{"id":76941,"date":"2016-08-25T18:47:42","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T16:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/secular-transcendence-for-couch-potatoes-why-we-love-sports-narratives-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2016-08-25T18:47:42","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T16:47:42","slug":"secular-transcendence-for-couch-potatoes-why-we-love-sports-narratives-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/secular-transcendence-for-couch-potatoes-why-we-love-sports-narratives-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Secular transcendence for couch potatoes? Why we love sport’s narratives | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Secular transcendence for couch potatoes? Why we love sport’s narratives<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand stops running during the 5000m race to help Abbey D'Agostino of the USA after D'Agostino suffered a cramp.<\/span> Kai Pfaffenbach\/Reuters<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It seems that the Olympic Games have passed \u201cpeak television\u201d, with worldwide viewership numbers for Rio 2016 down substantially from London four years ago. The shift from traditional broadcasting to online streaming is one factor, but the greatest source of anxiety for TV executives is the filtering of Olympics coverage through Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram \u2013 a process of mediation that makes it difficult to secure advertising revenue.<\/p>\n

Another consequence of the Olympics being disseminated and accessed through micro-blogging is that the Rio Games were not simply \u201cwatched\u201d, but \u201cshared\u201d; that is to say, they were narrated, hyper-narrated, by hundreds of millions of users each offering our own account of events.<\/p>\n

When South Africa\u2019s Luvo Manyonga won a silver medal in the long jump, my first reaction was to tweet: \u201cAn amazing story: SA athlete soars above poverty, drugs.\u201d But, like most social media users, I was not creating a narrative \u2013 I was simply reproducing one that had already been established by journalists.<\/p>\n

This was the case with a number of the athletes who delivered extraordinary performances. American gymnastics sensation Simone Biles was a foster child who had been neglected as a result of her biological parents’ drug and alcohol addiction. Judo champion Rafaela Silva, who won Brazil\u2019s first gold in Rio, grew up in the notorious \u201cCity of God\u201d favela.<\/p>\n

My South African compatriots and I soon learned more about our other medallists: first it was 400m star Wayde van Niekerk\u2019s childhood in Kraaifontein in the Western Cape, his mother\u2019s sporting accomplishments, his 74-year-old coach; then it was javelin silver medallist Sunette Viljoen\u2019s struggle against the homophobia of her family.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Gold medalist Wayde van Niekerk (RSA) of South Africa poses with his medal after winning the 400m event in record time.<\/span> Dylan Martinez?Reuters<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We already knew that Chad Le Clos’ appearance at the Olympics followed a difficult time as both his parents battled cancer. And of course we had all followed the trials and tribulations of Caster Semenya.<\/p>\n

Triumph over adversity – and tedium<\/h2>\n

What is it about the Olympics that makes us want to see sporting performance as the dramatic climax of a life story? Truth be told, although many athletes’ personal histories are tales of triumph over adversity, an accurate account of their lives as sportspeople would have to focus on the tedium of training, day in and day out \u2013 an epic fight against monotony, a brave but boring tale of discipline.<\/p>\n

Sports movies tend to make us think of training as a two-minute musical montage wedged into two hours of human drama, but the fact is that a faithful telling of sporting success would match two hours of sweat with two minutes of dialogue.<\/p>\n

\"\"
South Africa\u2019s Olympic medalists Cameron van der Burgh and Caster Semenya pose for a picture.<\/span> Siphiwe Sibeko\/Reuters<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nonetheless, we are drawn to behind-the-scenes narratives that emphasise the off-field context. It\u2019s comforting when we discover that sporting icons are vulnerable like the rest of us. It\u2019s gratifying to see them \u201covercome the odds\u201d. They inspire us, and we share in their victories. In the case of South African heroes like Manyonga, Van Niekerk, Viljoen and Semenya, their life stories are significant because they seem to represent a direct confrontation with some of our country\u2019s most prominent social and economic ills.<\/p>\n

Global audiences might be tempted, wrongly, to turn to the Olympics for escapism \u2013 or, at least, for counter-narratives to the grim tales of geopolitical woe we encounter in the news. In short, we want the Olympics to be uplifting. We want more than the condescending pleasure of learning about \u201cminnow\u201d sports, more than the Quixotic thrill of watching a hopeless competitor guts it out, more than the facile assertion that \u201ceveryone gets their moment in the sun\u201d.<\/p>\n

