Huby's Halftime: TN's White Savior, Country Music, and Oppenheimer
Welcome to Huby’s Halftime. As summer is approaching its end let’s dig into TN’s white savior, country music, and a short review of Oppenheimer.
TN’s White Savior
White Saviors are everywhere. They are currently running up ticket sales at the box office with the movie Sound of Freedom and apparently were once in Knoxville, TN trying to win football games.
This past week, news was released about former University of Tennessee head football coach Jeremy Pruitt’s recruiting scandals. According to reporting from Chris Lowe at ESPN, “ UT was hit with an $8 million fine by the NCAA -- believed to be the largest levied in an NCAA infractions case -- and placed on five years of probation, which includes the total reduction of 28 scholarships.” Pruitt was confirmed in paying recruits and players sums of cash throughout his time in Knoxville. In the era of NIL, this feels small, and a silly way for the NCAA to pretend that it is an actual governing body that makes sound decisions. But perhaps what is even funnier than the NCAA, are some of the anecdotes that came out as a part of this investigation.
Apparently Pruitt and his Tennessee staff gave now Pittsburgh Steeler rookie Darnell Washington cash during the recruiting process, and he still chose Georgia. Get your bag Darnell. Is this the football recruit version of “getting flewed out.” An all expenses paid recruiting trip, where you are wined and dined, and even sent home with a little extra spending money only to reject that offer. Period Darnell!!
And now we turn our attention to the most important part of the service, the white savior. The highlight of this NCAA investigation was that Jeremy Pruitt went on public record saying “George Floyd was on his mind when he paid a player's mom”.
“Then you throw in George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, okay, so you sit there as a white man and you see all of this going on and you can see these kids suffering,” Pruitt said.
“… (It’s) pitiful when you sit in a room and you hear grown men, and I’m talking about our coaches too, when they talk about growing up and the circumstances that they’ve been under, because it’s hard for a white man to understand, right.”
While the cringe is astounding, and it would be much more sincere for Pruitt to just say he wanted to pay the players and parents (because there is nothing wrong with that). But because the NCAA is a governing board who constantly must make a fool of others to divert from themselves, we get a man using the racial trauma and dynamics of American society to justify his actions. But see this white saviors gospel was not focused on the betterment of humanity, but the building of a football program.
In some weird way, this does point out one of the things that makes college football one of the weirdest and strangest sports on the planet. You have coaches and boosters just freely giving lots of money to people whose lives they often try to destroy at the ballot box, all in the name of their school and football.
Because in the words of the SEC, it just means more.
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*My introduction to Pruitt was actually on the MTV show Two-A-Days. Please watch this legendary clip of this man not knowing basic vegetables. Also, MTV bring this back.
White People Ruined Country Music
Country music star Jason Aldean recently released a video for his song “Try That in a Small Town”. He has been in hot water this week for folks pointing out many of the racist dog whistles throughout the song and video.
I will refrain from posting the video here because you really should not give the video clicks. It’s an ode to the southern small town and perhaps a manifesto to second amendment rights. With lyrics like
“Got a gun that my granddad gave me / They say one day they’re gonna roundup / That shit may fly in the city / Good luck trying that in a small town.”
This feels like a Bull Connor speech over pop country music vibes. The worst of country music. A genre with a rich history of fighting capitalism, defending the working class, songs about the destruction of the natural world from the extraction of coal, legalizing marijuana (shoutout Willie Nelson), and defending artist creativity. Where is any of this in Aldean’s portrayal of small town America? Why not ask for these fossil fuel companies to move to renewable energy so the folks in these small towns are not dying of heat in the summer?
Why contrast the idea of small town America against the protest for Black liberation we have seen over the last decade? Has he not been to the bevy of small towns in the south that are predominantly Black. I assume in Mr. Aldean's small town utopia these Black folk do not exist. But that is fine. We do not need him in these small towns anyway.
* would highly encourage a reading of this article from NPR
Oppenheimer
What a truly compelling and fascinating story put into a film. From a cursory reading of the source material, it appears that Nolan attempted to not veer too far from the story and essence of the main character. Paired with a phenomenal score, intense film editing, and some all time performances from an extremely deep cast, we may have one of Nolan’s best.
This will probably fall into one of my favorites of the year along with How to Blow Up a Pipeline. What is at the essence of both films is an urgency to respond to crisis. Something Oppenheimer taps into that I’m not sure Nolan was intending is the failure of America. The ending is so powerful to me because it symbolizes in some way how everyone loses in these situations when science and public opinion is not adhered to.
For a good chunk of this movie I couldn’t help but not compare the rush to complete the Manhattan project to the lack of urgency to responding to the climate crisis. And the parallels to modern climate scientist being ignored or dismissed from politicians to how Oppie was treated post dropping the bombs in Japan.
Another movie I would like to put this movie in conversation with Judas and the Black Messiah. Both highlight the failures of this country and how it is hell bent on eliminating (both vocally and physically) those with leftist views. The use of surveillance and corruption to complete these erasures is hard to watch at times.
All that to say, Nolan is cooking with grease. So many of these actors are at the top of their game. Go see this on a big ass screen. It’s worth it
With all this stuff about Pruitt and Aldean, I’m tired of Tennessee being in the news. Normally I get all excited when Tennessee is mentioned in a movie or in connection to something going on (and to tie into Oppenheimer, part of the Manhattan Project was conducted in Oak Ridge, TN), but for the past 5-10 years that excitement has been less and less. But I digress. I implore anyone who is standing up for Aldean to actually listen to real outlaw country and tell me if his song sounds like theirs.
I’m curious to watch Oppenheimer again because I don’t think I gave it a fair shake. I will say that I also want to read “American Prometheus” because I want to know if the pretension I felt came from the source material or from Nolan. But me seeing it again I guess means that Nolan did his job, so I concede your point.