6 Man Tackle – The Slaughter Rule « Sitting Pugs: Sports Movies

The Slaughter Rule(2002)

Directed and written by brothers Andrew and Alex J. Smith, The Slaughter Rule was another football movie I didn’t get to discuss in my thesis. I wanted to and ideologically, it would not have detracted from my main arguments. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time or space. So I’m going to talk about it here.

Ryan Gosling (Murder By Numbers, The Notebook, Stay) plays Roy Chutney, the quarterback for the junior varsity football team at his high school. The school board decides that it cannot afford to continue funding the JV team, forcing the coach to dismantle the team by promoting the good players to varsity and cutting the rest . Roy is cut because he may have the skills but he doesnt have enough anger. At the very least, he doesnt express it or channel it in football.

An eccentric local, Gid Ferguson (David Morse), gives Roy another chance to play the game on his 6-man football team. According to the wikipedia entry, 6-man football “is a variant of high school American football that is played with six players per team, instead of 11″ and “was developed in 1934 as an alternative means for small high schools to field a football team during the Great Depression.”

Apparently, it’s very popular in Texas.

Chutney’s friend and JV teammate Tracey (Eddie Spears) makes thevarsity team but is then cut for transgressive violence. In the world of football films, “transgressive violence” refers to the expression or performance of violence that occurs outside the costume and context of football. The degree of transgression occurs along a specturm that considers wardrobe, setting, and motivation. The least transgressive violence in a football movie takes place during the game-play and is performed by the uniformed players. The most transgressive form occurs nowhere near a game and when nobody is wearing a uniform.

Tracey joins the 6-man team.

In addition to transgressive vs. non-transgressive violence in the football movie, the relationships between the players and their coach (and between the players) are cornerstones of this mode of storytelling, that is the football film. Many teen films about the high school experience are aimed at and address girlhood issues, employing fashion, romance, and popularity to discuss self-identity and the individual vs. the group. High school football films explore boyhood rites and rituals, utilizing the game to discuss self-identity and the individual vs. the group.

Therefore, the meaning of winning and losing extends beyond outscoring one’s opponent. The game and the victory or defeat are metaphors for a particular character’s internal or external struggles. For the protagonists in Varsity Blues, Gridiron Gang, and We Are Marshall, victory proves that the players are strong enough or smart enough or made the right decision about something. While The Slaughter Rule engages in thematic and narrative elements included in all football movies, it deviates from the pattern in the treatment of the game’s significance.

For Roy Chutney, playing football and nurturing an unconventional rapport with Gid Ferguson aren’t so much extensions of his sense of self or a means to re-route frustration as they are distractions and time-holders. His father dies (off-screen) in the beginning of the film, in what is implied to be suicide. Were it not for Gid’s encouragement and recruiting, Roy would probably have contentedly stopped playing football. His continued participation on the team is not about his learning to be a team-player or to put the needs of others before his own. Instead, it is a way for him to have a relationship with a male figure that his father can no longer provide. As a former teammate and friend of Roy’s father, Gid occupies a profound space in the protagonist’s life.

The film doesn’t suggest that football is a small deal for Roy–it just seems more inconsequential for him than it does for Gid and Tracey. Football keeps Gid from losing his mind completely and probably keeps Tracey’s hands and mind from going idle. Ultimately, though, the game hovers over rather than inhabits Roy’s life. It prevents a love interest (Clea Duvall) from becoming a hindrance on his game.