The Thrill of Victory, The Crush of Defeat (The Hidden Brooks)

Following John Tierney's column from yesterday, David Brooks gives a nod to the national holiday that is the Super Bowl, grabs the metaphorical pigskin, and runs with it in Remaking the Epic of America (full column accessible to Times Select subscribers).

Over the past several years, theaters have been inundated by a series of films that all have the same plot. Whether it is "Hoosiers," "Glory Road," "Coach Carter," "Remember the Titans," "Miracle," "The Replacements" or a hundred others you've barely heard of, the core elements are always the same. A tough, no-nonsense coach, usually with a shadow-filled past, takes over a shambolic, underfunded team. He forces his players to work harder than they ever thought they could. He inspires them to sacrifice for the greater good. Finally, he leads them to glory over richer and more respected rivals.

When a story is repeated this often, and when it continues to attract audiences time after time, it is because it affirms certain values precious to the culture. The values these movies affirm amount to a brick-by-brick destruction of the values that were prevalent 30 years ago.

Thirty years ago, young people were told to question authority. But the heroes of these movies are coaches who are unabashed authority figures. Preferring success to affection, they instill fear and sometimes hatred in their players. They insist on being called "sir" and impose dominating discipline. "This is no democracy," Denzel Washington's character says in "Remember the Titans." "It is a dictatorship. I am the law."

Thirty years ago, there was a revolt against traditional manliness, but these coaches are stereotypical manly men. Even in the movies where the athletes are women, like "Million Dollar Baby" or "A League of Their Own," the coaches are flinty, uncommunicative men. They may be scarred inside, but they project confidence and command.

Thirty years ago, students were warned of the dangers of conformity, of the crushing banality of the Organization Man. But in this world success comes only when individuals subordinate themselves to the team. "The name on the front" of the USA jersey "is a hell of a lot more important than the name on the back," Herb Brooks roars in "Miracle."

Nearly 30 years ago, Christopher Lasch wrote a book called "The Culture of Narcissism." In these movies the antidote to the culture of narcissism is a civilian Marine Corps.

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These movies celebrate workaholism and ambition. Audiences probably wouldn't be able to sit comfortably through a movie about a dominating boss who forced his company to raise profit margins by 5 percent. But it's easy to cheer along with the coach obsessed with a championship. Audiences embrace coaches who enforce an insane work ethic on their teams, who scream and punish their players until they have performed that final, soul-cleansing push-up.

Clothed in the garments of the sports story, all the ambivalence people feel about ambition falls away. Horatio Alger success stories are tepid compared to this. It all pays off, because society is just. In the world these movies create, there never has been a championship game contested by two teams with similar sociodemographic backgrounds. Instead, the poorer, harder-working team triumphs over the richer, self-satisfied one. When Texas Western, Rocky or Seabiscuit wins, the American ideal of social mobility is confirmed.

In short, these movies embrace the civil rights part of the 1960's and 1970's. Women and minorities should be given full access to the competitive world of the meritocracy. But they take the therapeutic, progressive, New Age part of the 1960's and 1970's and they crush it dead. They create a culture of all-inclusive traditionalism.

Which is about where American society as a whole has settled after all the tumult. The 1960's happened. Vince Lombardi won.