Megan O’Brien — Core Response #1
The spectacle of celebrity draws a sense of intrigue that is inexplicable. The audience wants to know everything about them; however, there is a clear line of what they are willing to accept. Audiences have expectations for star athletes and actors to fit into a box of perception that satisfies the role in which the audience views them as. Both Jane Fonda and Colin Kaepernick used their platforms to expose harsh political realities that polarized their fan bases and threatened the success of their careers. In Boykoff and Carrington’s article they state, “People just want to see people score touchdowns and make big hits . . . They don’t want to hear about people getting killed by the police, gentrification, women’s issues, nobody wants to hear about that, Standing Rock, nobody wants to hear about that. People just want to hear about athletes playing sports.(Baykoff and Carrington 843)” The authors perfectly articulate how fans are willing to die for the idea of their favorite player; however, when it comes to the actuality of what these people stand for, they are left disappointed by the differences. The aftermath of their controversy has proven to go further than losing fans, exemplified as Fonda lost an Oscar and Kaepernick lost his job altogether. Both individuals at the peak of their careers lost everything due to repercussions of their tarnished public image after speaking about politics.
Specifically in the case of Kaepernick, it was fascinating to see the roots of racial hierarchies from twentieth century America play out in today's news. In another class that I am taking we spoke about how history still affects stereotypes and perceptions today — similarly to what was mentioned in this class. We viewed several court cases to see the racial injustice throughout the legal system in the twentieth century. Despite consciously knowing it wasn’t fair, white lawmakers and judges utilized their power to silence minorities. In Kaepernick’s case, when a black man stood up for his community, a white man, Donald Trump, was able to instantly dismantle the argument by villainizing him as an anti patriot. He used his role as President of the United States to “cancel” Kaepernick in one tweet — and even worse, he was successful in doing so. In reality, Kaepernick was more of a patriot than anyone for standing up for the equality this country is falsely marketing. It is heartbreaking to see the injustice and consequences that are provoked from speaking out on important issues. It is even harder to digest, when seeing that this is not a new occurrence, but instead one that has been repeated time and time again. Through this example and the various lessons we have learned in this class, the importance of analyzing and studying history is beyond prevalent to move forward as a society.
While cases of racial injustice and cancel culture are visible, it is vital to advertise the history that led us to this point and recognize that the individuals on our screens are not their characters but instead people with opinions and values. There are definitely times when cancel culture is necessary but it is important to remember the benefit of our differences and to listen to each other’s points of view.
ReplyDeleteFROM PAU: "Thanks Megan for your comment. Your response made me think again about ideology and the conflicts it provokes because many do not see the high level of ideology that is conflated with any institution in our society, including leisure. While some art expressions are seen as related to ideological positions, pure entertainment is believed to be alienated from political statements or ideological discourses. For many, sports or cinema should be separate from anything political because it is entertainment designed for many people, and people want to be entertained and not lectured. A great example of this State is the quote that you included in your text, “People just want to see people score touchdowns and make big hits . . . They don’t want to hear about people getting killed by the police (Baykoff and Carrington 843)”. However, the reality is that sports and cinema work to serve larger institutions, such as the State or capitalism.
Mainstream sports include ideas of race, class, hierarchies of power, and economic power. As we see in terms of actors, sports celebrities are also types of success and the American Dream. However, these ideas sustain a dominant ideology, and because of that, they are hard to identify as political when we compare them with other ideologies that exist to challenge the dominant one. What Kaepernick did was dislocate the dominant ideology, signaling the ideological power contained in sports, including visibility and media power.
For many, doing that is equivalent to destroying the pleasure of being entertained. Citating Matrix, the fact that some elite athletes or other celebrities related to popular cultures point to socially dominant beliefs and norms is like taking the red pill. For many people who criticized Kaepernick, the fact that he was being political out of what the designated spaces for politics were almost so offensive as being “anti-patriotic.” This is something that is happening every day in our new-normal-hysterical-society in which many believe that cinema is too “woke” or too “political,” but it is incapable of seeing how political and ideological films are, like, for example, The Blind Side or Fast and Furious."