Dreams of Democracy, or the Reasons for Hoosiers ’ Enduring Appeal

Hoosiers has a special, undeniable appeal. This film tells the fictional story of a basketball team from a small high school in Indiana that defeats a team from a much bigger school to win the state championship. When it was shown to test audiences, Hoosiers scored the highest preview rating in the history of Orion Pictures. A poll conducted by USA Today in 1998 named Hoosiers the best sports movie of all time, and it topped ESPN.com’s list of the ‘25 Best Sports Films: 1979-2004’. In 2001, it was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as a motion picture that is notably ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’. The source of Hoosiers’ special appeal has, however, remained somewhat mysterious. This article seeks to show that Hoosiers has inspired unusually intense devotion because it artfully dramatizes concerns about authoritarianism that are deeply embedded not just in American sports, but in American society as a whole, and because it elegantly presents an emotionally satisfying resolution for those concerns (albeit one that works solely within the bounds of a fictional film)

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