, being in the zone wisdom to him, and we get to know the team a bit including Jose who uses a sentry a charm to bless his bat. So we're, they're very cleverly kind of bringing in these different belief systems throughout this is where you see that various people have different ways of looking at the world. Themes start to emerge about streaks in sports. What is a streak? What does that really mean? What is a slump? What does that mean, and how those things are related to belief. So we learned that the Bulls are really not a great team and Nuke can't seem to grasp anything other than his own raw talent and power -
Karen Foglesong:Right.
Erin Branham:No matter how much Crash and Annie tried to teach him some nuance. After a few pretty tough lessons, though, Nuke at least begins to try things that Crash and Annie are suggesting, and he's edging his way into some wisdom. Finally, Annie makes a bit of a tactical error and suggest holding on to his sexual energy before a game, which the Bulls win. So now Nuke becomes convinced that his abstinence is essential to maintaining a winning streak. And this sends Annie careening into frustration as her sex supply dries up.
Karen Foglesong:That's what she gets out of this still. They've both been kind of doing this serial
Erin Branham:So she actually goes to Crash. (laughter) Exactly. She goes to Crash and she's like hey, but he actually monogamous thing and Annie - one of the things that I really turns her down in a very lovely scene where the audience realizes that these two people may actually be perfect for each other, but neither one of them is ready for a real relationship with somebody who is their equal. Not quite there yet. loved about Annie's character when I first watched this movie was her confidence in her own life choices. And it didn't matter whether the other women on the field were making fun of her because she was with a different baseball player this year. She was with a different baseball player this year. And that's all that mattered. Right? Well, she hadn't, you know, she had a reason why.
Karen Foglesong:I always loved that part.
Erin Branham:Yeah, she knew what she was doing and why. And she was happy with it. So anyway, more sports zaniness ensues; they go on a road trip, you follow them around as Nuke starts learning more and more, and accepting what Crash is doing. And I must admit, Nuke's lessons with Crash are hilarious. And so at last they lose. So it's the night they've lost. Nuke's dad is in the - is watching the game. They lose but Nuke gets the call. He's gonna go to the major leagues. And as soon as that happens, Crash is released from his contract, he's no longer needed, right? Because the kids gonna go on up. The only reason he was there was because of the kid.
Karen Foglesong:Right.
Erin Branham:So now he's really feeling you know, lost, alone aged out, unhappy. Annie actually breaks it off with Nuke at this point, because that's all she was trying to do was to get him to the majors. He's made it. That's it. And Crash comes around to Annie's house. And he, they go to bed for about 48 hours of pure bliss, before he takes off before dawn to another team to finish out the season. At which point Annie he says what is it baseball may be a game filled with all the ontological wisdom of the Earth, but it's still a job. The film ends very quietly with Annie returning from the ballpark one evening to find Crash sitting on her porch. He says that for right now, he doesn't want to talk about beliefs. He doesn't want to hear about her theories and everything that she thinks. He thinks they're genius, but right now, he just wants to be. Annie thinks that sounds great. So they go into her house and the end credits roll. Now, this might not sound like a wildly profound film. But there's a lot going on here. And it's an excellent example about what we're talking about here at Mythhic U, like we mentioned, Annie starts the show with her I believe speech and then we get Crash's I believe speech. So you see that they've both developed these unique systems that ground them, give their life meaning and they are living full, deep and symbolic lives. Nuke's problem is he doesn't have a belief system.
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:Right? And these two more experienced people are guiding him as he developed one, develops one. And the last thing you see of Nuke is he is giving a lovely interview saying all the things that Crash taught him to say. He feels competent and cool. And he's gotten himself together. So it's a very, like, nice, happy ending for all three people involved. And you can see these two wonderful people who have these belief systems that are wacky and wouldn't fit anybody else - not even each other really - but they are mature enough not to expect that they would actually both believe the same thing. They're two adults coming together with this fully formed thing. Like it's just it's one of the rare movies that you see that where the male and female both are equally mature and in touch with themselves and finally ready to come through together.
