‘The Fan’ Exposes Dark Side of Virgos

As a Giants fan, I had long wanted to see the The Fan, a movie in which Robert DeNiro plays a crazed Giants fan who stalks a Barry Bonds-type player acted by Wesley Snipes. The movie was released in 1996 but it didn’t play in theaters for very long, even here in San Francisco. This week, I finally saw it as part of a retrospective of San Francisco movies shown at my local art house theater, the Roxie. 

This film lays bare the dark place that fans can go to. The Giants fanbase is an appropriate setting to explore this dark place as the Giants’ birthchart not only has Pluto in the Fourth House of fans, but the Moon in Scorpio opposite to Saturn and Neptune. (The Moon and the Fourth House rule the fans.)  The Saturn opposition confronts the Giants fanbase with the hard knocks of reality, whereas the Neptune opposition bring it dreams but also disillusion.

Robert DiNiro plays Gil Renard, a salesman in a company founded by his father. Gil Renard has memories of glory days as a little league pitcher. On the walls of his hideout, there are old newspaper clippings that showcase his childhood triumphs as a pitcher. Now he works in a company that makes high quality knives.  Gil Renard, like his father before him, cares deeply about quality. He has very high standards. Yet the current management only cares about sales and profit, which offends Renard on multiple levels. Not only is his father’s legacy being tarnished, but the company’s attitude contradicts his passionate belief that everyone should care about the job they do.

As an astrologer, I am allowing myself to assign astrological qualities to the characters in this movie. I give Gil Renard a stelium in Virgo: including the Sun, Pluto, and Mars. This is evidenced by his strong belief in a job well done and his fanaticism about quality. Gil also has an analytical Virgo mind, which he employs as a keen student of the game. At the ballpark, he pays close attention. He is acutely aware of game situations. He becomes angered when his son watches the Giants mascot rather than observe the game. In addition, Renard was previously a pitcher, a position ruled by the sign of Virgo.

I am also giving Gil Reynard Saturn and Neptune in the Fifth House. These placements manifest in his challenges and idealizations regarding sports. This is a man who meets his most difficult Saturnian challenges in the Firth House. He did not succeed as an athlete and he attempts to live vicariously through Giants player Bobby Rayburn. This is the projection of a Neptunian ideal. He also projects his Neptune fantasies onto his son, whom he pressures to excel as a little leaguer. But Saturn imposes limitations here as well. Raynard is served a restraining order which prevents him from seeing his son. A person’s children dwell in their Fifth House. The restraining order is another painful manifestation of Saturn occupying his Fifth. Gil’s Fifth House Saturn also makes an interesting cameo when Gil puts on an umpire uniform, as Saturn rules umpires.

Wesley Snipes plays Bobby Rayburn, a player recently acquired by the Giants as a big free agent signing. Bobby Rayburn, like Gil, is a Virgo.  He trains to perfection and takes very good care of his body. Reynard admires and relates to him as a fellow Virgo perfectionist. 

Interestingly, the movie opened on a day when the Moon and Mercury were conjunct in the sign of Virgo. Both these planets were also conjunct the Giants Uranus of 23 degrees Virgo.  I do not know how to cast an astrological chart for a movie, but this release date does have synastry with the Giants’ Uranus in Virgo, a planet that holds much of the energy that attracted Barry Bonds to the franchise. (See Giants chapter of my book Baseball: An Astrological Sightline).

The character of Bobby Rayburn is said to be based on Barry Bonds, but there are only thin likenesses. Barry Bonds, like Rayburn, is a native son of San Francisco who came to the Giants as a high-priced free agent with huge expectations.  But Barry Bonds did not wait to fulfill these expectations. He became an instant fan favorite in his first year with the Giants. Rayburn’s story has a different trajectory. Rayburn begins his first season with the Giants in a horrible slump. There is much resentment among the fans who complain he does not deserve the money. At Candlestick Park, they hold up signs telling him, “Go Back to Atlanta.” As Bobby Rayburn’s slump deepens, so does the slump of Gil Reynard who is unable to reach his sales targets. Soon Gil gets fired. Then he is slapped with the restraining order to stay away from his son. In another parallel, Bobby Rayburn also has custody issues with the mother of his child.

