Cory's Reads #1: Beartown, Baseball, and The Color Blue
What a Swedish show about hockey can tell us about America's pastime and its recent foray into politics
Hello and welcome to the very first edition of Cory’s Reads! I am incredibly excited to have you here, and endlessly grateful for your support.
As many readers know, I have been writing for quite some time. As early as the sixth grade, I wanted to be a sports journalist. By then, I had already written a bevy of ridiculous poems, songs, and short stories — I remain particularly fond of “Banana in a Brown Paper Bag.”
(No, you cannot read it.)
But even in my brief lifetime dedicated to the written word, I have been hesitant to identify as a so-called “writer.” Indeed, I have written a lot over the years. I contributed to the Bucks County Courier Times in high school. I had a short story published in Hypertrophic Literary Magazine in 2016. I minored in Creative Writing at Pitt, and remain hard at work on several different screenplays/novels.
But that’s just it. Writing was a passion of mine. It was one of the few points of pride I would willingly afford myself. And yet, I was afraid to actually do it. I’d begin countless projects, and just as soon abandon them. I continue to struggle with my work ethic as it pertains to my writing, and pretty soon, I won’t even have a global pandemic to blame it on.
Cory’s Reads marks a turning point for me, however. With this newsletter, and your continued support of it, I hope to embrace my status as a writer. If you’re crazy enough to be a Cory Stillman superfan, you likely have visited my previous site, www.mustreid.com. MustReid will continue to operate as a sort of portfolio of my work, but it is here on Substack that I hope to kick off my writer’s journey in earnest. With MustReid, I would go several months without posting a new piece. But here on Substack, I will be writing for you on a biweekly basis (that means every other week, in case you too are confused by the word’s infuriating dual meaning.) With Cory’s Reads, I am holding myself accountable. I might need your help in that process from time to time. Sure, I’ve furiously drafted essays on tight deadlines, scrapped together ScreenRant articles on short notice, and composed lengthy prose in mere minutes. But more often than not, I’m staring at my computer, picking at my beard (a humiliating habit I am desperately trying to quit) and considering whether or not anyone actually gives a shit about what I have to say.
Writing is a rather embarrassing venture. It requires a vulnerable admission that you believe in your own voice, that you think it deserves — needs, even — to be heard. I’ve struggled to adopt this belief for myself, to grant myself the grace vital to any human being, but especially to one who hopes to share his words with the world. I’ve resisted the urge to build an audience or attract readers, mostly because I didn’t think such an audience could possibly exist.
But with Cory’s Reads, I am risking embarrassment. I am declaring my writing as something worthwhile. With Cory’s Reads, I am a writer.
So, without further ado, enjoy Cory’s Reads #1.
Is there a more exciting art form right now than the miniseries?
Anyone who has talked to me in the last year is almost certainly aware of my obsession with I Know This Much Is True, a miniseries I confidently regard as one of television’s greatest achievements, adapting Wally Lamb’s seminal novel with an uncanny sense of sincerity and sorrow. I also adore The Good Lord Bird, one of my favorite entries in the Western genre in decades. The show stars a mesmerizing Ethan Hawke, who would almost certainly be garnering more accolades for his performance if it weren’t for Mark Ruffalo’s soulful work as twins Dominick and Thomas in the aforementioned I Know This Much Is True.
But there is a new miniseries in town, by way of Sweden, and it’s called Beartown. Adapted from Fredrik Backman’s novel of the same name, Björnstad (as it’s called in Sweden) tells the story of its titular town, and the youth hockey team that serves as both its economic and cultural engine.
I am not ready to anoint Björnstad as a masterpiece quite like The Good Lord Bird or I Know This Much Is True. While its first three episodes are brilliant, its final two suffer from awkward pacing. The show likely would have benefitted from an additional episode or two. Still, as it stands, Beartown is a captivating bit of television, and well worth your investment.
The show aired in Sweden last Fall, but only recently arrived in the States via HBO Europe. It wrapped up in March, but audiences can still stream it on HBO Max. Each episode is gorgeously rendered, framing the show’s icy, snow-white setting with a fittingly detached perspective. But for a show about cold people in a cold place, captured with an even colder lens, a certain warmth still emanates from Beartown's core. Much of that has to do with the show’s ensemble cast, which comprises mostly amateurs. Everyone is excellent, lending a crucial naturalism to Beartown. While the narrative ostensibly centers on Ulf Stenberg’s Peter Andersson — a retired NHL player who returns to his hometown to coach the local youth team — the teenagers are the real draw of Beartown. Oliver Dufåker is chilling as Kevin Erdahl, the star player who criminally rapes Peter’s daughter Maya at a party. Dufåker has very little acting experience, but he has plenty of hockey experience. The same goes for his costars. I’m particularly fond of Otto Fahlgren and his character Benji Ovich, whose private struggles with his sexuality clash with the narrow notion of masculinity afforded by his sport of choice. On the ice, Benji is an enforcer, a violent aggressor who seeks out contact whenever possible. Off the ice, he wants a form of intimacy rarely encouraged by his environment.
