APRIL 11, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 10

With corn as high as an elephant's eye around me, I heard my grandfather calling me back. The rows in front of me trailed off into a green leafy abyss. I turned and headed towards his voice. The sun cut the field like a razor, and when I stepped out of the corn onto a baseball field, I remembering saying, "If you build it, we will come. Can we go now, Grandpa?" The field was swarming with tourists, all settling on this vacation destination so that they could capture their childhood dreams of baseball in Dyersville, Iowa.

That summer was the first time I saw Field of Dreams. My two little brothers and I were forced to watch Kevin Costner's character Ray Kinsella reconnect with his dead father in this fantasy where baseball players come out of cornfields, so that Ray can become an adult. To the child me, this movie was dull. I hated baseball growing up, and yes, how un-American of me. Seeing it now, while trying to figure out who I am in this brave new world, the movie becomes more than a man scraping to build a baseball field. The movie is about the deconstruction of Ray's midlife crisis so that we can see the "new" American male stop settling and start living.

The film starts with Ray narrating his life up until the point where he bought his Iowa farm. Through pictures and Ray's voice, we see his father force baseball on Ray. Ray then fled New York to live in California in the 1960s, where he met his wife, and then he moved to her native Iowa and started a farm. Before the movie's plot even begins, we are introduced to this incredibly American male. He is my father's generation; pushed by his father to be a grown-up and instead of dealing with is, this male flees. Then he meets the love of his life, and gives up his core value of freedom to settle in Iowa. He is the hermit crab who only picks out a new shell when he is forced too. He is the apathetic American, who, after the 1960s were over, has nothing to do but get a job and start a family like his parents he fought so hard to be different from.

This is why Iowa is such a perfect home for him. He is allowed into the community if he gives up his individuality and molds himself into the quiet, simple farmer, which he does perfectly. He owns a farmhouse, a small tractor, and uses all of his available land for his corn. The hermit crab has found his shell, and has settled, until he hears a voice that is becoming him for more. It says, "If you build it, he will come," while Ray is alone in his field. It is telling him that there is more out in life than what you have now. It is pushing him out of his comfortable, apathetic sleep into a midlife crisis. Ray must change or else he will be doomed to always be sleeping in this lethargic cocoon, wondering if there is more to life than a farm and his family.

Ray becomes obsessed, and he tears up the cornfield and builds his baseball diamond. To his neighbors and fellow Iowans, Ray looks like a moron for digging up his field and thus cutting his profits. This is the community in Iowa rejecting him and his dreams. They line up on the highway to gawk at him. They are amazed that someone would deviate from the norm. They are the representation of everything that may hold Ray, or any other American, from not settling. They are the "voice" of reason. They comment about how much money he will lose, that he will have to give up the farm, and they literally are the neighbors who judge those different from them. Stones should not be cast at Ray. If he is the allegory for the American male who wants more out of life, or at least justification for living, these wholesome, welcoming, small-town, simple, salt of the earth, neighbors should embrace his ideals and not cast down judgment. They must then be the men and women who wish they could have more, but aren't willing to risk what they have now to get it. They are the America who has decided dig into the land and let the world change around them as long as it doesn't burst their bubble.

Ray's episode starts out like a frivolous activity to pass the time, much like a suburban male buying a Corvette to prove that he is still young. As the rebels in the 1960s, men like my father, who also owned a Stingray, transitioned from idealists to businessmen something from their past was lost. To recapture this glory most males bought cars, land, or other toys to prove that they still were hip. For Ray, he has to do more than just put a bandage over the problem. This midlife crisis is embedded deep into his soul, and building a baseball field will only scratch the surface of the problem.

The problem is that he is at odds with his dead father. Ray told his father before he left to Berkley that he didn't respect him. His journey is a penance for spitting on his father's dream. To settle, Ray would forever have a tormented soul. His past would become an anvil on his back, and manual labor would become a way to drudge through life. Growing corn is an extension of this metaphor. At the root of the problem is the soil, the foundation of Ray, so to grow properly and healthy, Ray needs to mend his foundation. He can't throw fertilizer, a new car, on it and hope that he will be fine. He is the American settler who knows he shouldn't have stopped living, and the midlife crisis is the outside force pushing him to grow.

At the end of the film when Shoeless Joe has brought another team to play the 1919 White Sox, Ray loses it and begins yelling at Shoeless Joe that it is his turn to get his dream. Shoeless Joe tells him that the voice was Ray's own dream and then he points at the catcher; Ray immediately knows that it is his father. Both men reconnect, play catch, and Ray is able to say that he is sorry. Through the game of baseball and this fantastical field, where men disappear and reappear out of the corn, Ray is able to grow-up and accept that he is an adult. He finally realizes that settling in Iowa, becoming a farmer, and having a daughter is the best thing that he could have ever done. Yes, the movie shows that settling can be fine, but it also says that you have to go out and find your own dreams. You can't settle without knowing what else is out there.

As the credits roll and the frame pulls back from Ray's field to show the Iowa landscape, a stream of cars are pouring into Ray's fantasy. The cars are the other Americans who also want to see more, and there are thousands of them flocking to a man who cultivated his own dreams. The problem with this is the reality I have to ease into after watching this movie. The "Field of Dreams" doesn't actually exist. This is proven by the tourist trap in Iowa, where corn meets an outfield with a quaint farmhouse to the side. You can go there and play baseball where "Shoeless Joe" did. Play catch with your dad like Ray and his. But this is all a Hollywood façade. A corporation built the field so that they could make a movie. The field stayed so that the owners of the farm could have people come, and play baseball, and buy souvenirs. The fantasy of the movie has been diminished to a tourist attraction, with a website of their own included. By building a "Movie Site" we and the filmmakers are saying that our society, even its most honored tradition, can be bought, sold, and packaged into a convenient dream that will fit in your pocket. It is a shame that a movie about achieving your individual identity has been boiled down to a literal translation of "If you build it, they will come."