Benicio Del Toro plays the character of Juan Primo, a Latin American player on the Giants who is the rival of Bobby Rayburn. Their antagonism begins early as Primo is moved from center field to left field to accommodate Rayburn who will play center when he joins the Giants. The rift becomes more personal when Primo refuses to give his number 11 to Rayburn. This is the number that Rayburn has worn his entire life. He has a deep sentimental attachment to this number and believes it may even be the source of his power.

Astrologer Jennifer Harber explains that the number 11 corresponds to pairs of people who are similar but unable to co-exist, twins who do not like each other. It brings the dynamic of “This town isn’t big enough for the both of us.” These pairs should stay away from each other but cannot. Interestingly, the Giants birthchart has Jupiter in the sign of Gemini, the sign of twins. Jupiter is large and not comfortable when confined within the 30 degrees of Gemini. Imagine two big children forced to share a small play area. They will bump against each other. Indeed, this happens on Opening Day. Rayburn and Primo collide in the outfield as they both attempt to catch a fly ball.

During the collision, Rayburn’s rib becomes hurt, which leads to his slump. As the slump deepens, the fans boo him. Juan Primo, meanwhile, goes on a hitting tear and carries the team. As Gil’s life falls apart, he begins stalking Bobby Rayburn. He follows the players to a strip club. He attempts a conversation with Rayburn who blows him off. While in a bathroom stall, he overhears a tense conversation between Rayburn and Juan Primo. Rayburn pleads with Juan Primo to give him the number 11. Primo refuses.  

Soon Gil confronts Primo in a hotel sauna. He argues Rayburn’s case to have the number 11. He explains that Primo should make this sacrifice for the good of his teammate who needs the number to be able to hit again, and that this sacrifice is vital for the good of the team. Still, Primo refuses. Primo also shows him his scar tattoo of a number 11, which proves his own attachment to the number.

Eventually Raynard murders Primo. After the memorial service for Primo, all the Giants wear a patch with number 11 on their sleeves. Bobby Reynard, with number 11 on his sleeve, ends his slump. He begins a hitting tear and carries the team, much as Primo did earlier.

Bobby Raynard, unlike Gil Rayburn, is not a pure Virgo. He also expresses Pisces energy, the sign in polarity with Virgo. I assign Rayburn a Sun in Virgo with the Moon in Pisces. He shows his Pisces side through compassion with children. He visits a terminally ill child who asks him to hit a home run for him, and he painfully obliges. He also feels guilty for the death of Juan Primo. At a crucial point of the movie, he renounces Virgo perfectionism and work ethic. In a conversation with Gil Rayburn, he admits he stopped caring, and this change in attitude allowed him to relax and end his slump. But this expression of  Pisces nonchalance greatly offends Rayburn whose Virgo values have been betrayed.

John Kruk, who played first base for the Phillies in the 1990s and later worked as a broadcaster, makes a cameo in this movie. Kruk plays the character of Lanz, a Giants teammate to Rayburn and Primo. I did not pay attention to Lanz’s position in the film, but with the Phillies John Kruk was a first baseman, the Pisces position. Kruk was also well-known for his lack of athletic appearance. When asked about his non-athletic look, he famously replied, “I ain’t an athlete, Lady. I’m a baseball player.” Unlike Wesley Snipes who is perfectly chiseled, Lanz is portly. The character of Lanz holds a Pisces energy which is counter to the hyper Virgo energy of Rayburn and Gil Reynard. 

The movie ends in a Pisces rainstorm. It is raining cats and dogs at Candlestick Park, but the game goes on. A game is played in rain, mud, and confusion. The orderly Virgo worldview of Rayburn and Reynard is washed away by the element of water. It is a poetic end as the universe inevitably answers an extreme position with its opposite.  

I won’t say The Fan is a great movie. But it forced me to grapple with the phenomenon of the sports fan whose obsession approaches mental illness. This movie exposes the destructive side of fans who follow their team through a narrow and coarse lens. Boorish behavior among sports fans who idealize their team or favorite player and demonize the opposing team is ever more dangerous in this divided age. Hate has been given too much license. To proudly boast of one’s hatred for the Dodgers or Cowboys is not sustainable. Sports can be viewed through various perspectives. The lens provided by sports astrologers allows the fan to witness sporting events as planetary and archetypal dramas unfolding on a field of play. There is so much more going on than what’s on the field! I hope that my services, and the services of other sports astrologers, are raising the energy level of sports fans. If fans like Gil Raynard would turn to astrology, they would feel connected to so much more than their favorite player or favorite team.