Becoming Annie…

Annie Savoy first became a chick hero in 1988. She taught us a man worth his salt can unhook a garter in a single move, will join us in the bath and is willing to dance about the living room to R & B from the 50’s. In a bathrobe and socks. Athletic socks.

Poor men in relationships in the late 80s. Could they ever measure up to Crash Davis? Not only was he an athlete but he believed in long, slow, wet kisses that last for three days, painted his girl’s toenails and vowed to listen to her theories for the rest of his life.

Of course it’s a movie. It’s right up with the finest holiday movie of all time–Love Actually. It’s almost Thanksgiving Dolls. That means the time for watching Love Actually and trimming the tree can’t be far behind. Coincidence this old movie pops up in my feed? I think not.

Bull Durham made Kevin Costner a star and showed the world an “older” woman, Susan Sarandon, could not only join the boys in a sports movie but demonstrate to doubters that chicks of a certain age and experience actually rule the world. Joke was on the doubters. She was 41 at the time of filming. In real life, she fell not for Crash, but Ebby, aka Tim Robbins, twelve years her junior, and went on to spend over twenty years and two kids with him. How’s that for the woman that producers said was too old to play the part? Pfft.

Upon rewatch, I’m transported back to the another time and the wisdom the story laid bare. It’s a movie about baseball. Most surprising, Annie was created by a man. Yep, this feminist, strong, “older,” live-life-on-her-own-terms, badass woman was created by Ron Shelton. He’s an award winning creator known for sports movies. Much of Bull Durham is taken from first hand experience. He played minor league ball.

The movie shows up out of nowhere and I am transported back to what attracted me the first time. Is it Annie’s amazing wardrobe? Her beautiful Southern charm home? There’s that, but as always, it’s the words.

Annie believes in the church of baseball. At first we think, hmmmm a baseball movie. But within minutes, she lectures a girlfriend who says she was “lured” into sex.

“You didn’t get lured. Women never get lured. They’re too strong and powerful for that.” And later she reiterates, after Crash leaves, “A woman should be so strong and powerful she is not affected by such things.” And we all know it’s true.

And then there’s Crash: “I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman’s back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft core pornography, opening your presents on Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft wet kisses that last for three days.”

Aside from he “p” word, it’s a perfect quote.

And as our Annie would say, “Oh my.”