It is this dichotomy between life on and off the ice that Beartown adopts as its primary concern. The hockey sequences in the show are riveting, but not because they are captured via slow-motion or are accompanied by a majestic score. These moments are surprisingly low-fi, an obvious departure from what we have come to expect from most other sports media. Beartown is indeed interested in hockey, but it refrains from glorifying the sport the way Miracle or Mystery, Alaska might.
Even so, Beartown still has a certain reverence for these classic sports stories. The show is essentially an amalgam of all the traditional sports tropes we have grown accustomed to over the years. I’ve already mentioned Peter, the prodigal son who finally comes home, and Kevin, the star player with an emotionally abusive father. Benji has a secret he can’t tell his teammates, as does Amat, who abandoned his old friends at school in order to fit in with his new teammates. Maya is new in town and hoping to make friends, while her mother Mira is just trying to keep her family safe. Such storylines tend to be coated in a saccharine shell, but Beartown instead illustrates how the convergence of our favorite sports stories can actually lead to something profoundly bleak.
In Beartown, sports are what unite us, and they are what divide us. If this is true in Sweden, it is especially so in the United States, where our cultural narratives are almost always derived from our close relationship with sports. Beartown is the perfect show for our contemporary sports world in that it treats hockey not as a cultural artifact, but as a cultural institution. The residents of Björnstad are beholden to their local team; its success even determines the fate of the town’s top employer. The Bears therefore have a responsibility to their community, but what is that responsibility? To support it economically? To do what is morally right?
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred recently faced a similar dilemma. Under pressure from civil rights groups and even President Biden himself, Manfred and the MLB decided to move this year’s All-Star Game out of Atlanta, GA in response to the state’s controversial new voting bill, which disproportionately disenfranchises minority voters. I will not downplay the despicable nature of the bill, but I do take issue with the MLB’s decision to relocate its All-Star Game, which will now take place in Denver, CO.
Hilariously, in the days since the MLB’s announcement, much attention has been paid to the new location’s thin air, and how that will impact the annual Home Run Derby. Of course, baseball analysts are entitled to discuss baseball, but the political implications of Manfred’s decision have been left largely untouched. The move has been widely praised by left-leaning players and commentators, with the only resistance of note coming in a poorly worded statement from the Atlanta Braves.
The Braves’ statement may read as awkward and petty, but the organization does seem to have the right idea. Manfred explained the MLB’s decision as “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport,” a rather shallow characterization of a move that ultimately has very little impact on the MLB or its players. The league, its players, and its television partners will still make just as much money off a Denver-based All-Star Game as they would have in Atlanta. The same cannot be said for the people of Atlanta. If the MLB truly wanted to demonstrate its values, it would make a financial commitment to voting rights in Georgia and across the country. Why not donate a portion of the proceeds from All-Star Weekend to the Black Voters Matter Fund or the New Georgia Project? Anything less is just a symbolic gesture, in line with so much of the faux-activism advanced by liberal politicians and media personalities.
So if the MLB’s recent decision isn’t a true demonstration of its values, then what is it? Naturally, many people have been quick to label it a political decision. I don’t disagree with this description, but I still feel it’s lacking. After all, what are its political ramifications? The MLB may believe itself to be sending a message to the state of Georgia: protect voting rights or we will not support you. Hollywood directors including James Mangold have similarly declared their refusal to film in Atlanta so long as SB 202 is enacted. These decisions matter; Georgia produces more films annually than the state of California, many of which are shot in Atlanta. But again, the ramifications of these decisions will be felt not by the “bad guys,” but by the people who almost certainly already agree with you.
Georgia’s General Assembly has a Republican majority in both its Senate and its House of Representatives. But all six Senators and sixteen Representatives from Atlanta are Democrats. Atlanta is a blue city in a sea of red, so punishing the city and its people feels misguided. Do you really think Georgia’s elected Republicans care about the people of Atlanta? The economic fallout of the MLB’s decision will not be felt by the Republicans carrying out legislative evil, only by the disenfranchised.
Sports matter. Hockey matters. Baseball too. The latter had the opportunity to energize a movement, to support a city through a trying time. It’s not too late, of course. Even with the All-Star Game being played over 1400 miles away, the MLB could still demonstrate its commitment to suffrage in Georgia and nationwide.
But will it?
In its focus on a small town in Sweden, Beartown examines the ways sports, for better or worse, come to define our communities. In the MLB’s effort to take a stand and be a good citizen (never mind that it is, in fact, a corporate entity) the league has erroneously positioned itself as an advocate for a cause in which it seems to have very little interest. Indeed, as America’s so-called pastime, baseball has some obligation to do right by the country.
To support it economically.
To do what is morally right.
The MLB will keep playing baseball, keep generating revenue, even as our democracy continues to be undermined, threatened, and devalued. There is a unique pressure today on corporations to do all of our moralizing and activism for us, however empty the resulting gestures might be. Perhaps, like hockey in Björnstad, baseball has come to define the United States, with its prioritizing of symbolic gestures over systemic change. And perhaps, like the people of Björnstad, the more we expect from an institution, the more disappointed we will be.