An oldie but a Goldie.
At 13, you’re expected to re-learn everything. You spent the first 12 years of your life learning how to be a kid, and before you know it, you’re in junior high and expected to start the whole process over again. But this time, it’s learning how to teen. Everything becomes heightened and important. Suddenly, you’re mortified about wearing the wrong thing, listening to the wrong music, talking to the wrong people. You’re too old to be naïve and too young to admit you know nothing. So you just sort of decide how the world works based on whatever seems to be setting the rules.
And in 1986, when I was 13, the jocks set the rules.
Not just on screen, but everywhere: gym class, Arnie movies, beer ads. Being “volunteered” for pee-wee hockey when I was four inches shorter than the average player on the team. And I know I’m painting with a broad brush here – some of my best friends were jocks, heck my dad was one. But from this 13-year-old’s vantage point, it felt like they ran the world. They had a specific language, so I mimicked to fit in.
I “hustled,” I kept my eye on the ball, and insults became bonding tools. In pop culture, I got the sense that casual misogyny was just banter, like girls were constantly “asking for it,” with their bras and makeup and all. “No” meant maybe. “Maybe” meant yes. Teachers were jokes. And f*g and h*mo, thems were fighting words.
But I didn’t criticise it because it was all harmless goofing… apparently. Just ribbing. Locker room talk.
Then Wildcats showed up on VHS.
I had zero intent in renting it. I wasn’t into sports movies. Truth is, I was never really into sports, most of what stuck was the language I copied to blend in or pretend like i’d watched the game the night before. So now I toss around a disproportionate number of sports metaphors, all picked up by osmosis from films and a childhood spent warming the little league bench. But my dad, the jock, the macho former semi-pro soccer player, brought it home as a new release, and I snuck it into the basement Telefunken after he was done with it.
And wow – this one really moved the goalposts for me. I didn’t say I always use the metaphors correctly.
On cardboard, it looked like a fun underdog sports comedy with a woman making it in a man’s world. Goldie Hawn coaching football, full of jockstrap and gym sock hijinks, rainy training montages full of motivational songs aimed at thirtysomethings. Seriously, they couldn’t include LL Cool J’s Football Rap on the soundtrack tape? But, under the jokes, the shoulder pads, school politics and family drama – there was something else poking through. Something that didn’t quite match the tone I was expecting, but kept showing up anyway.
That look Goldie gives when they doubt her or laugh at her. When her mere presence is an inconvenience. You were supposed to laugh with the guys and root for her to prove herself worthy of the job.
But I caught that look.
I was laughing, and then I wasn’t. I stopped seeing a funny Goldie Hawn football movie and started seeing her get worn down, second-guessed, sexualised, and sidelined. And I saw how normal it all felt to everyone.
The team was the underdog, that was the story. But she was the underdog under that, the one trying to keep the underdogs from sinking even deeper. She didn’t have to learn a life lesson since she already knew the plays. She had the skills and the drive so this wasn’t some bubly gridiron farce about having more ambition than talent.
It was the rest of them – the staff, the players, the family, the audience – who had to unlearn something. To let go of the idea that a woman has to be extraordinary just to be taken seriously. That she’s only worthy if she helps the boys win – pom-poms or no pom-poms.
I don’t think I was supposed to get that at 13. The fact that this was an R-rated film placed it well outside my in-zone. But my parents didn’t notice when I snuck a peek at their rentals. (There was that one time I grabbed a movie called X-Factor, and that led to a very uncomfortable discussion – but I digress). Wildcats didn’t hide it – it was right there, in plain sight.
And once I saw it, I started noticing other things. Other stories. Other patterns. It opened a door.
And that’s what Wildcats gave me. In between the training montages and locker room punchlines, it showed how unfair the world could be when you let certain biases call the shots.
I started rooting for her.
And by her, I mean all Hers.
It’s not a perfect film. There’s a scene that cuts through the whole empowerment thing and looks like pure studio interference – like they couldn’t figure out how to sneak in a strip club, so they dropped Goldie in the bath.
And when the players finally start calling her Coach without the smirk, it doesn’t feel like a big triumphant moment. It just feels overdue.
That’s the big win.
And I cheered her on. Something in the movie felt familiar, I could relate to a thirtysomething mom because I got what she was up against. And, like a lot of young boys who don’t measure up, I knew what it felt like to be bullied.
I laughed at the locker room talk. I’ve even taken part in it. But after this, I changed – it wasn’t harmless fun anymore.
And I don’t know how many people Wildcats reached that way. I don’t know how many 13-year-old boys caught the subtext between the power plays.
But I did, and I carried it. Past the end zone. And into everyday life. -Pop
Wildcats touched down on Home Video today in 1986, after a February 14th theatrical scrimmage.