{"id":168433,"date":"2025-04-02T15:10:26","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T15:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-april-2-2025-foolish-texts-nobodys-fool\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T15:10:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T15:10:26","slug":"americanstudies-april-2-2025-foolish-texts-nobodys-fool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=168433","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: April 2, 2025: Foolish Texts: Nobody\u2019s Fool"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[For this
\nyear\u2019s April Fool\u2019s series, I\u2019ll be AmericanStudying cultural works with \u201cfool\u201d
\nin the title. Share your thoughts on foolish texts, with or without the word,
\nfor a fool-hearty crowd-sourced weekend post!]<\/p>\n

Two
\nimportant American Studies lessons from one of our quirkier, funnier, and more
\naffecting late 20th<\/sup> century films.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody\u2019s Fool<\/span> <\/i>(1994)<\/a>,
\nthe Paul Newman starring vehicle based on the 1993
\nRichard Russo novel<\/a> of the same name (which I will admit, in a very
\nnon-literature professor moment, to not having read), is a very funny movie. It\u2019s
\nfunny in its
\nscript<\/a>, which includes plenty of laugh-out-loud funny insults, retorts, and
\nquips; Newman\u2019s Sully gets the lion\u2019s share, but perhaps the single funniest
\nline is given to a judge who critiques a trigger-happy local policemen by
\nnoting, \u201cYou know my feelings on arming morons: you arm one, you\u2019ve got to arm
\nthem all, otherwise it wouldn\u2019t be good sport.\u201d And it\u2019s just as funny in its
\nworld, its creation of a cast of quirky and memorable characters (who, not
\ncoincidentally, are played by some of our most talented character actors<\/a>,
\nincluding Jessica
\nTandy<\/a> in her final role). That those same characters are ultimately the
\nsource of a number of hugely moving moments is a testament to the film\u2019s (and
\nprobably book\u2019s) true greatness.<\/p>\n

Unlike many of
\nthe other late 20th<\/sup> and early 21st<\/sup> century films I\u2019ve
\ndiscussed in this space\u2014Lone
\nStar<\/i> <\/i>and City of Hope<\/i><\/a>,
\nGangs
\nof New York<\/a><\/i>, Jungle Fever<\/i> <\/i>and Mississippi Masala<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>and many more\u2014Nobody\u2019s Fool<\/i> is not explicitly engaged with significant American
\nStudies issues. But that doesn\u2019t mean that there aren\u2019t American Studies
\nlessons to be learned from its subtle and wise perspectives on identity and
\ncommunity. For one thing, Sully\u2019s most central culminating perspective (SPOILER
\nalert, here and in the next paragraph!) is a powerful and important vision of
\nour interconnectedness to the many communities of which we\u2019re a meaningful
\npart: \u201cI just found out I\u2019m somebody\u2019s grandfather. And somebody\u2019s father. And
\nmaybe I\u2019m somebody\u2019s friend in the bargain,\u201d Sully notes, rejecting a tempting
\nbut escapist future in favor of staying where he is; while he has ostensibly
\nknown about all these relationships for years, what he has realized through the
\nfilm\u2019s events is both how significant these roles are for his own identity and
\nlife, and how much his presence or absence in relation to them will in turn
\ninfluence the people and communities around him.<\/p>\n

If Sully has
\nlearned that specific, significant lesson by the film\u2019s end, he has also, more
\nsimply yet perhaps even more crucially, done something else: recognized the
\npossibility for change. Sully\u2019s not a young man by the time we meet him, and
\nit\u2019s fair to say that he\u2019s very set in his ways; one of his first lines of the
\nfilm, in response to his landlady (Tandy) offering him tea, is \u201cNo. Not now,
\nnot ever,\u201d and the exchange becomes a mantra of sorts for the film, shorthand
\nfor Sully\u2019s routines (with every person in his life) and the fixity of his
\nperspective and voice. So it\u2019s particularly salient that the film ends with an
\nextended and different version of this exchange: \u201cNo. How many times do I have
\nto tell you?\u201d Newman replies, and Tandy answers, \u201cOther people change their
\nminds occasionally. I keep thinking you might.\u201d \u201cYou do? Huh,\u201d are Newman\u2019s
\nfinal words in the film, and he delivers them with surprise and, it seems to
\nme, a recognition, paired with the earlier epiphany about interconnections,
\nthat perhaps Tandy is right, and he has future shifts ahead of him that he
\ncan\u2019t yet imagine. If the American future is going to be all that it might be,
\nthat\u2019s going to depend on most\u2014perhaps all\u2014of us being open to change, most
\nespecially in our own identities and perspectives; Sully\u2019s only begun that
\ntrajectory, but exemplifies its possibility, at any point in our lives and
\narcs, for sure.<\/p>\n

Next
\nfoolish text tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Foolish texts you\u2019d share?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[For this year\u2019s April Fool\u2019s series, I\u2019ll be AmericanStudying cultural works with \u201cfool\u201d in the title. Share your thoughts on foolish texts, with or without the word, for a fool-hearty crowd-sourced weekend post!] Two important American Studies lessons from one of our quirkier, funnier, and more affecting late 20th century films. Nobody\u2019s Fool (1994), the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[13299,4759,43750,60796,66609,30458],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-168433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","tag-americanstudies","tag-april","tag-fool","tag-foolish","tag-nobodys","tag-texts"],"yoast_head":"\nAmericanStudies: April 2, 2025: Foolish Texts: Nobody\u2019s Fool - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=168433\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AmericanStudies: April 2, 2025: Foolish Texts: Nobody\u2019s Fool - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[For this year\u2019s April Fool\u2019s series, I\u2019ll be AmericanStudying cultural works with \u201cfool\u201d in the title. Share your thoughts on foolish texts, with or without the word, for a fool-hearty crowd-sourced weekend post!] Two important American Studies lessons from one of our quirkier, funnier, and more affecting late 20th century films. 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