I'm a purist.

1000 words
Round 2
Topic: The Sandlot
When I told my roommate that I was writing about THE SANDLOT she told me she’d never seen it. She then made two statements that made me think: 1) “When I say that I’ve never seen it, I really mean that I think I’ve seen it once, but don’t remember anything about it. It’s about kids and baseball . . . and a dog, right?...and the dog steals balls, right?” Yup. That’s the condensed version. You’re right. How does that work? Did you not just tell me that HADN’T seen the movie? Oh boy. Good to know that we now speak in contradictions…2) I heard that if you watch THE SANDLOT with a boy, you will get action. COMO!?! (Sorry. I just don’t know how to respond that one in English.) I guess that one will have to be left to research…
I’m not going to lie-I think THE SANDLOT is a great movie. “You’re killing me Smalls!” is a well-known and semi-frequented phrase in my vocabulary. I’ll never forget my freshman composition class (Matt Babcock’s English 101-winter 2001) in which we analyzed the “s’mores” scene during the explanatory writing unit. Ham does a great job of step by step instructions of the classic and simple childhood snack and is as patient as he can be with the blissfully naïve Smalls. But honestly…other than that, it’s kind of been a while since I’ve seen the show. When I was given the topic I decided firstly, that I should probably watch it again before I write about it, and secondly, I could probably own it and consider it a classic for future generations. Keeping those two thoughts in mind, I did what any money-conscious young adult would do and I hit Amazon and Ebay. After finding the dvd, I made a saddening discovery and went on somewhat of a rampage. (Thanks for listening Jeff!) Somewhere, in the middle of my 18-month hiatus from life and American culture, they made a SANDLOT 2!?! As if that weren’t enough, they went on to a SANDLOT 3! I think my actual, direct quote was “why? why would you do that!?!” Why would anyone want to take such a beautiful and simple classic example of childhood nostalgia and try to recreate it? I immediately swore that I would never watch the sequels. For why? Why would I do that to myself? I’m not a masochist. I find pointless viewings of useless sequels a waste of time and energy. My life is currently a little busy for that, so I dismissed them from my mind.
Like I said, life’s been a bit crazy the past week or so, but being the responsible car-driving adult that I am, I took the time to get my oil changed. Because of past experience (yes. I learn from past experience.), I went prepared to wait and took my trusty book (THE POISONWOOD BIBLE) with me to keep myself amused. As I entered the waiting room and settled in for some quality reading time, I observed my surroundings: one flat-screen TV showing the blank screen of an ended show, one teenage girl-texting to pass the time, one large coffee table with an assortment of picked-over magazines. Once again, I was grateful for the foresight to bring a book. Stealing the child-sized chair for a footrest—undoubtedly for the poor mother who suffers though the oil change praying that her children don’t eat the crayons that have been sitting on the matching table for who knows how long—I settled in for the wait. A few paragraphs into the malaria-stricken family, the blank TV flashed to life and before my eyes I was surprised by clips of THE SANDLOT. With the dawning realization came a giant belly laugh. I was highly amused. The irony was a little much for me to handle. The teenager across the waiting room chuckled politely and went back to the newly acquired READER’S DIGEST. Apparently, the crazy woman across the waiting room was a bit intense. Quickly, my amusement shifted to dismay as I realized that this version of THE SANDLOT was nothing but a counterfeit. I supposed the big sign that said SANDLOT 2 should have been a warning sign flashing “disappointment ahead!”, but for some reason I couldn’t tear myself away from it. It was like the accident on the side of the road, even though we know it’s going to be bad, we can’t pull ourselves away from it. Dang curiosity. Apprehensively, even skeptically, I continued watching for the next 30 minutes while they finished my car, and surprisingly, I walked away from it unscathed and perhaps even a better person. I realized a few things about the original SANDLOT that I hadn’t really thought about during previous viewings. The biggest thing in my mind was the obvious lack of the female presence. There are no girls. Okay, that’s not totally true. There are two: Wendy Peffercorn and Mom. Wendy-the idolized goddess of the swimming pool-is the door through which Squints takes a risk and tries to step into manhood. Yay for women as the classic sex symbol and the definition of masculinity as seen through them! Mom is the classic supportive mother and housewife of the 1960’s, predecessor to the Stepford wives of the 1970’s and of the Martha Stewart of the new millennium. The feminists of the world should have thrown a HUGE fit about these stereotypes of women. Maybe they did and I was just too young to notice, or maybe I was just too involved with the coming of age of the boys, but the SANDLOT 2 responds to these stereotypes. Hayley Goodfairer is the beautiful girl at school that manages to attract the attention of all the boys and still beats them at their own game. Her mother (Mrs. Goodfairer) is the politically correct feminist who strives to change the world around her. I was impressed by the writers’ attempt to correct the previous wrongs. Good for them! Really though, after mulling it over I decided that it really wasn’t that important. Equal rights were not the purpose of the original SANDLOT. At the end of it all I still get warm fuzzies watching Benny put on his PF Flyers to retrieve the coveted ball. I guess that makes me a purist.