Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team has changed its name from the Indians to the Guardians, becoming the latest sports team to join an overdue reckoning in shedding mascots, names, and fan-participation dances that appropriate or lampoon Native Americans. The announcement was made Friday, 106 years since the team’s most recent name change from the Napoleons or “Naps.”
The Ohio team’s cartoonish mascot, Chief Wahoo, was already discontinued after the 2018 season and years of protest. Announcing the latest change, which took long enough (but still comes ahead of many other teams), was America’s Dad, Tom Hanks. (And also America’s cousins, I guess, the Ohio-based Black Keys.) Hanks urged fans to reflect on the past and move forward, stressing that “Cleveland” was always the best part of the team’s name.
His video also shows the art deco-style “Guardians of Traffic” statues designed by Henry Hering and Frank Walker. These pylons can be found at the Hope Memorial Bridge, which spans the Cuyahoga River and leads baseball fans directly to Progressive Stadium, where they can now root for the Cleveland Guardians.
But why Tom Hanks? Well, apart from him representing all that is still right and good about America—and appearing in the beloved baseball pic, A League of Their Own—the two-time Oscar-winner has enough of a Cleveland connection to use “we” when talking to Guardians fans.
Though born and raised in California, his first professional job in the acting field was in 1977 as an intern at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival (now simply known as Great Lakes Theater). The relationship lasted for three summers, and during that time, Hanks became a booster of the local baseball team. The love didn’t fade. Indeed, he shouted “Go Tribe!” when hosting Saturday Night Live in 2016.
Hanks’s voice-over comes less than two months after his from-the-heart op-ed in the New York Times about the Tulsa Race Massacre. In it, he argued that white Americans need to learn the troubling chapters of American history without getting defensive. “Each of these lessons chronicles our quest to live up to the promise of our land, to tell truths that, in America, are meant to be held as self-evident,” he wrote.
His involvement with the Cleveland name change and his longtime fandom show that any online bozo braying about “team heritage” isn’t worth the breath it takes to argue back. Go Guardians!
— Cover Story: Dua Lipa on Creating Future Nostalgia
— Inside Ghislaine Maxwell’s Battle With the Bureau of Prisons
— Prince William and Prince Harry “Turn a New Page” in Their Relationship
— 11 Books We Think You Should Read This July
— Inside L.A.’s Most Iconic Example of Mid-century Modern Architecture
— Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez Are Ready to Spend the “Rest of Their Lives Together”
— Must-See Looks From the 2021 Cannes Film Festival
— A Brief History of Princess Diana’s Fiery Family
— The Best Musician-Tested Waterproof Mascaras for Riding Out Summer
— From the Archive: An Heiress’s Heart
— Sign up for The Buyline to receive a curated list of fashion, books, and beauty buys in one weekly newsletter.
"right" - Google News
July 24, 2021 at 03:06AM
https://ift.tt/3i0eEqb
Tom Hanks Explains Why the Cleveland “Guardians” Name Change Is the Right Call - Vanity Fair
"right" - Google News
https://ift.tt/32Okh02
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Tom Hanks Explains Why the Cleveland “Guardians” Name Change Is the Right Call - Vanity Fair"
Post a Comment