Notes On Watching A Tim Tebow Propaganda Documentary In 2015

Four dollars and ninety-five cents is all it takes, although in a place like this that's a lot. I instinctively reach into my pocket to feel the change I've saved up. But this is 2015, and the combination of a series of economic downturns and the march of technological progress has rendered the fractional dollar coin a metallurgic curiosity; I might as well have pockets full of Monopoly game pieces. I just stare at my phone instead.

Almost-five dollars is generally enough to secure an armload of the most popular and influential writings from any era in human history at this Nashville-area used bookstore. It is also, I expect, enough to buy at least one copy of the "Opposites Attract" single on compact disc on the music-only second story. Not having been up there, I can't say for sure. (I can say with certainty MC Skat Kat's debut was inspired by a stop in a secondhand book store. This fact is canonical, and there will be a test at the end of this.)

I am about to spend those almost-five dollars on the store's sole DVD copy of a feature film entitled Tim Tebow On A Mission. Wandering through the rather grim "Sports" section of McKay Used Books & More, I was drawn, mothlike, to its resting place on the bottommost of bottom shelves. I wonder aloud whether Tim Tebow believes in predestination.

The DVD's shrinkwrap is pristine as I buckle it lovingly into the child restraints of my 2011 Honda Odyssey—Touring Edition, haters—which suggests that the film's previous caretaker did not give in to the powerful temptation of discovering the specifics of Tim's mysterious mission. At least I know there's a movie inside the case; that much is certain. Hey, it could be worse. Later, I will find out this film is, improbably, available for rent on Amazon Instant for less than half of what I paid for the privilege of owning it forever. But that is later, after I watched an entire feature film about chronically underemployed NFL quarterback Tim Tebow.

Our journey begins, appropriately enough for a movie about Tim Tebow, very humbly. A handful of the least impressive studio cards ever made give way to previews for a couple of direct-to-DVD productions that rate only slightly north of the New ISIS Video in terms of audience appeal. After pressing play on the storebrand-ass title screen, we are off to the races!

If the fawning quotes on the back of the box left any doubt as to the nature of the "documentary"—here, a term of art meant to denote a superficial distinction from total fiction—the film takes no longer than a minute to completely eradicate any hope of an interesting narrative point of view. That's how long it takes for viewers to be reminded of Tim Tebow's stubborn habit of defying his critics, "practically from the moment he was born"—the critics, we are meant to understand, in this case being the doctors who advised Tebow's parents to terminate his mother's perilous pregnancy. A wave of sympathy swells in me—this is my story, too. It seems like six months can't go by without some hater in a white lab coat telling me to eat better and exercise. Respect, Tim. Respect.

Over the next 50 or so minutes, I am treated to a dizzying array of default screensaver-quality images onto which quotes attributed to Tim Tebow are superimposed. The entire pastiche is not unlike a recruiting video, with the on-field highlights generally replaced by sub-"Unsolved Mysteries"-level reenactments, with a curious elevator metal soundtrack. Since the film is not licensed by the NFL or NCAA, there are precious few glimpses of unobscured gridiron action—scenes which, as it turns out, would be useful in a movie about a football guy. Having the actual football guy appear on camera would have been a decent consolation prize, but alas, there are no Tebows interviewed whatsoever, and only two people that appear in the film can even claim to know any. There is a startling lack of Tebow in Tim Tebow On A Mission. Whatever its flaws, it does at least have that going for it.

As journalism, On a Mission couldn't get into the damn press club if it was stashed away in Glenn Greenwald's backpack. It is somewhat more successful as an apologia, even if the film's participants sometimes seem to believe that rhetorical device is meant to be interpreted literally. Take Morris O'Kelly, for instance, a self-styled political talk radio host in Los Angeles, who says at one point, "I remember how horrible Tim Tebow was," and then spends the rest of his screen time explaining how that was a good thing. By the time the Denver Post's Mike Klis recounts how absolutely thrilled the Broncos players and fans were to have lost a game simply because Tebow was the one who did the losing, I was astral projecting into a Melissa McCarthy movie and laughing my ass off at the ol' girl falling down. TTOAM is one of those forms of escapist entertainment from which a person actually wants to escape.

If it seems unfair to slay a random collective of local circuit talking heads and former Tebow high school teammates for saying nice things about their friend into a camera, that's because it probably is. But all this adoration raises questions the film has no interest in answering. Foremost among these is how Tebow escaped the dreaded "diva" character albatross for so long.

If any other player was known among his teammates for literally diving on the finish line in drills as a college freshman, or sitting out every summer practice for the high school team his parents had hand-picked from across town, wouldn't that guy get a rep as a USDA Prime Cut dick? Sure, he "did alright," and it was "pretty funny to watch" according to Nease High teammate Travis Crowley, but this guy lobbied the coach to play him at both QB and DT because he didn't think the team's defense was good enough to win a crucial game! The balls on this joker! At one point, Klis actually compliments Tebow for making him wait nearly an hour to speak with him after practice. "He was very nice," says Klis.

It's also worth mentioning the comparison, made by Michael DiRocco of ESPN's Gator Nation, between Tebow and William Wallace. Some people may truly think that a football player's jersey having some red paint on it makes him look like a fearsome ancient warrior. It's just that most of those people blog at places like Tim Teblog, TimTebowHeisman.Wordpress, and TebowZone.net, and are generally considered to be troubled. (Yes, those are real, and you may go read them as soon as your homework is finished.)

What's striking about a Tebow Supporter, which is incidentally the working name of a line of free trade jockstraps coming to stores in 2017, is how often they are willing to move the goalposts for him, and to what extent. What good is it to know, for example, that Tebow was the first homeschooled student to win a Heisman? How low is the bar if "he did what Kyle Orton could not do" is on the career highlight reel? How could the fact that Tebow was a leader "even at lunchtime," according to Tom McDonald of NY1, even be measured? In footlongs?

By contrast, why couldn't Tebow fans just be like, "Yeah…Tim Tebow is cool to me. I like him?" That's totally fine to think that! I will go on the record, right here:

"Tim Tebow seems nice. I hope he is doing well. Ok, have a good one." — Jesse Farrar

See? That's not so hard! Using Tebow as a bludgeon to rough up Kyle Orton, who has his own issues, is gratuitous. Giving Tebow the lion's share of the credit for Florida's 2006 National Championship is borderline sociopathic. And even allowing for a moment that we live in a world where it might be acceptable behavior to carve a tree outside your place of business into the likeness of a college football player, is it really worth switching back to his number after the NCAA is done making you pretend it's actually supposed to be Danny Wuerffel? The hell is your problem with Wuerf?

For all his successes, real or imagined, Tim Tebow does have some rather obvious shortcomings. On A Mission is the puffiest thing imaginable outside of Jerry Seinfeld's closet, and still the filmmakers are forced to acknowledge this. (That those acknowledgements are generally done through the powerful art of mime, and scored to mournful guitar plucking, is neither here nor there.) It seems obvious that when some uncoordinated fella wearing the number five trips around an empty high school football field as the narration itemizes Tebow's mechanical issues, most viewers will be able to connect the dots.

So what are we meant to take away from Tim Tebow On A Mission? Well, for one, Tebow may only be in the league "six, seven, eight years" according to Mike Klis, so we should enjoy this fleeting experience while we still can. (NOTE: Tebow was released almost immediately after the movie was.) Broncos fans will probably regret the fateful trade that sent Tebow to the New York Jets, says McDonald, so we definitely should watch out for that.

As for me, I'll always remember that you can take a victory lap for a last place finish, as long as you kind of know how to use iMovie and you go to church a bunch. Also I learned that used bookstores don't accept returns.