Karen Foglesong:Activated.
Erin Branham:Yeah.
Karen Foglesong:yeah, I'm not a big rom com fan. Like, if you could squeeze in a romance while you're fighting the aliens, I might watch but otherwise, I'm not really interested because then there's no to me, they're always too fluffy and sugary, and I can't grab on. But this one like what you're saying here, this meant a lot to me that these two people were - that their belief systems crashed and reoriented themselves and made room for one another. This is what I this is my dream for the world. So if it can happen between two people then it might be you know, there might be possibility that it can happen for all of us. Does that make kind of sense?
Erin Branham:Yeah, definitely. And we should probably get into, like you said there, throughout the movie you come back again and again to kind of the power of belief. You start off, like we said, with Annie's casting over this - you see any from the outside and you there's a way to look at her which could be very condescending. Here's this woman, she's middle aged. At one point when she and Crash finally when she comes over to Crash's house to be like would you please sleep with me, because Nuke won't. And he looks at her and he goes
Karen Foglesong:Yeah.
Erin Branham:Who dresses you? Isn't this a little excessive for the Carolina leagues, like what do you do? Do you have a job? And it's just pointing out that we have seen Annie entirely through this thing that she loves, not through the normal ways that we identify who people are, right? What's your job? Who do you know? What do you these? You know, what do you do - what she does is baseball and baseball players. That is what she does. She has a job as she says, I teach English 101 and begin in composition at Alamance Junior College. So but it doesn't matter, right? That doesn't matter what her job is, this is who she is, doing these things, going to the church of baseball, going through this. And then the ways that she teaches Nuke are very unusual. So you will talk a little bit about like the decenteredness and the mindfulness that she tries to bring to him?
Karen Foglesong:I love the breathing through the eyelids. And sometimes she even tells him to breathe through one eyelid or the other, like you've got to focus on - and it's similar to Karate Kid or any other thing like that the wax on wax off, if you can get out of your head, and let your body do what it knows how to do. It usually will. And they say there's several scenes in this over and over again, like you talked about one at the beginning where they're in the bar and Crash is trying to get Meat, at that point, who becomes Nuke, to throw the baseball at him. And he can't do it. Because he's all in his head. You know, they talk about that over and over again. So breathing out of your eyelids sounds ridiculous. But something like that can get your mind and body to focus together somewhere. And then the commenter is not talking to you while you're trying to do right. I read this great book, my mime teacher in college turned us on to it called The Inner Game of Tennis. And we all had the same. We're all artists, right? We're like, what you're making us read a sports book, like what is this? And this book is brilliant. And I've assigned it to many of my students after - even classes that had nothing to do with this learning method, I would assign it as extra credit because I felt like it was so amazing. But it talks about how we have a self that does in itself that comments on what the self that's doing is doing. And if you let that commentator take over, it'll destroy any physical ability you actually have. Because it pulls you off track, right? So it's not even something that this theory I brought the book up because this theory is not something that we're unaware of, but we tend to forget it. And this focusing on your eyelids, breathing through your eyelids, something that seems impossible, can bring all aspects of yourself together. I don't know why. Maybe Do you know why is there like, scientific reason why this works? I just know it does.
Erin Branham:There is a great researcher who I'm a big fan of- his name is, he has the craziest name, Czikczentmihalyi I think is his last name. Okay, C-Z-I-K-C-Z-E-N-T-M-I-H-A-L-Y-I, Czikczentmyhalyi, is how I believe it's pronounced. Anyway,
he wrote a book called Flow:The Psychology of Optimal Experience. And what he did was look at exactly this phenomenon that we're talking about when athletes say I was in the zone, right? That is a flow state. A flow state is where you are receiving the perfect amount of feedback from your environment during a task to where you're not under challenged, at which point you become bored. You're not over challenged, at which point you become frustrated. But you're right in between those, you're getting just the right challenge from the environment, you're getting just the right amount of feedback, because you do need feedback to continue moving forward in the flow.
Karen Foglesong:Right.
