Something I’ve been meaning to write about for quite some time on this blog: Rob Perri’s 2006 experimental documentary I’m Keith Hernandez. The film, which I’ve embedded at the end of this post, packs a lot into eighteen minutes, and moves at a pace that defies easy explication, but I’m going to try to explain what I think the film is getting at.
My job is made easier by Perri, obviously a student of film theory, who provides viewers on his website with a brief explanation of the theoretical basis of the film. Perri draws on Lacan and uses Hernandez as an avatar/mirror of popular images of masculinity in the 1970s and 1980s, drawing lines between sociocultural phenomena of that era – the War on Drugs, Iran/Contra, the rise of pornography in American society, the mustache as emblem of virility (see also: Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck). In Hernandez, Perri projects with ruthless precision the sweep of ‘masculinity’ as a cultural construct in this era – Hernandez as representative of how culture regards masculinity, Hernandez as figure upon which for male viewers to project themselves.
How it does this: I’m Keith Hernandez savagely parodies the politeness of the biographical documentary as a means of getting at truths normally buried by hagiography. Perri fills in the gaps in the official record of Hernandez’s life and career with seemingly libelous statements (“He shared Co-MVP honors with veteran Willie Stargell, who was a degenerate pill-popper.”), inappropriate non-diegetic music (soundtracking a montage of Hernandez’s early seasons with the Mets with gangsta rap, drawing a line between the coke-fueled ‘80s baseball culture and violent, misogynistic early ‘90s images of masculinity), outright lies (obviously photoshopped images of Hernandez with George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan), and tone-deaf references to minor pop culture phenomena (Hernandez trying cocaine for the first time backstage at an Eddie Money concert). One fictional tangent follows Met Hernandez ‘advising’ Yankee Don Mattingly to grow a mustache to capitalize on the success of Magnum PI, ending with the ridiculous, thoughtless pronouncement: “And after taking Hernandez’s advice, Mattingly certainly bagged more babes. But he also bagged more bases!” Another recasts Hernandez’s involvement in the Sesame Street musical special “Put Down the Duckie” as a subtly coded anti-drug PSA. This all serves to undercut the traditional sports documentary’s banal focus on hero-worship, recrafting the documentary producer and narrator as blustery stooges servicing an (often noxious) ideal/ideology.
It does so at such with a speed and musicality that allows these suggestions to almost evade notice – it’s only in the grand sweep of Perri’s collection of images and sound that we begin to draw connections between these ideas: that the cockiness and tendency toward on-field confrontations of the legendary ’86 Mets was a product of a culture that valued violence as a masculine virtue. That the focus on masculinity as a virtue in popular entertainment of the 1980s served to distract the public from the failings of the adventurist approach to foreign policy demonstrated by the Reagan administration. That the 1990s’ ironic reaction to vintage pornography created an environment in which pornography became an increasingly important vector of masculine self-construction.
Perri also alludes to, but never makes overly obvious, the racial quality of this image of American masculinity, drawing a distinction between the relative fates of Hernandez (who slowly burned out into a punchline) and Mets teammates Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, whose legal troubles and multiple suspensions from the game have come to define them in their post-career lives. American discourse, Perri seems to argue, punishes much more harshly blacks who transgress legal parameters.
Most telling, and most optimistic, are Perri’s uses of Hernandez’ appearances on Seinfeld and the Albert Brooks movie The Scout as representative of the popular reception of Hernandez in the 1990s: in the Seinfeld episode in question, Hernandez’ lasting fame is mocked, and his internal mantra of entitlement (“I’m Keith Hernandez”) is treated as a cheesy reminder of an era and a cultural standard that held ‘masculinity’ in greater esteem as a cultural value. We laugh at “I’m Keith Hernandez” because the cultural currency of being Keith Hernandez – a washed-up, drugged-out baseball star – is increasingly small. With the decline of baseball as a popular spectator sport after the 1994 ballplayer strike and the damaging effects of the anabolic era on the sport’s reputation, Hernandez seems ever more distant as an avatar for American masculinity’s desires and fears. That's something we can all be grateful for.
Between its language and (censored) clips from a pornographic film, I’m Keith Hernandez isn’t safe for work, but I’d recommend watching it when you get a chance.
