Culture Snob: Tom Brady vs. Allison Cahill
Introducing a new feature at Boston Daily, Dan Morrell’s Culture Snob, wherein our correspondent sizes up public figures based on their cultural preferences.
I probably don’t watch enough NESN, so I missed that Boston has a new women’s football team, the Boston Militia. (Season starts April 12.) There have been a few iterations of these teams over the years, and the latest incarnation features quarterback Allison Cahill, who also seems to be the face of the franchise.
But this is kind of a one-quarterback town, and trying to steal any of Tom Brady’s sunshine may be hard, especially given his deity status. Then again, perhaps the Super Bowl loss opened a window. Or maybe we shouldn’t judge people based on their accomplishments, but rather by what’s on their iPod.
And to give both of them an equal footing, considering Tom makes enough money to buy whatever sort of class and grace he’d like these days, I’ll use cultural indicators taken from around 2002. After the jump, the comparison:
Music
Brady: U2
Cahill: Bob Marley, Legend; Led Zepplin, Disc 2 of the Box Set
Winner: Cahill
With U2, you don’t know if you are getting Tom the “Zooropa” fan or Brady the “War” lover. One of them wears leather pants to Arby’s and the other wears leather jackets to book clubs. Cahill’s choices—while they are high school and collegiate clichés—includes a specific disc in a box set, which shows a connoisseur’s touch. One just has to hope she liked disc 2 for “Tangerine,” and not “Stairway to Heaven.”
Movie
Brady: Braveheart.
Cahill: A Bug’s Life, Love and Basketball, and Life is Beautiful
Winner: Cahill
Dudes seem to like Braveheart in that sort of reflexive, immediate way that people enjoy watching Shawn Bradley get dunked over. But Cahill wins it for Life is Beautiful, whose status as a foreign language film is the easy cultural topper.
Post-football career ambition
Brady: U.S. Senator.
Cahill: Commercial Airline Pilot.
Winner: Cahill
I get the whole addicted to winning thing, but who watches politics for a few years, and thinks, ‘Yeah, I think I should drag my life through that crap factory just so I can get my name on an expressway?’ Cahill’s choice is decidedly blue collar and wholesome. This is something children say they want to be when they grow up.
College major
Brady: Organizational Studies (Michigan)
Cahill: American History with extensive coursework in African American History (Princeton)
Winner: Cahill.
Not even close. As if the “extensive coursework in African American History” at Princeton doesn’t seal it in a cultural battle, the fact that Brady’s major seems—in title alone—to prepare him to plan his desk layout in an orderly fashion makes this a cakewalk.
Overall winner: Cahill
A shutout. Weak showing, really. If there is ever going to be a Sen. Brady, he’d better start playing the part of the culturally sound aesthete. You know, like Mitt.