Erin Branham:There is a real continuum between like, say an athlete in the middle of a sports game or writer in the middle of a hot writing streak, an actor who just finally falls completely into a character and doesn't know where they like loses themselves in the performance, a dancer, anybody who like an engineer can do anybody can do it. Like I teach, right? I teach and when I if I'm in a particular kind of a moment, and the group is going and I'm teaching about art and doing this, then there's moments of flow that happen within that. It is, it's one of the reasons video games are incredibly popular because video games have developed this way to give you the right amount of feedback and to you to be able to level yourself so that the challenge is at the right level. It is something that likes it teachers and I learned about flow because it's a very big concept in education.
Karen Foglesong:Right
Erin Branham:about how do you help people achieve that. So yeah, so throughout this movie, Crash is constantly kind of coming at Nuke saying you got it like you got to get in the flow and you're getting in your own way.
Karen Foglesong:Right.
Erin Branham:You've got to get out you got to get out of your head because your head like you said, that inner critic that that conscious part of your brain, which we've talked about before that chattery voice part of your brain that's always commenting on everything you do will mess you up in the middle of flow,
Karen Foglesong:it pulls you out of flow. It's just that simple. It pulls you out of the flow, right?
Erin Branham:We'd love to hear from you. You can email us at
Karen Foglesong:your mythic you@gmail.com So why Oh, Y-O-U-R-M-Y-T-H-I-C-U@gmail.com
Erin Branham:Yes, because we would love to hear from you. Any comments, suggestions, criticisms, and your stories definitely want to hear your story. So like I said, rate and review us on Apple podcasts or whatever your pod catcher of choice is. We'd love to hear from you your mythic u@gmail.com. So they're constantly trying to do things to help Nuke get out of his own way. So like Annie is trying to teach him meditation techniques, the medica breathing through the eyelids as she says it's like a Mayan or an Aztec. They even joke about that in the movie. It's an old Mayan thing or Aztec. It's something that she's picked up from indigenous wisdom. It's a meditation technique, try to breathe through your eyelids like the lizards of the Galapagos Islands. But in truth, it's just a meditation technique right to get you out of your own head. A little bit later. And one of the very hilarious parts of the movie is she asked him to take on his roadtrip, a little garter belt garter belts, and she wants him to wear the garter belt, as he explains to Crash who comes upon him putting on the garter belt
Karen Foglesong:In the locker room!
Erin Branham:Yeah, in the locker room. Nuke is standing there in his tighty whities and socks. And he's putting on a garter belt and Crash's like what the hell are you doing? And he says, well, Annie told me that it would help to decenter my brain. And that's where exactly where you should be for artists and pitchers. Very funny. And it works actually when he puts them on and he goes out on the mound. He's kind of fiddly keeps fiddling with them and all this stuff, but it helps to get him out of his brain space. Because when he can do that, it turns out he has tremendous control, he could really send the ball where he wants to send it. So the whole movie is sort of about how do you understand your own flow, right? And what techniques do you use what strategies you use to get there so that you can achieve the most that you can possibly achieve. And then the other major theme throughout the movie that is about belief has to do with streaks, winning streaks, slumps right when you're losing How do you get out of it? At one point one of the side character stops by Jose who's blessing his bat with a chicken bone cross right, which they say they make voodoo references in the movie but Jose is plainly Cuban and so that would be Santeria. But they probably didn't use Santeria in 1988 because nobody would know what it was.
Karen Foglesong:Well, they're connected
Erin Branham:Yeah, it's like Santeria is basically the Cuban form of voodoo meaning it is an indigenous religion combined with Catholicism that has animal sacrifice in it it has all kinds of work but it's a very lovely religion I've known people who are follow Santeria. It's it's a beautiful thing anyway, so he's blessing is that with the chicken bone cross, and one of the other players comes along and he goes, Man, I'm in a slump. I'm dying. You gotta give me some of that. You gotta give me some of that. Right? And Jose goes, That's desperation, man. That's not belief.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah.