I’m Keith Hernandez (2006, Rob Perri)
Something I’ve been meaning to write about for quite some time on this blog: Rob Perri’s 2006 experimental documentary I’m Keith Hernandez. The film, which I’ve embedded at the end of this post, packs a lot into eighteen minutes, and moves at a pace that defies easy explication, but I’m going to try to explain what I think the film is getting at.
My job is made easier by Perri, obviously a student of film theory, who provides viewers on his website with a brief explanation of the theoretical basis of the film. Perri draws on Lacan and uses Hernandez as an avatar/mirror of popular images of masculinity in the 1970s and 1980s, drawing lines between sociocultural phenomena of that era – the War on Drugs, Iran/Contra, the rise of pornography in American society, the mustache as emblem of virility (see also: Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck). In Hernandez, Perri projects with ruthless precision the sweep of ‘masculinity’ as a cultural construct in this era – Hernandez as representative of how culture regards masculinity, Hernandez as figure upon which for male viewers to project themselves.
How it does this: I’m Keith Hernandez savagely parodies the politeness of the biographical documentary as a means of getting at truths normally buried by hagiography. Perri fills in the gaps in the official record of Hernandez’s life and career with seemingly libelous statements (“He shared Co-MVP honors with veteran Willie Stargell, who was a degenerate pill-popper.”), inappropriate non-diegetic music (soundtracking a montage of Hernandez’s early seasons with the Mets with gangsta rap, drawing a line between the coke-fueled ‘80s baseball culture and violent, misogynistic early ‘90s images of masculinity), outright lies (obviously photoshopped images of Hernandez with George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan), and tone-deaf references to minor pop culture phenomena (Hernandez trying cocaine for the first time backstage at an Eddie Money concert). One fictional tangent follows Met Hernandez ‘advising’ Yankee Don Mattingly to grow a mustache to capitalize on the success of Magnum PI, ending with the ridiculous, thoughtless pronouncement: “And after taking Hernandez’s advice, Mattingly certainly bagged more babes. But he also bagged more bases!” Another recasts Hernandez’s involvement in the Sesame Street musical special “Put Down the Duckie” as a subtly coded anti-drug PSA. This all serves to undercut the traditional sports documentary’s banal focus on hero-worship, recrafting the documentary producer and narrator as blustery stooges servicing an (often noxious) ideal/ideology.
It does so at such with a speed and musicality that allows these suggestions to almost evade notice – it’s only in the grand sweep of Perri’s collection of images and sound that we begin to draw connections between these ideas: that the cockiness and tendency toward on-field confrontations of the legendary ’86 Mets was a product of a culture that valued violence as a masculine virtue. That the focus on masculinity as a virtue in popular entertainment of the 1980s served to distract the public from the failings of the adventurist approach to foreign policy demonstrated by the Reagan administration. That the 1990s’ ironic reaction to vintage pornography created an environment in which pornography became an increasingly important vector of masculine self-construction.
Perri also alludes to, but never makes overly obvious, the racial quality of this image of American masculinity, drawing a distinction between the relative fates of Hernandez (who slowly burned out into a punchline) and Mets teammates Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, whose legal troubles and multiple suspensions from the game have come to define them in their post-career lives. American discourse, Perri seems to argue, punishes much more harshly blacks who transgress legal parameters.
Most telling, and most optimistic, are Perri’s uses of Hernandez’ appearances on Seinfeld and the Albert Brooks movie The Scout as representative of the popular reception of Hernandez in the 1990s: in the Seinfeld episode in question, Hernandez’ lasting fame is mocked, and his internal mantra of entitlement (“I’m Keith Hernandez”) is treated as a cheesy reminder of an era and a cultural standard that held ‘masculinity’ in greater esteem as a cultural value. We laugh at “I’m Keith Hernandez” because the cultural currency of being Keith Hernandez – a washed-up, drugged-out baseball star – is increasingly small. With the decline of baseball as a popular spectator sport after the 1994 ballplayer strike and the damaging effects of the anabolic era on the sport’s reputation, Hernandez seems ever more distant as an avatar for American masculinity’s desires and fears. That's something we can all be grateful for.
Between its language and (censored) clips from a pornographic film, I’m Keith Hernandez isn’t safe for work, but I’d recommend watching it when you get a chance.
I'm Keith Hernandez from water&power on Vimeo.