5 episodes
Fixing the Game Keir Hichens
-
- Society & Culture
Field of Dreams is a canonically American story -- in more ways than one. The film evokes nostalgia for the American family farm, forgotten heroes, and one man’s quest to bring baseball home to Iowa. It's also segregated by gender and race, actively avoiding fundamental parts of the American story. Five-part series hosted by Keir Hichens, written as a summer research project.
-
The Farm
Field of Dreams is a story about baseball, but it’s also a story about the small family farm. Since our country’s birth, powerful white men like Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan have lionized the farmers as the backbone of American society – but there’s much more to the story.
-
Family Values
Field of Dreams presents three of its main characters as products of the “protest movement” of the 1960s – but the film’s messaging directly contradicts the movements for civil rights, free speech, and second-wave feminism.
Music:
Lively Classical Piano Waltz by MusicLFiles, Soft Classical Piano by MusicLFiles, Ostsee by Sascha Ende, and Prairie Sounds by Liancu. License: filmmusic.io/standard-license -
The Noble Lie
A World Series: fixed by mobsters. A social hierarchy: fixed by white rulers. A game: fixed by team owners. What happens when the foundation of a structure is a lie? From Plato to Du Bois to Shoeless Joe, we explore the "Noble Lie."
Music:
Lively Classical Piano Waltz by MusicLFiles, Soft Classical Piano by MusicLFiles, Ostsee by Sascha Ende. License: filmmusic.io/standard-license -
The Reserve Clause
Times have changed since the early 20th century - but the "Noble Lie" lives on. In this short bridge between 1919 and today, we examine one man's story often left untold: Curt Flood and the end of the Reserve Clause.
Music:
Lively Classical Piano Waltz by MusicLFiles, Soft Classical Piano by MusicLFiles, Ostsee by Sascha Ende. License: filmmusic.io/standard-license -
Introducing: Fixing the Game
A cultural criticism of Field of Dreams, the stories we tell about America, and how they define our lives.