Erin Branham:Which is a fascinating point for a freaking sports movie to make.
Karen Foglesong:And it's a throwaway line just in the middle of action like that. But it is so true. God doesn't respond necessarily to your desperation. You have to build this relationship, the flow, let's say, doesn't respond to just grabbing. You need to connect with your own flow and build that relationship.
Erin Branham:100%
Karen Foglesong:Then it works.
Erin Branham:That's what to me finally, I think is the brilliant aspect of Bull Durham that putting a story about beliefs into a story about sports because the guy you know, Ron Shelton, the writer is correct. Belief is all over sport.
Karen Foglesong:Yes!
Erin Branham:Because of streaks and slumps. Right. We all know how superstitious athlete athletes are particularly Baseball, baseball is famous for all the superstitions that are involved with it. And if I've got to do this, I've got to do that. I can't change my socks or I can't do this because it'll mess up my streak.
Karen Foglesong:Right. And one of the things that I find really fascinating about sports is that the fan base has like if the Broncos win a game and my friend is wearing a certain pair of shoes, then the next Bronco game they go to they have to wear the same pair of shoes because, you know, somehow even what the Fans are doing affects the outcome of the players on the field.
Erin Branham:Absolutely.
Karen Foglesong:I know I'm mixing sports metaphors.
Erin Branham:But no, you're 100% right. Right. Exactly. Even the fans get involved in trying to make the magic happen.
Karen Foglesong:Right.
Erin Branham:Right. And it is a kind of magic, right? You know, we know, in sports, everything hinges on split seconds. And if you get that lucky touch, and do you manage that out of the control, can you believe that it just went off the tips of their fingers and went through the goal or, you know, whatever, right? All these things happen. So it lends itself to a space where there's a lot of belief involved. In the scene where Annie comes to Crash, and is basically, like, Nuke won't sleep with me. And it's because you're telling him that that's important to his game. She's comes in and she's like, You need to stay out of my private life, you're telling them to stay out of my bed, and at that point, Crash turns around and yells at her. Look, if a player believes that they're on a streak, or that they're winning, because they are having sex or not having sex or because they're wearing women's underwear, then they are!
Karen Foglesong:Yes. And you know it.
Erin Branham:And you should know that.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah,
Erin Branham:and that just stops are cold. And right there. They're saying, it's all about what you believe. It's all about what you believe. And that was where I sort of fell in love with the film was when I finally realized that like saying that, Oh, you have control, which is what we're talking about here at Mythic U. You have the ability to choose that thing that is meaningful to you, you have the ability to choose the mythology that works for you. Annie chooses baseball, it works for her, she's turned it into a church.
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:She did that. Right. And through that she injects the divine into the every day. And we all have that ability to pick, I don't care what it is, I really don't care what it is it has, if you infuse it with meaning, if you infuse it with the mythological significance for you, then that's real.
Karen Foglesong:It's real. Yes, your body and your mind will treat it that way. And respond. And we were just talking about with everybody getting involved in the possibility of belief like everybody's trying for the magic. I'm sorry, I don't know what book of the Bible this is in. But I came across it years ago, where it said that if two or more people pray in my name, then it becomes an exponential kind of thing that like the more people that pray together, the greater it is. So perhaps this idea that the fans can sway the outcome is true. They're all focused on one outcome to sway reality. Maybe there's a greater echo here than we even think.
Erin Branham:It's a very good point. In this way, this marvelous film comes to an end now you did some research into the production, correct?
