The Driving “Farce”
By Glen Grissom
8/8/06
Ed Note. We are still getting a lot of letters about the Force show Pro and Con. I would have preferred to move on but I don’t tell the DRO columnist what they can write about. New guy Glenn Grissom wanted to air his view on the situation. I did want to print this letter from an old fan to show that indeed the show may appeal to some. This column will be the last editorial on the subject from the staff. The readers can write and we will print all the letters they want.
I work with a couple guys who are Mr. Baseball and Mr. NFL. They follow the 'Boys and Their Balls' sports religiously and nothing else is worth them wasting their time on. They know I follow drag racing (the diecast Jungle Jim FC and 1/6 scale blown fuel 426 Hemi in my cube must've tipped them off) but never had anything positive to say about the sport.
Imagine my surprise when each of them dropped by in recent weeks and said how they LOVED the show and watch it every week! They just can't believe John is for real and they think that Ashley is a babe. Now they understand that there's a lot more to drag racing than they thought and are fans. One of them (Mr. MLB) is even asking if I'll take him to the Gatornats next year so he can get autographs of the Force family and experience "CACK.”
Ah, a newbie fan is born and that's what John wants to see happen. I just can't wait to see how high he jumps when Coil has John WHACK the throttle!!
Dave Peto
Tampa, FL
fter seeing the previews and teases and NHRA promo push, I didn’t have high expectations on an intellectual level, nor for the general betterment of drag racing from “The Driving Force,” the A&E cable TV show featuring John Force, three of his daughters, and his estranged wife.
I kept myself from shooting off my keyboard after the first couple of episodes – I figured I’d watch the show and characters, and give them a chance to develop a little and see where it was going. But five episodes are enough to wait.
As much as I wanted this rare TV opportunity for drag racing (outside of telecasting a race) to validly contribute to the overall positive awareness of the sport among the general public, I wasn’t betting another tired TV “reality” show whining about “nobody knows the troubles me and my first-generation rich family have seen” was the TV vehicle to do so.
The previews seemed to me to tart up his daughters in a sexist way, and highlight Force’s inability to cope with them, or himself, in the modern world. It would have been so much easier if he’d had sons, he says over and over. Sure.
So, going in it was clear we were not in for intellectual or enlightening TV fare. With a lead-in show like “Dog The Bounty Hunter” I wasn’t expecting Masterpiece Theatre to follow, and I wasn’t disappointed. But I was hoping for a bit more class from one of the more vivid personalities of drag racing; one of its real bootstrapping champions and generous heroes who has lived the American Dream (like his hero Elvis); and one who put his life on the line and cheated death many times to bring the sport to its current popularity. And dare I say it, I was expecting more from the top drag racing sanctioning body.
Ask yourself, would NASCAR endorse and sanction such a trivializing show on say, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his sport? Would Earnhardt’s advisors sign off? (Well, we do have the upcoming obvious send-up “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” to look forward to – even cross-promo’d on Force’s show!) How about the IRL and Danica Patrick? As some say: notgoingtohappen.com.
Even if they were incredibly desperate for TV exposure and hoping that would lead to new unexplored sponsorship opportunities and dollars – which is about the only business reason I can think of to support this hackneyed endeavor – those sanctioning bodies would have nixed this sort of exposure before the cameras started their voyeuristic intrusions. There must be classier ways to bring money to the table.
What about Force’s sponsors? Have they bought into the “any publicity is good publicity” mantra, too? Apparently so, because it doesn’t look like to me that Ford is getting its money’s worth out of Force driving a Jaguar around, for example.
One of the definitions of “farce” is a “ridiculous or empty show,” and this “reality” show just barely crawls out of the primordial ooze of bottom-feeder, mindless and base, “train-wreck TV” like the Jerry Springer Show – but not by much.
It joins all the other formulaic “dumbass dad” shows. We can go back to the ’50s and ‘60s with its innocent, even cute middle-class “The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet” or “Father Knows Best,” and follow the theme up to today’s “real world” look at the new rich originating from outside the boring mainstream life: “Hogan Knows Best,” or “The Osbornes,” or the coming Gene Simmons show (The Tongue from the band Kiss), which will follow Force’s show on A&E. Yes, the rich are different from you and me – they have more money.
So, “The Driving Force” isn’t original, and its story arcs are tired soap-opera themes set against a drag racing background: Money can’t buy happiness. Father spouts off to his kids and no one listens. Lost love due to John’s implied infidelity – but will John and wife Laurie get back together? Oh No! The kids’ credit card balance is outrageous – they don’t know what it’s like to work for a living! (It’s hard to be hungry when you’ve had steak all your life). John’s blood pressure is up – time to eat some vegetables! Who will King Force pass his business kingdom to?
Yes, it’s tough living with a legend and instilling a work ethic in your kids when it seems they’ve not had to want for much of anything. But why do we have to endure seeing Force as an example of loutishness unleashed? Non-stop swearing. Showing his butt and tidy-whiteys. Going off on his family when they April Fool him. Berating his kids to “inspire” them. Asking one of his crew if he’s been with a woman lately; and if not, has he been with a man? I don’t buy into that John’s fans respect him all the more because he’s “one of them.” At least I don’t think most of them respect or expect this sort of coarseness from one of their sport’s heroes – even if it’s contrived for TV.
America with its capitalistic underpinning has to market its heroes, and the star-making “reality” show process these days seems based on killing or diminishing the heroic traits in them. Force would do well to really examine the complete life of Elvis for a sordid example of this.
There is much to admire about John Force and what he’s achieved in our sport. His American Dream story resonates with most of us -- only in America could he get the chance to bootstrap, with drive and hard work and talent in an obscure sport, his way out of a lower-class background to his current station. And most of us know there can be a high price to pay for that single-minded life, too. It is very telling that when he and Gary Selzi are talking over beers, that it is stark fear of failing/losing and figuratively going back to that trailer he grew up in – that is the primary drive of John Force.
But there isn’t much to admire about this show.
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