Yesterday, I finally got around to watching Offside, an Iranian movie that came out in 2006. In Iran, women were (and I believe, still are) banned from attending major sporting events alongside men. Offside tells the story of a disparate group of girls, brought together in momentary captivity as each is caught attempting to sneak into the 2005 World Cup qualifier between Iran and Bahrain.
The movie occurs in nearly real-time, with many scenes shot at the actual game. The crowd scenes, and especially the scenes of celebration when Iran beats Bahrain 1-0 to qualify, lend a deeply authentic feel to the movie. Most of the movie revolves around the interplay between the girls and their guards, young soldiers who really aren't terribly committed to the idea that the girls must be kept out. Still, raised in a culture that holds that girls must be protected from the "cursing and swearing" of men watching sports, they obey their orders.
The thing I most enjoyed about Offside is its feeling of authenticity, the idea that this could really have been a snapshot of 90 minutes in 2005 Iran. There's much to the movie that seems deeply familiar, reminiscent of life in China. The buses in the opening scene, carrying the hordes of young men descending on the stadium, look exactly like the ones that used to carry me around Chongqing. So too do the motorcycle riders, heads bare and charging down a road going the wrong way, also bring to mind the streets of China.
But there's also a reflection at a deeper level, in momentary snapshots we get of the lives that the characters lead. Moments like a brief dialog hinting at the deep gulf between a provincial soldier's life and that of the city girls of Tehran. There is the confusion that shows in the young soldiers' faces, when they're asked to defend a policy they had no hand in creating, but believe is right because that's what they've always believed.
Most familiar of all, though, is the girls' desperate need to see the game. I've been in superficially similar situations, trying to sneak into sports stadiums to watch a Stanford or Texas football game. But the movie is really about much more than the mere need to see a sports game. The term "offside" in soccer means an attacking player is beyond the defenders, violating the rules. The girls in this movie are also offside, breaking the rules to get into the stadium, but what they're really reaching for and craving is to be a full and equal part of their society, to feel the belonging that comes from being part of the group.
Sports fandom is human nature at its most fundamental. It's tribalism, channeled in the service of competitive athletics. People who don't follow sports marvel at the ability of fans to dress up and paint their faces and stand in freezing rain for hours at a time, just to cheer for total strangers struggling in a competition that has no material impact on their lives. But really, sports fandom isn't just about the sport, it's about belonging to a community of fans, a tribe who's champions are doing battle on the field. It's about acceptance, where twenty strangers can walk into a bar and immediately become the closest of friends, brought together by the triumphal glories and soul-crushing defeats of a shared history.
Governments know the power of sports. The unification of Germany was aided by the triumph of the first joint-German team in the World Cup of 1990, and many a politician has seen his poll numbers bounce after a home-team victory. The girls in Offside, though they don't know it, are seeking the same thing. When they're seeking the right to cheer in victory and curse in defeat, what they're ultimately after is the right to be accepted, to become truly a part of their nation.
So it was for me, as well. As first the Chinese kid and then the nerd, there were many aspects of American life that were closed books to me, and none was as mysterious as the world of sports. Nothing symbolized my alienation from the "normal" aspects of growing up in America as much as my complete bewilderment by sports. In elementary school I tried, and usually failed, to play ball with the other kids, to be a part of their world, and in high school I ignored it, holding myself to be infinitely superior to the athletes and the mindless fans.
So it's fitting, now, through college and grad school, in the years in which I've become most comfortable with myself and my place in society, that sport has taken on such an important role in my life. I've found sports that I love myself, both to play and to watch. And in a small way, finding my place in society's athletic world has also helped me cement my place in society as a whole. Here's hoping that someday the women of Iran might be able to say the same.
