A preface to lunch Underdogs are sometimes overrated

Author: James O'Brien

I know no one likes negativity (except for maybe me) but I've concluded that this general abhorrence toward nay-sayers is partially based on the media's positivity propaganda. To illustrate my point, let's examine the Nike commercial from a few months back that depicts female athletes talking into a megaphone, trying to get us - and, most likely, themselves - excited about women's sports. First, some old guy - presumably a legendary former coach whom around four percent of the nation can identify - steps up to the megaphone and says, "Female athletes have to overcome the bias that their game isn't as good as the men's game." Then Gabrielle Reece, a professional women's volleyball player, speaks into the megaphone, saying, "Are boys bigger, stronger, faster? Yes. But …" These are direct quotations from the ad and, unless I'm really missing something, there seems to be a contradiction here. Perhaps my definition of "being good" is slightly different than Gabrielle's or the anonymous old guy's, but I think being better, stronger and faster does indeed make the men's game "more good" than the women's game. There's no bias.

Now, I know it seems like Gabrielle and the nice old guy are right in this case, but that's just because they're taking the underdog's side, the more popular, romantic position. This is the side that our instincts tell us to take because we want to be known as "open-minded" and "Sesame Street" taught us to be inclusive. But it is actually close-minded to continually take the underdog's side without thinking. I'm just trying to be realistic. I've dubbed this the "300 Complex" - more on that later.

As the faux-inspiring Nike commercial continues, women's volleyball star Gabrielle Reese gives the megaphone to a girl wearing a Red Sox shirt and a red backwards hat. This little dreamer proceeds to announce, "I want to pitch for the Boston Red Sox." Why are we getting this little girl's hopes up when we already established that men are better, faster and stronger? Congratulations to America's most dominant shoe company. You have encouraged a young tomboy to "dream big" when you really should have done the responsible thing and told her to play softball. She may be a better baseball player than I am, but, and I say this with confidence, she won't make the MLB.

Let me step back from the male-chauvinist angle for a moment. No matter which way you look at it, our romantic culture and looking on the bright side continues to get in the way of our common sense. People just seemed to be inspired by the silliest stuff. Let's take the movie "300." For those of you who haven't seen it, King Leonidas does a great job of holding off the Persian army fighting with only 300 buff dudes, but it really would have been a smarter diplomatic move if he had simply refrained from kicking the Rogaine-deprived Persian messenger into that incredibly deep well at the beginning of the movie. From there, Leonidas makes one bad decision after another until he dies taunting the arrows that killed him. This inspired me about as much as "Requiem for a Dream."

The whole movie Leonidas kept justifying terrible choices by yelling, "Spaaaarrrrtaaaa!" and flexing - as if that somehow explained it. Why did they name this guy king? I understand that "300" is meant to speak to our inner-Schwarzenegger, but it's funny to imagine what the movie would be if Leonidas were from Athens. He probably wouldn't have let bone-headed optimism get in the way.

On the other hand, America did gain its independence because some whiny loudmouths didn't feel like paying their taxes. They just kept using the words "freedom" and "tyranny" in letters and speeches until they tricked enough American farmers into fighting. Being unreasonable at certain times is only reasonable. It's the principle our country was founded on. And from what I learned about American history in fifth grade, "looking on the bright side" turned out to be the right move in the case of the American Revolution. Just don't tell that to the dead American farmer-turned-soldiers and the rotting British redcoats. They'll tell you we should have just paid our taxes and waited for England to realize it couldn't control a country 40 times its size.

Then again, in 2003, when George Bush felt like invading Iraq, he simply used the words "freedom" and "tyranny" a couple hundred times. Other countries argued that the invasion was a bad move, but Bush said, "Patriotism. America." Works every time. After all, who could argue with that?

James O'Brien '10 is an English major from Medfield, Mass.