Karen Foglesong:Yes, I found this great little mini documentary on YouTube that talked about how this movie affected the lives of all of the players involved. Robbins and Sarandon ended up becoming a couple after this, and they had a couple of kids. Robbins says that he never had to audition after this movie again. He was treated as a serious contender. He was invited to read for roles after this movie came out. Kevin Costner says that this was the first time that - and this kind of goes with what we were just talking about with the fans being engaged in the sport. Also, he says Costner says that this was the first time that he had this feeling of great expectation while doing the movie, and that the fans grabbed on to it. When they watched the movie, he felt like a true connection between him and the audience. And what was being said was being heard. And let's see Susan Sarandon said she needed the movie as much as the movie needed her. It helped her to work through some personal things in her life, and she felt more solid when she came through the other side. Shelton had been wanting to make a baseball movie for years. And he felt like the sports movies that existed out there didn't kind of get into the nitty gritty or the reality of the world. And so he wanted to show what the minor leagues were really like, like what the underpinnings of America's greatest pastime was really like on a daily grind kind of basis. And that was the first script that they kind of had, and it didn't, nobody bit until they added the love story. And then it made it full circle and I think I think it's very cyclical writing in theirs You know, like any comedy, There are jokes that are built in there, like they start, you get a little bit of it at the beginning, and it builds until you catch the punch line at the end, they have that kind of idea. But also these ideas of human relationships, human games, sporting events, how we interact with one another through life, it's a microcosm of the macrocosm, and in all of those beliefs, circle around one another to create our perspective and how we interact with one another.
Erin Branham:Definitely. That is very good. I love that I was gonna say I noticed that it was, as far as I know, Bull Durham is unique amongst romantic comedies in that the female lead is older than anybody else. Sarandon was nine years older than Costner who played the elder lead. So it's a very rare case where a female is significantly older than the males that she is paired with. And it just goes to the Goddess-like quality of Susan Sarandon, that she could pull that off. Yes. So she was nine years older than Costner who played Crash. And she was 12 years older than Tim Robbins, who played Nuke. And she and Robbins Yeah, hooked up on that set, and then were together for many, many years after that, they only broke up like in oh nine, or something like that. They were together for about 20 years and raised two kids together, which was and it was no doubt at the time, I remember was a big splash because she was older than him. And what a rare thing that is in any kind of movie ever. Yes, and I wanted to say one of the other things, as we mentioned that at the top of the show that this was a big influence on Ted Lasso, which has just concluded its third and final season a few weeks ago. And as I mentioned, one of the creators was big fan of Bull Durham and the core love triangle of Ted Lasso between Keeley, a lovely young woman, Jamie, the hotshot, immature, prick. First. And
Karen Foglesong:Meat!
Erin Branham:Yeah, the meat. Exactly. Jamie's the meat. And Roy, who is the aging, who is in the first season, he's still playing with the team, but he has to be benched. And then he has to be moved to becoming a coach, because he's aged out being a player. And so they have that same setup going on. And by the third season, Roy becomes Jamie's mentor on how to be a better player, Jamie actually comes to him and says, Please come and coach me. And so you sort of close the circle on the on the Bull Durham-like, storyline there, right, where you have that same dynamic, which was very successful. Once you know that we watched the end of Ted Lasso. We watched Bull Durham in my household. And then we started a rewatch of Ted Lasso, to watch it all the way through. And when when you know the connection, you can go Oh, my God, that scene right there. Oh, my God, that scene right there that is straight out of Bull Durham. They'll have these interactions, right between Yeah, between Jamie, Roy, and Keeley. And you'd be like, Oh, my God, that is 100%. Just straight out of it.
Karen Foglesong:So I haven't seen Ted Lasso yet. Does it have the same kind of focus on the idea of flow as a theme?
Erin Branham:Not necessarily.
Karen Foglesong:I think that's why the movie worked for itself, too, is because each of the actors were in a flow too Everybody was in a flow. This movie could be about flow.
