BASEketball

 

A Gamer’s View of the Movies

by Donald J. Bingle

BASEketball

Once upon a time there were a couple of guys who invented some strange rules to liven up a game they regularly played. To their surprise and the surprise of everyone else, this new game became immensely popular, and soon sanctioned play and huge tournaments existed. Large sums of money were made, but none by the players. Eventually a business competitor of the guys who invented the game thought up ways to make even more money from a variation of the rules of the game and maneuvered to take over the original game and dominate the industry. Soon shirts and collectible and logoed items relating to the game were being bought at outrageous prices by the fans of the game and rivalries and politics had begun to affect tournament play. The old-timers, who had invented the game for fun, worried about the future of their game.

But enough about Dungeons & Dragons and Wizards of the Coast. Let’s talk about this month’s (definitely frivolous) movie, BASEketball, starring Matt Stone and Trey Parker (the fellow Coloradans who invented South Park), Yasmine Bleeth, Jenny McCarthy, and over-the-hill actors Ernest Borgnine and Robert Vaughn (I guess he wasn’t cast for the upcoming Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie). You see, once upon a time. . .(see previous paragraph; the plot is the same). The result is a fun little lightweight movie. If it were a game, I would call it a "beer and pretzel" game, like Paranoia, as opposed to serious games like chess or Civilization—I leave it to you as to where your group puts Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Of course, it is not a lightweight little movie in the same vein as a Disney film or a Bond movie. BASEketball is a crude production in almost every sense of the word—fairly low budget sets and production values, an over-reliance on scantily-clad cheerleader shots, a plethora of sexual innuendo and gross-out jokes, and much more objectionable language than it really needed to have. In other words, young males (gosh, the readers of this very comic book!) are its target audience and it does a pretty good job of delivering what it tries to deliver to its target audience. In fact, its main critics to date are fans of South Park who think it does not deliver enough of the crude stuff. (Parker and Stone didn’t write it, they just star in it—a smart marketing move by the producer and a savvy financial move by the guys. The writer supposedly actually invented the game of BASEketball, which had started to catch on before he abandoned it.) Even an old fuddy-duddy like me, who found it more than a bit too crude and tasteless at times (but then I thought the same about Animal House and, especially, Dumb and Dumber), has to admit that it was definitely better-than-expected and laugh out loud funny at times. Because the basic game is not itself that hilarious (basically a variation of "Horse", with baseball scoring rules), much of the humor comes from various gags and stunts the players are allowed to use to "psyche out" their opponent. I also enjoyed the nods to such movies as The Natural, the spoof of Unsolved Mysteries, the team names, and the spoof (or maybe it’s social commentary) about Nike’s and Kathie Lee Gifford’s recent problems. More important, the movie actually has a plot, rather than just being a series of unrelated and lame spoofs of recent movies that some of its allegedly-wacky comedy competition (like some of Leslie Nielsen’s more recent movies) have turned into. No, it’s not a must-see or anything (and no-one knows better than you what your tolerance is for the crude jokes and language), but it was amusing.

The movie also brings up one issue that is directly related to role-playing gaming—the fact that the game was invented so guys with bad backs and too much weight could compete on an equal footing with the super-athletic jocks of the world (by eliminating dribbling and running, coordination and stamina are not major issues in the game). That, of course, is not why role-playing was invented, but I always found it satisfyingly equalizing and freeing that anyone of any physical type or ability could (so long as they have a good imagination) sit down and play any type of character doing any type of activity in any type of role-playing game and compete equally against those who were physically strong or beautiful or dexterous like their character. When Niven’s and Barnes’ Dream Park book (yeah, I know I mentioned this book in the review of The Truman Show, too—every gamer should read it) came out (which projects role-playing into the future, where a Disneyish corporation creates adventures with actors, sets, and holograms in real time), I was dismayed that one player was playing so her brother (who was crippled) could vicariously adventure through her play. By the third book of the Dream Park series, The California Voodoo Project, players were climbing buildings and picking locks, etc. so much that it was clear that the fictional future of gaming had become one where only the athletic and beautiful, etc. could successfully compete at the highest levels. Unfortunately, the growth of Live Action Role-Playing games (LARPs) seems to me (I admit, mostly as a non-participant) to be taking the hobby exactly in that direction. Costumes, make-up, etc. can be great fun and can add a lot to atmosphere and the overall gaming experience, but looks and physical presence are beginning to become a factor in play. And, yes, I admit that, except for some of the IFGS events (which do their best to emulate Dream Park with lower budgets and current technology), the situation has not gone too far in the wrong direction yet. But it will be a sad, sad day for gaming when the geeky guys with bad backs need more than intelligence, acting, and imagination to be competitive.

Copyright 1998 Donald J. Bingle