[Each
year for the last
few, I’ve used Super
Bowl week as a platform
for a series on sports
in America. This week, I’ll be AmericanStudying figures and moments related
to women in sports, leading up to a weekend Guest Post on cheerleading in
American society and culture!]
On why I haven’t
quite appreciated the MMA superstar, and how I’m trying to.
I’ve written
in this space before, as part of my annual (and upcoming!) non-favorites series,
about why I can’t bring myself to watch or enjoy boxing (although I recognize
its longstanding, vital importance to American history and culture). Well,
everything I said in that post I would likewise say, and with even more force,
for mixed martial arts (MMA),
the newer sport that has (I would argue) both far less of the historical and
cultural significance and far more of the violence than does the sweet science.
I’m not suggesting that MMA should be banned in any way, nor would I dismiss it
in the same way that Meryl Streep did in the
one sour note in her otherwise pitch-perfect Golden Globes speech
earlier this year (although I’m certainly no fan of Streep’s antagonist in that
hyperlinked debate, Ultimate Fighting Championship [UFC] President Dana White,
and wasn’t even before he spoke
at Donald Trump’s Republican National Convention last July). Instead, I’m
just expressing a strong personal antipathy toward MMA, a feeling that it taps
into (as I likewise argued for boxing) some of the darker sides of our human
psyches and desires. I’d do most anything for my sons, but if they asked me to
watch (or even talk about) MMA with them, I think I’d have to say no.
Given that
overall antipathy toward the sport, it’s no surprise that I haven’t been able
to share in the widespread appreciation for (and even I would argue adulation
of) its most
famous single athlete (and one of the most
famous athletes in the world): Ronda
Rousey. But my unhappiness with the accolades sent Rousey’s way hasn’t been
limited simply to the fact that I don’t believe anyone who makes a living
beating the living crap out of other people is necessarily an ideal candidate
for a role model (which is how Rousey
has often been described, especially for young girls, although to her
credit she
has resisted that label). Instead, I would add that (in my admittedly
partial experience observing Rousey, at least in her public
and professional personas) I have often found Rousey to represent some of
the sides of sports and competition that I find most distasteful: self-confidence
and –centeredness to the point of arrogance, blithe dismissal of and disrespect
toward fellow competitors, even some of the same problems
of aggression and domestic violence that I highlighted with Hope Solo in
yesterday’s post. None of those elements take away from the groundbreaking
successes she has achieved in her sport—indeed, at least some of them have
likely been contributing factors to her
dominance in that sport and the sports world overall—but they have led me
to do my best to steer clear of any stories or coverage of Rousey over the
years.
Until this week,
that is, when (in preparation for this series and post) I came upon an
article on Rousey’s overt and impassioned opposition (in an Instagram post,
which still feels weird for this AmericanStudier to write but is no different
from the kinds of Twitter
activism about which I’ve
written in this space on multiple
occasions) to Donald Trump’s immigration Executive Orders. Seeing that
social and political activism of Rousey’s crystallized a question I had already
begun to ask myself: couldn’t I level many of the same critiques of her public
and professional persona that I raised above against another fighter in a sport
I don’t enjoy, Muhammad
Ali? Few if any athletes have been as purposefully and proudly arrogant, as
dismissive of competitors, as was Ali in his prime—and few have backed up such
attitudes more consistently than he did, although Rousey in her prime would
have to be said to have come close. I’m not suggesting that Rousey has faced
the same or even similar obstacles and attitudes as did Ali, nor that her
activism measures up
to his (at least not yet—the story is far from over). Yet in any case there’s
no doubt that, despite the parallels in both their sports and their personas, I
have found myself far more instinctively supportive of Ali and dissatisfied
with Rousey. And I wouldn’t be doing justice to the topic of this week’s series
if I didn’t at least consider whether gender has anything to do with that
distinction, and thus whether I shouldn’t challenge myself to change my
perspective as a result.
Special Guest
Post this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other women and sports connections or analyses you’d share?
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