Saturday, November 29, 2008

My Contradictory Fandom

On Friday, the football team from the high school that I attended won its fifth state championship. (The first four came in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2005.) The game was televised in my area and I watched the second half of it on television. While I was not really vocal about it, I was inwardly rooting for them to win and, then, I was subsequently happy to see them win. Yet, I recognize that that happiness is a very contradictory kind of happiness in two ways:

First, that I should root for a team to win its fifth championship in twelve seasons isn’t particularly consistent with my view of parity in sports (a view that I have discussed, to some extent, here and here), particularly when there are scores of teams playing in the same division and playing for the same championship as the high school that I attended. I tend to think that New York Yankees fans, Ohio State football fans, Detroit Red Wings fans, New York Yankees fans, Duke basketball fans, Los Angeles Lakers fans, New York Yankees fans, New York Yankees fans, and others who expect championships every year are being egregious in their desires. Yet, here I was rooting for a team to maintain a very similar kind of dominance, as if it deserved to win so many more championships than everyone else.

Second, I hated my high school when I attended it. At one point while I was there, the parish (it’s a Catholic school) held a rally to support the school because there were concerns that it might have to close. Not only did I not attend the rally; I openly wished for the place to close. So, it’s kind of strange for me today to root for the football team from that place.

I think these contradictions point out a couple of things about sports identifications. First, we find ways to justify the identifications and rooting interests that we have, even when they contradict our own ideological perspectives. Because of that, I can find myself rooting against parity in one instance, even as I espouse the desirability of parity in so many other instances. Second, we become branded with these identities strongly when we are young and that branding is hard to break. I think this is similar to how individuals find themselves rooting for their home country in the Olympics, even if they have good reasons why they might not want to do so. Similarly, connections to local communities die hard, even when people have denounced or, at least, moved on from those communities.

In the end, I think this potentially illustrates how significant sports identities are—at least in the United States and, I suspect, in many other parts of the world as well. There are times when individuals who otherwise divide themselves based on race, social class, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. find themselves bonded (at least temporary) by sports team identification. To be sure, these are commercialized, branded identifications, like identifications with musical artists, television programs, and soft drinks, among other things. And like these other brand identifications, part of understanding the significance of sports, I believe, is recognizing the deep-seated ways in which these identifications work and affect people’s lives as identities, like race, social class, gender, etc., do. Just as we become branded to think about racial identities, gender identities, national identities, sexual identities, religious identities, and other identities from young ages to the point that, as we grow older, it becomes harder and harder to examine our own assumptions along each of these lines, I think that we become branded in connection with sports and sports allegiances from young ages to the point at which it becomes much harder to look at the politics of sporting practices. If we’re going to get at the politics of sport, fuller recognition of the deep workings of sports identities seems to be a very important step to take.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

An Hour of Hell, Boy?

I thought this story on CNN about a judge who is sentencing noise violation offenders to an hour of music is kind of interesting for its popular culture value. Since the point is to deter these folks (mainly young men and women) from violating the noise ordinance again, I assume these songs are meant to be annoying or boring ... or both. What's telling is that this might serve as an indication of how United States society views the musical interests of teenagers and young adults as well as how U.S. society views the social meaning of the likes of the Barney theme song, Patti Page, and the Platters.

I'd think, though, that Southpark's Eric Cartman singing Styx's "Come Sail Away" would be appealing to this crowd. I'd also think that the Barry Manilow selection might have some appeal as well, after this memorable scene from one of this past summer's big film releases.

Friday, November 7, 2008

The Social Significance of Star Wars

By now, I suppose many folks have heard about CNN debuting its election coverage holographic technology on election night. CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin was holographically projected from a tent in Chicago to the CNN studios in Atlanta. Video of it can be seen here.

There are multitudes of aspects involving this development to look at and think about, but as a bonafide Star Wars geek, I was especially taken by how it serves as the latest in the long line of ways in which Star Wars has influenced language and culture (with perhaps one of its most notable influences being Ronald Reagan's proposed missile defense program in the 1980s that was called "Star Wars"). In this instance, the reference to Star Wars came when Yellin said, "it's like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leia." CNN needed a special tent with 35 filming cameras to send Yellin as a hologram, so this was a far cry from R2-D2 recording Princess Leia on one little camera, but it's certainly a step in that direction and the aura around Yellin as she appeared in holographic form is incredibly similar to the one that appeared around Princess Leia in the 1977 film. Meanwhile, this once again reinforces the cultural significance of Star Wars, while also illustrating the ways in which the entertainment business--or, as the Frankfurt School called it, the culture industry--significantly influences how we see and think about the world.