Give us \u201csafe\u201d nationalism<\/h2>\n

We want the games to conform to the vision of founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Pierre de Coubertin, in which fervent patriotism meets with a sense of international comradeship. We want a \u201csafe\u201d nationalism, in which athletes give their all for their countries but are somehow untainted by politics. Yet that was a naive belief in 1896 when the committee was founded, and it has been exposed as such at every modern Olympic gathering since.<\/p>\n

In Rio, New Zealand\u2019s Nikki Hamblin and American Abbey D’Agostino gave us a reminder of the Olympic ideal in the women\u2019s 5000m, helping each other to hobble across the line in a gesture of mutual goodwill. The Olympic spirit did not prevail, however, when Egypt\u2019s Islam El-Shehaby refused to shake the hand of Israel\u2019s Or Sasson after their judo bout.<\/p>\n

\"\"
American athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.<\/span> Shutterstock<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unsurprisingly, the history of the games provides just as many examples of national, religious or racial conflict as it does of \u201cbrotherhood\u201d and \u201csisterhood\u201d. Think of Berlin 1936 or Munich 1972; Moscow 1980 or Los Angeles 1984. The Games have consistently provided a platform for propagandists and their twisted tales.<\/p>\n

Often, sports stories collapse into bathos \u2013 and Rio 2016 fits this narrative too. There were Ryan Lochte and his fellow lying, privileged frat boys. There was (and will be) the usual crop of drugs cheats. The IOC is full of corrupt or inept officials.<\/p>\n

Sports ministers make promises they don\u2019t keep. Commentators and sports writers perpetuate the sexism that is the bane of female athletes. Corporate sponsors with no interest in sport or sportspeople want returns on their investments. And it goes on.<\/p>\n

Cynics and sport<\/h2>\n

Cynicism about the Olympics is well-founded. At times it seems the only reasonable approach to this expensive spectacle. In four years, however, we will turn our attention to Tokyo in hopeful expectation \u2013 opening a new chapter in the Olympic book.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, weekends and weeknights will continue to offer the infinite micro-narratives of professional sports fixtures available to fans and couch potatoes everywhere. JM Coetzee, writing in \u201cDoubling the Point: Essays and Interviews\u201d about rugby \u2013 although he could be describing any number of other sporting codes \u2013 has suggested that sport offers us \u201can island of eighty minutes lifted out of the time of one-thing-after-another\u201d. As a game it \u201cpromises to give meaning to a stretch of time\u201d. In this, he affirms, sport \u201cis like narrative\u201d. Here we have sport depicted in pseudo-religious terms; watching sport presents the chance for a kind of secular transcendence.<\/p>\n

As a literary studies scholar, I am intrigued by this relationship between sport and narrative. It was one of the topics tackled in \u201cSport versus Art: A South African Contest\u201d, a collection of essays I compiled in 2010. A number of contributors to the book framed the opposition between sport and art in terms of playfulness: while we may talk about \u201cplaying\u201d a sport, \u201cplaying to win is not really playing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Competitive (especially professional) sport, according to this argument, lacks the playfulness that is a prerequisite of artistic and literary creation \u2013 and, as Coetzee notes, because it is a rule-bound pursuit, sport lends itself to being \u201ceasily captured and used by political authority\u201d. The arts (including story-telling) remain, Coetzee tells us, \u201cslippery\u201d and \u201cresistant\u201d to such authority.<\/p>\n

When we assess the narratives that develop around sportspeople, it is helpful to keep these contrary views in mind: sport can be comparable to literary creativity, but it can also function as its diametrical opposite.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Chris Thurman receives funding from the National Research Foundation (South Africa) and the Humboldt Foundation. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/small>
\n<\/p>\n

Read more on The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Secular transcendence for couch potatoes? Why we love sport’s narratives: Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand stops running during the 5000m race to help Abbey D'Agostino of the USA after D'Agostino suffered a cramp. Kai Pfaffenbach\/Reuters It seems that the Olympic Games have passed \u201cpeak television\u201d, with worldwide viewership numbers for Rio 2016 down substantially from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[8890,19255,3873,12314,14280,19253,4605,19254],"class_list":{"0":"post-76941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-conversation","8":"tag-couch","9":"tag-love","10":"tag-narratives","11":"tag-potatoes","12":"tag-secular","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-transcendence","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}