What Is It About Macho Pursuits on TV?
TV was seriously underrated at my childhood home, with the lone set relegated to the unfinished basement—once we finally got one. Eventually that basement was carpeted and furnished and not such a scary place to enter, but even then you had to walk down the steps and past the gaping black hole of my father’s workshop in order to get to the magic box.
In the early days, and boy am I dating myself here, we had three channels. We lived in a small town in New England! It was the 70’s! The TV was black and white! We never did get cable; by the time it was on offer my parents had moved to an even more remote location that wasn’t “on the cable”. In that house, too, the TV was far from the living spaces.
Had my family been into sports, we might have given the television a little more dignity. At my grandparent’s house, the TV lived in the living room and was always on. I know it’s not possible that there was a football game on every day of the year, but in my memory football was on every time I visited that house. My grandfather played football at Yale in the 20’s, thus the obsession.
My father was not a sports fan. He’d played ice hockey as a child in Canada, because I think that’s a law. He was athletic, but preferred to spend his time chopping wood and building stone walls to playing games. My sisters were ice skaters, so we avidly watched the few competitions that were televised. Other than a little Olympic fever every four years, that was the extent of the sports broadcasting I was exposed to as a child.
And now I seem to be obsessed with football. Not, mind you, the American kind. I find nothing to love in that display of toxic masculinity. And according to Terry Crews, former NFL player and author of the terrific memoir Tough, one-upmanship and backstabbing lies at the heart of most teams. That and heavy partying and unbridled misogyny.
No, the football I’ve come to adore is the European kind which, despite the behavior of some of its fans, just feels so much more elegant than our kind. Not to mention I understand what’s going on, though I will likely never recognize off-sides when I see it.
My gateway drug was Ted Lasso. I don’t have to tell you what a magically compelling show that is. Or maybe I do? Possibly you have not watched it yet, in which case I will say that it’s very funny and at the same time heart-warming which sounds gruesome but is glorious. I would probably have dropped my interest in football once Ted Lasso ended, but then I was drawn into Welcome to Wrexham.
Oh Wrexham. How can I explain how much I adore this show? First, I will watch anything Ryan Reynolds is attached to, and I say that realizing there must be some real stinkers in that catalog. Briefly, Ryan and Rob McElhenney bought a failing football team in Wales and while building it up and trying to get it back into the Premier League they’re helping the town recover from decades of economic hardship.
My ex-husband and my kid like to tease me about my off-brand obsession with what I’ll call male bonding shows. West Coast Choppers, The Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers; reality shows about men doing typically manly things. I think the reason I love these shows is that what they’re really about is men being vulnerable. And that’s something we don’t get to see enough of, on TV or anywhere else, because, well, patriarchy.
So getting to see the background tales of footballers and their coaches, fans and parents feeds that desire. Not that the men are the only interesting ones. Their stories are what drew me into this football vortex; I’ve been staying for the oddball details and personal stories of all kinds. And of course pulling for the town and, most especially, the vastly underfunded and immensely talented women’s team, who should get equal billing and screen time next season. In case anyone wants my input. Producers?
Going from Ted Lasso to Welcome to Wrexham was like spending three years eating Annie’s Mac and Cheese and then having the real, homemade stuff. Annie’s is fantastic! But knowing that someone spent the afternoon shredding cheese and minding the oven makes that gooey manna that much better. Real vs. imitation, you know?
Lamentably, the internet gods decreed that Wrexham was not bingeable, and I had to wait week after week for new episodes to drop. Looking for a fix, I turned to Netflix’s Beckham. More scenes from real life! More male vulnerability! Not to mention tantalizing glimpses of the Beckhams’ gorgeous country estate. Good stuff, but over far too soon.
So now what? The football season is verifiably endless; a quick Google query tells me that just with the UK League, UEFA, and FIFA you’re looking at year-round matches. And of course that’s not taking into consideration the many other leagues in more or less every other country in the world, and their continental leagues, so seriously, there is no shortage of games.
But will watching football scratch this itch? Because honestly, 90 minutes is a long time. And what I really want is that combination of on-the-field and off-the-field these shows have gotten me addicted to. I’ll watch that last episode of Wrexham tonight, and then I guess I’ll be going cold turkey. So if you can suggest any other men-getting-real-while-being-macho shows for me, please send them over. Quickly.