SPORTS OF THE TIMES
Hard-Nosed League
Sends a Message of Acceptance
 |
|
Dave Sandford/Getty Images
To make
“Breakfast with Scot,” the filmmakers received permission from the
N.H.L. and Toronto Maple Leafs to use real logos and game jerseys. |
By SELENA ROBERTS,
NYTimes on the Web, December 31, 2006
| |
 |
| |
Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press
Tom
Cavanagh plays a gay former hockey player who becomes the guardian
of an 11-year-old boy. |
Has the N.H.L.’s neutral zone become
code for bi-curious?
Is its blue line simply a subtle hue in a larger rainbow?
No, but what you’ll find amid the N.H.L.’s macho lore of goons and bruisers is
an enlightened league comfortable with its manhood.
In a decision small, but not insignificant, the N.H.L. and the Toronto Maple
Leafs have delivered a fissure to a homophobic culture of sports, becoming the
first major pro league and team known to lend its logos to a movie with a
homosexual theme.
“Unbelievable,” said David Kopay, who, after retiring from the N.F.L. in 1972,
wrote a best-selling book describing his life as a gay player. “I guess
progressive is the new buzzword, but I’d say this is a breakthrough against the
stigma that still exists in sports.”
Currently in production, “Breakfast With Scot” is the story of a gay former
Leafs player who, with his partner, becomes the guardian of an 11-year-old boy
described as a “prepubescent Quentin Crisp” in the original reviews on the book
by the same title.
The screenplay — one of a hundred the National Hockey League receives each week
for its approval — was reviewed last year by league officials from
communications, club services and production.
Simply put, they liked the script. And once the Maple Leafs gave the O.K.,
too, the project was given the green light.
“Everybody was on board,” said Bernadette Mansur, a spokeswoman for the N.H.L.
The N.H.L.’s open-mindedness was, at first, a non-event. “Brokeback
Mountain” or “Brokeback Rink,” who cared? Then antigay activists put up
their gay-dar and resistance last month. It seems every movie project
these days has its “Happy Feet” conspiracy crowd who believe celluloid carries
some sort of encoded message like a record played backward: watch and be
gay, watch and be gay.
A Web site called The James Hartline Report indulges bloggers who have basically
declared the N.H.L. immoral for backing the film with rants like the following:
“If anyone has had any doubts as to how far the extremist elements of the
radical homosexual movement are willing to go to destroy the traditional
institution of family, than be prepared to be shocked at the degrading film
production of ‘Breakfast With Scot.’ ”
The N.H.L. remains unmoved by the handful of protest letters it has received.
“Certain individuals are missing the point,” Mansur said, adding: “From
our standpoint, this is about a modern family helping to raise a young boy.
There was no intention for this to be a political statement, but having said
that, we’re not going to back down.”
The N.H.L.’s stance is important. Plenty of politicians, entertainers and
female sports figures are openly gay, but the locker room remains a sprawling
closet in male pro leagues. No athlete from the N.H.L., N.B.A., N.F.L. or
Major League Baseball has ever come out as an active player.
It remains the big taboo, a threat to the one kind of male intimacy that is
universally sanctioned by the public.
Players will hug one another, hold hands in a huddle and bond over clubhouse
poker.
Would a gay teammate be treated as an interloper to their reindeer games?
By all accounts, most players say they would welcome a peer no matter what his
sexual orientation. Leagues are doing a better job at increasing those
odds.
Officials are insisting on, if not demanding, sensitivity. They are openly
rebuking the homosexual slur as the trendy, verbal weapon of ridicule among
athletes. To be called a queen is to conflate players’ worst fears — being
viewed as unmanly and soft — with living as a homosexual. “It’s equated to
weakness,” Kopay said. “And I can tell you that’s a false assumption.”
White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillén was reprimanded for using a gay slur during the
baseball season. And two weeks ago, the N.F.L. fined Pittsburgh linebacker
Joey Porter $10,000 for questioning the sexual orientation of Cleveland tight
end Kellen Winslow Jr.
In an un-apology, Porter lamented to reporters that he “didn’t mean to offend
nobody but Kellen Winslow.”
Obviously, a fine can’t prompt refinement. And a film sanctioned by the
N.H.L. won’t vanquish the climate of homophobia in locker rooms. And
league sensitivity training doesn’t mean a star player is ready to test public
and teammate acceptance.
“That day is getting closer, though,” Kopay said. “Slowly but surely.”
The N.H.L. isn’t afraid of progress. It’s not as if you’ll see teams
playing Village People tunes between periods or hear players saying “I wish I
knew how to quit you” as they crash the boards.
The N.H.L.’s message of acceptance is more subtle than that but will be
infinitely important when the actor Tom Cavanagh, the star of “Breakfast With
Scot,” appears on the big screen in an official team jersey as a gay character.
“I never in a million years thought when we finally went to shooting, we’d be
donning Leaf sweaters,” Cavanagh recently told The Toronto Star.
He added: “You have to give full credit to the N.H.L. and the Leafs for
signing on. It also shows the possibility that if someone were to come
out, perhaps it wouldn’t be as big a deal as we think.”
If it’s no big deal, then fiction will meet reality in a happy ending to
intolerance. Players are suckers for happy endings — not that they’re soft
or anything.
E-mail:
selenasports@nytimes.com
|
