Jackie Robinson In The Movie 42

42
On April 15, 1947, fans pack the stadium hoping to catch a glimpse of the scene playing out on the field. One man steps out of the dugout and is met with the displeasure of the crowd. This man is Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play professional baseball on an all-white baseball team. Robinson’s story of “strength and unbending spirit” is projected in the movie 42, directed by Brian Helgeland (Griffin). The movie goes into details about Robinson’s barrier breaking first season on the Brooklyn Dodgers, but does it portray Robinson’s story correctly? Although there are several minute differences--the process of choosing Robinson to join the Dodgers, that he was not the only black player pulled into Montreal, and Robinson’s civil rights involvements after retiring--the similarities are more pronounced, especially in regard to Robinson’s temper, the fans and other players treatment of Robinson, and Pee Wee Reese’s friendship with Robinson.

In the movie 42, Helgeland depicts the process of picking Robinson Robinson to be a lucky random pick, but this is not what really happened.

Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers team, had “sent scouts to Negro League ballgames. To disguise his intentions, Rickey announced that he planned to start a new Negro club to be called the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers” (Williams). Once they scouted all the potentials, Rickey and a few trusted advisors then decided on the best candidate. Rickey, then, summoned the candidate, Robinson, to an interview to ensure that he was up for the challenge. It is understandable why Helgeland did not incorporate this into the movie because it would have complicated the story more than it needed to be. If it had been included it may have confused some viewers on whether or not Rickey was actually creating an African American

team.
There was only one problem with Robinson that made Rickey hesitant to choose him: Robinson’s temper. Having grown up being the only black family in a white neighborhood, he grew to be angry at the racial oppression. He would lash out and stick up for his race anyway he could. Robinson was a on a dangerous path. Then one day Robinson meet Karl Downs, a methodist preacher, who was able to lead “Robinson to a deeper faith in Jesus Christ, and Robinson brought his bad temper and fierce anger at injustices more under control” (Williams). Without Robinson’s center of faith, he would not have survived gotten past the tests of will that Rickey inflicted on Robinson during their first meeting. When Branch Rickey summoned Robinson to his office to talk about joining the Dodgers. Then out of nowhere, Rickey started to act out promiscuous scenarios that would happen to Robinson if he joined the Dodgers, to gauge his reaction. Robinson, caught by surprise, jumped up and looked as if he was about to murder Rickey. But with soothing thoughts on faith, Robinson was able to calm himself and that was when Rickey knew that Robinson was the right guy. Not only only did this event happen in the movie, but it also happened in real life. Rickey had summoned Robinson to his office and acted out way more racially insensitive material than what was depicted in the movie, but Robinson was able to calm himself and not fight.
With Rickey’s assurance that Robinson would act accordingly, he decided to start Robinson out in the Montreal Royals . In the movie, the team had consisted of all white men and no diversity whatsoever, but in real life there had been a African American pitcher that had come up with Robinson. His name was John Wright and he travelled with Robinson and Rachel wherever they went. Wright was used to make Robinson feel comfortable and have somebody there that would understand what he was going through. Wright was also used to soften the blow of the crowds so Robinson was not overwhelmed and become aggressive, which would ruin the plans. When Wright was brought back to the African American league, Rickey brought up another pitcher named Roy Partlow. Roy was cut from the team due to poor performance, but returned for the Dodger spring training and did not make the team. If Wright and Partlow had been included in the film it would have taken away from the storyline and would have created confusion. This is a story about Robinson Robinson and the inclusion of these two pitchers would have taken away from his story. People then would be confused on why there were two black men that had also joined the Royals with Robinson and what their roles were.
After the Montreal season, Robinson was brought up from Montreal and signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers. When the first game day was upon them and Robinson walked out of the dugout for the first time, in both the movie and real life, he was met by a standing ovation from the African American section and an overpowering amount of invectives screamed from the white section. At a particularly gruesome game against Baltimore, Robinson’s wife, Rachel, described it as “terrible...really terrible. It was demeaning in the way we were treated. Yet we had the kind of self-esteem where we wouldn't let people make us feel lowly" (Griffin). As time progressed, Robinson would get hate mail that would threaten the life of himself, his wife, and his newborn baby boy. In the movie, they compared the multitude of death threats that Robinson got to the single insensitive threat that Brooklyn shortstop, Pee Wee Reese, had gotten for playing on the same team as Robinson. With this comparison, the movie was able to compare how two men were nearly the same and yet one was hated over the other because of their skin color.
Not only where the fans harassing Robinson, but also other teams were trying to initiate a response. They would taunt Robinson from their dugout while he was batting, “deliberately pitched balls at Robinson’s head and spiked him with their shoes in deliberately rough slides into bases” (Jackie). One of the most notable interactions that happened in real life and was also mentioned in the movie was the altercation with Ben Chapin of the Philadelphia Phillies. Chapman would scream at Robinson with such coarse language that it seeped through Robinson’s barrier of self control and almost ruined all the hard work that he had put into this. Rickey’s view on this event was that “Chapman did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers. When he poured out that stream of unconscionable abuse, he solidified and unified 30 men” (Bilyeu). Even “some Dodger teammates openly protested against having to play with an African American” (Jackie). For spring training, before Robinson joined the team, they had started a petition against playing with Robinson and only revoked it when they were threatened with firing. No matter where Robinson went he was never fully accepted by all, which is depicted readily and accurately throughout.
Even though the majority of the Dodgers did not want to have Robinson, there were still a select few who actually became good friends with Robinson. In the movie, Pee Wee Reese is shown with a acceptance of of Robinson from the beginning. The most notable scene from the movie is when Pee Wee Reese had put his arm around Robinson when he was being heckled by the southern crowd and said, “Thank you Jay. I got family up there from Louisville. I need them to know, I need them to know who I am” (42). Pee Wee was willing to give up his relationship with his family rather than deny being friends with a black man. In real life, it is not known if Pee Wee had put his arm around Robinson or talked about his family to Robinson, but there was an incident where Robinson was getting abuse from the crowd and Pee Wee had walked over to Robinson and stood by him to give Robinson support (Jackie). They had been friends ever since. A few other players who accepted Robinson were included in the movie. These players were Ralph Branca, who accepted Robinson from day one, and Eddie Stanky, who stood up for Robinson against Ben Chapman. Incorporating this into the movie shows that there were people who wanted things to change and were willing to accept Robinson for who he was.
After ten years of playing for the Dodgers, Robinson retired from baseball and did not pursue anything else that had to do with sports. What is not mentioned in the movie is that after he had retired Robinson had turned to the world of civil rights activism. Robinson “was a spokesperson for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and made appearances with Martin Luther King, Jr” (Jackie). This showed how much Robinson wanted to keep making the change to a segregated society. Robinson kept dreaming of a race blind society. Showing true dedication to the end, Robinson had spoke of the unfairness of there not being any African American team managers the same month he had died. Not including this in the movie prohibited readers to fully understand how passionate Jackie was about equality for everybody. Though, if it had been included it would have taken away from the story of integrating baseball and would not have had such an impact towards the viewers.
Most Hollywood movies prefer to blow certain events in somebody's life out of proportion or remove certain details that do not fit well with the story line the directors are trying to convey. This can make the viewer wonder if the events in this film had actually happened or are they there to make the storyline more interesting. However, in the movie 42, the director is able to follow Jackie Robinson's life as close as he possibly could. Even though 42 focuses only on the racial barrier that Robinson broke, it still provides a better understanding of what Robinson’s life was like and how it shaped him into the man he was before he died.