Director's cut — April 2007

April 1, 2007 by Tara Brabazon

We start the next cycle of sporting seasons beginning and others ending. The Premier League finishes as Australian Rules commences. The Cricket World Cup finally staggers to a conclusion while County cricket eases through its early rounds.

Yet. Yet … At the end of the four quarters or the two halves, we need to ask much more what it all means. The commodification of sport blocks us from thinking more proactively and productively about the relationship between identity, place and team. When South Africa maintained the putrid apartheid system, the politics of sport was clear. Yet-now that this oppression has been removed-we now must think more clearly about the purpose of sport and the reason for our investments in the colours of our team. For sport to be more than a fashion, a distraction from the banality of our lives, we must think about how we spend our time and invest our emotions.

Our eyes are ideological organs. We do not see the truth. We see a version of life that we can live with. Sport — with its winners and losers — has a safe predictability. Life, injustice and inequality rarely reveal such clean decisions.

T XXX

Permalink