Erin Branham:Very true. Yes, I think you're right. There was something that sort of happens, you can see that they are really working together. The energy between all of the principles is is really great. Ted Lasso has a somewhat different. It's related but not exactly as - what I love about Bill Durham is the way
Karen Foglesong:Right on. that you really see that Annie has constructed her own mythology. I mean, it could not be a better example of what we're talking about here at Mythic U. The way that she starts off, I believe in the church of baseball, you know,
Erin Branham:But it's equally like it has a lot of the same immediately that she has not only taken this mundane thing, baseball, and turned it into a spiritual thing, but she's able to articulate this whole belief system that is based around that and then she the next thing you do is you see her going through her ritual. At one point or another when Crash yells at her for the garter belt, for giving Nuke the garter belt, she turns around, and she goes that is a religious ritual. Thank you very much and it's working. So she really means it. Ted Lasso was not as explicit. Ten Lasso was a little more psychological than spiritual. It deals a lot with mental health and mental health struggles and self care. and athletes being able to address their own mental health, which is a very big issue certainly in the last couple of years was Simone Biles stepping out of the Olympics for a minute to take care of herself. Naomi Osaka, the tennis player, she also stepped back for a minute to say I am not at the place where I can really play. And it was. So Ted Lasso addresses that a little bit more specifically, however, its tagline, it's the the symbol that's in it that is most important is a handwritten sign that hangs in the locker energy, it has a lot of the same sort of humor, things that are funny. I'm not gonna lie to you though. Ted Lasso is created by room that says Believe. Ah, so it definitely rubs up against sketch comedians, and it feels like sketch comedy a lot of the what we're talking about. I don't think it's like I said, I time, you sort of like it's more about the individual sketches don't think it's quite as explicit an articulation of it than it is about a big overall plotline. A lot of the time. as Bill Durham is, but it definitely is in the same realm.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah.
Erin Branham:Which is fine with me, because the individual sketches are funny. So that's all I care about. They're funny, It's just tilted a little bit more towards psychology than spirituality. they're quirky. And yeah,
Karen Foglesong:I think we tend to separate psychology and spirituality in our culture. And I understand why. But I also think that either field can be a gate, or an entry point into self healing. And it doesn't matter which direction you come from one will lead to the other in a healing.
Erin Branham:Absolutely. I think they're tremendously related. Yeah, they're just sort of two sides of the same coin. It depends on where your emphasis is, you know, for between psychology and spirituality. So that is our discussion of Bull Durham. Um, unless you've got anything else, Karen.
Karen Foglesong:the only thing I would add here is to look around your life and see if there is something mundane. If you're grasping for something to focus on, is there something mundane in your life, that you can turn into your spiritual experience, just like Annie noticing that there's 108 stitches in a baseball, and 108 beads on a rosary. There, you guys, humans like the same kind of structure over and over again. So you can find these kind of lineup, coincidences for lack of a better word anywhere, look for them in your own life, build your own structure, use this movie as direction to figure out a direction for yourself.
Erin Branham:Absolutely!
Karen Foglesong:As directions to figure out your own direction.
Erin Branham:It's an inspiration. It's a great example of somebody creating their own spirituality, living it in a very conscious way and changing it's also interesting at the very end of the film, Annie says, I'm giving it up to and then she goes, I mean, boys, not baseball. So she's at a point where her religious rituals are evolving, right? She's about to she's she's plainly coming to a crisis point. And I think that's one of the kind of key things that you get out of the film, as these are people who are not only living a personal mythology, it's a living, breathing, evolving, mythology. They don't feel Yeah, they don't feel stuck in it. They don't feel because sometimes you'll see stories about somebody who's you know, has a belief system so strong, they can't survive a change, right? And you get that these are very open, exploring people who are continually updating themselves and their personal mythologies, which is what we hope for all of you.
Karen Foglesong:Yes, And ourselves continuously. Right.
Erin Branham:Absolutely. All the time.
Karen Foglesong:Thanks for joining us. Yeah, we hope we'll see you back next time. And enjoy your flow.
Erin Branham:There you go. Have a mythic day!
Karen Foglesong:Flow, flow! Have a mythic day!
Erin Branham:Thanks for joining us at mythic you. We want to hear from you. Please visit our website at mythicu.buzzsprout.com That's m-y-t-h-i-c-u.buzzsprout.com. For more great information on choreographing your own spirituality. Leave us a comment and donate if you have the means and the interest. If you'd like to support our work more regularly, please visit our Patreon and become a member of Mythic U. Depending on the level at which you join members receive early access to new episodes, bonus episodes and free Mythic U gifts.