Additionally notable is how Wolf Blitzer over and over again refers to Yellin being "beamed" in, which, of course, draws right out of the Lexicon of Star Trek--something that is pointed out in one segment of the film Trekkies.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

More on English with Lou Dobbs

A couple of months ago, I wrote about Lou Dobbs’ coverage of a case in which a school in Kansas has made it against the rules to speak English. Soon after, I wrote to Mr. Dobbs to share with him what I wrote. I have never heard back from him regarding the issue, which is fine. I’m sure he is inundated with numerous comments and messages from people around the country and outside of the United States and he does not have time to respond to all. However, for someone who promotes himself as an independent thinker and whose website seems to want to encourage open debate and discussion by asking viewers to get involved, he seems to have a very narrow position on this and he certainly has not responded to the kinds of concerns that I (and I’m sure others) have raised regarding English-only policies.

I have been checking transcripts of his show since I emailed Dobbs and, finally, on October 22, Dobbs took up the subject of requiring English within institutions and forums again. This time, he addressed the issue with Missouri Governor Matt Blunt, in connection with discussion of a ballot measure in Missouri that would require all public business to be done in English. Video of the exchange can be found here.

It’s obvious that Dobbs supports this measure. Indeed, Dobbs seems downright indignant toward any who would oppose making English the official language of public business. This indignant tone is perhaps most notable when Dobbs says, “the idea that we're having these discussions in 2008 is mind boggling that there should be any division at all over this issue.” On the one hand, I feel compelled to agree with Dobbs on that particular statement … though for quite an opposite reason. How can we, in 2008, after all that has been recognized about how excluding languages reinforces racism and takes away from democracy, be so narrow-minded as Dobbs as to think that English should unquestionably be the official national language? On the other hand, I’m happy to keep having the discussion, especially since it’s obvious that plenty of folks like Dobbs and Governor Blunt still have some questions to address in relation to their positions vis-à-vis racism and the real practice of democracy. So, once again, I am posting my concerns about the positions that Dobbs is advancing and I will be emailing him to invite him to discuss the matter with me.

Furthermore, I want to recognize one other aspect of this issue that seems particularly significant in relation to the positions that Dobbs advances. Time and time again, Dobbs appears to be a proponent of free enterprise and private ownership and rights. This is evident in his argument about the school board in Kansas adopting an English-only policy, with his claim that individuals bringing a suit against the school “completely forget 200 years of history and ideals and values that have made this liberal society available to them.” It seems the history of a liberal society to which Dobbs refers could be taken to mean the rights of private institutions and organizations to enact whatever policies within their groups that they wish. This draws upon the public-private split that has been central to much of United States society since its inception, that has been a hallmark of the theories of liberalism to which Dobbs refers, and, that seems to be the only ground upon which he might have a case in railing against those who challenged the school’s English-only policy (i.e., the school, since it is private, has a right to enact its own rules within its organization). I’m not sure I entirely agree with that case, but I think that’s the only viable case he has here. Yet, he clearly then has a double standard when he is discussing the institution of English as an official language, as in the case of the proposition in Missouri. Here, we are certainly not talking about a private institution or organization; this is very much the opposite—the public forums of public administration. When Dobbs then says that we should require the language of one group to take precedence over others within that forum, he has now advocated the private takeover of the public good and, thus, he has muddied the water of the very public-private split that he as held up as so sacrosanct. At the same time, for one who spends much time vigorously arguing against elitists who are imposing their wills on the United States’ people, he is now doing the very same thing that he has been so vociferously against. He is advocating for the imposition of the will of whites of European heritage who have held power in this country since its inception to maintain and reinforce their own power and privilege against others.

Lou, you can’t have it both ways like this. Well, I suppose you can, but it is not "intellectually honest," which is a quality that you hold up in this very segment of your program as important, and it exposes a number of unexamined assumptions of significance that inform your positions. And so, in the same way that you have issued challenges to others, I challenge you to take a much harder and deeper look at the ways in which your own cultural biases are influencing your positions and blinding you to aspects of racism that are embedded within those positions.