From the Curse to Its Reverse: Red Sox Nation in Films, 1992–2005

The feature films discussed in this article portray a range of representations of the Red Sox mythos, primarily centered around the "curse of the Bambino" and its reverse.¹ The only movie that is openly and fully concerned with the Red Sox is Fever Pitch, which celebrates the reverse of the curse in 2004. Spartan and Fifty First Dates mention the curse and its reverse as the means of establishing a camaraderie between people. Rounders, Stuck on You, and Game Six contain references to Bill Buckner, who represents a fighting spirit of overcoming painful past defeats. Summer of Sam stages a violent confrontation between Yankee and Red Sox fans. Finally, A Few Good Men, Good Will Hunting, Dreamcatcher, Mystic River, She Hate Me, and War of the Worlds have characters who wear a Red Sox cap or a 1918 jersey and through their actions create parallels with the Red Sox mythos. The films use references to the Red Sox to create statements about the human condition and the attempt to deal with love, anxiety, success or failure, and tragedy.

The films are divided chronologically, prereverse and postreverse, and according to optimistic, pessimistic, and intermediate scenarios. Although the prereverse optimistic films—A Few Good Men (1992), Dreamcatcher (2003), Stuck on You (2003), and She Hate Me (2004)—recognize the curse and its tale of doom, they present the possibility of using the expected defeat as an incentive for heroic effort and victory, and in this way, they portend its eventual reversal. By contrast, the prereverse pessimistic films—Summer of Sam (1999), Mystic River (2003), and Spartan (2004)—portray the reality and irreversibility of the doom that hangs over the Red Sox. The third group—Good Will Hunting (1997), Rounders (1998), and 50 First Dates (2004)—involves an intermediate way between pessimism and optimism, an existential endurance which serves as a precedent for perseverance in the face of daily tribulations that may or may not be overcome. Two postreverse films—Fever Pitch (2005) and War of the Worlds (2005)—celebrate the reverse of the curse, respectively, as a romantic comedy culminating at Fenway Park and as the delivery from an alien invasion signaled by safe arrival in Boston. The third postreverse film, Game Six (2005), reverts to an earlier pessimism to present the equation between the main character's dismal life and the unraveling of the Red Sox in the sixth game of the 1986 Series but ends with the joy of commiseration experienced by Red Sox Nation.

The films show how a baseball mythos created by the history of the Red Sox and its putative curse has been used as a metaphor for motivation and tragic experience. The Red Sox in this sense became our surrogate, the Sisyphean team that never wins the final prize but does not give up trying. Cursed by the Bambino after he was traded in 1919, Boston became the perennial runners-up and underdogs who always found a way to lose, especially at the moment of seeming victory. Their quest to reverse the curse was inextricably connected with the futile struggle against their archenemy, the Yankees, who obtained Ruth and became the most successful team in baseball. This is baseball as tragedy in which they were condemned to repeat the sad scenario over and over again. The tragic fate shared by Red Sox fans created a community of sufferers, who were convinced that they had a special destiny of divine punishment. However, this dismal scenario changed when the Red Sox broke the curse in 2004 in miraculous fashion, beating the Yanks after being three down in the playoffs and then sweeping the Cardinals in the Series. With the lifting of the curse came a sense of exultation that doom can be replaced by victory.

Prereverse Optimistic Films

A Few Good Men: The Red Sox vs. the Military Establishment

The setting is Guantanamo Bay, the American marine base maintained in Castro's Cuba. In a quick, silent scene, two marines enter the room of a third marine and bind and gag him. In the following scene at another...