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| painting by Adrian Tans |
Football. I really like football. Even more so when it's being played nearly perfectly like my boyfriend Tom Brady did last night. But there are certain things I just can't stomach about the game. I covered a few of them a while back in the this post Sports are violent, athletes are idiots, and fans are boors. Who cares? Sports rule.
Particularly problematic for me is the whole "Professional sports are misogynistic and homophobic and nationalistic" problem, because, to be honest, sports fans, and football fans in particular, are the worst people in the world. Just take a look at this scenario that went down at the New York Jets versus Dallas Cowboys game the other day in New Jersey, when Leroy McKelvey was arrested for using a stun gun on another fan. (On 9/11 by the way. Have you no decency, sirs?)
So far, so boorish and violent, right? But it's the motivation for the fracas that concerns me more. Something called Cliffview Pilot (via Deadspin) has the details.
"A Marine at the end of the row noticed that McKelvey and three others in his party would not stand or take their hats off for the national anthem," a law enforcement officer told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. "So the Marine tells McKelvey he better not have to get out of the row cause he won't let him out."
Sure enough, during the halftime show, McKelvey got up. Words were exhanged.
Kind of hard to choose who to side with here, on account of everyone being a violent douche. But it reminded me of a similar incident I had, a story I trot out every time something like this happens at a football game. Sadly I've had a lot of chances to tell it, like in this piece from last year Why the "blue collar" New England Patriots are really the NFL's Most Republican Football Team, which, come on, should have been way more of a thing.
"You know what happened last time I went to a Patriots game? I basically got called a treasonous commie by all the people in the stands around me when I didn't support the troops hard enough with some phony gesture or another.
...It makes sense that in our sporting temples, where people are buzzed on competition, patriotism has been celebrated above all else. But unlike sports, politics and national interest have no defined boundaries. Their reality is arbitrary, messy and cruel.
I experienced this firsthand at Gillette Stadium two years ago. Neglecting to stand for some display of nationalistic pride, I found myself demonized by a group of overly concerned citizens. Perhaps they took the name of the home team too literally.
An unassuming, middle-aged woman transformed into a guardian of groupthink, and barked out marching orders: "Stand up. Why won't you stand up?" You'd have thought I'd denounced capitalism in French, then wrapped a bald eagle in an American flag and set it on fire.
I have as much respect for the military as the next guy, if the next guy is a terrorist-loving freedom-hating liberal. Obviously it's a hard job and etc etc etc, and thanks for keeping the barbarians at the gate or whatever, but if you need me to stand up and pretend to respect some fairy tale concept about George Washington being nailed to the cross for our hamburgers every time I want to go watch a football game, and my not doing so somehow makes everything you've dedicated your life to less meaningful, then I don't think you're doing the whole America thing right.
Wonder how the right to bear arms crowd is going to come down on this one? A stun gun is still a gun, no? *Checks McKelvey's melanin level* Oh. Right.
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15 comments:
I think I remember thinking the pledge of allegiance was fucked in like 3rd grade, but I could just be inserting that back in after the fact. I'm like the George Lucas of my own life.
I don’t give a shit about the National Anthem but you sure as shit better stand and take off your cap when Toby Keith’s “Red, White, & Blue” comes on, even if you’re driving.
I take off my pants when that song comes on. Because I'm about to get diahreha.
dhiareha.
diarrhea. got it!
I've never understood why a nearly Pavlovian response is considered respectful.
Because the deep recesses of the brain swamp are where the loyalty fighters bunk?
I had similar experiences at Bruins games, and lets face it, hockey fans are right there with football fans in terms of collective hate rage. Once I was wearing a Soviet team jersey, not the smartest move I've ever made.
Yeah dude, the way you were dressed? You were asking for it.
Being from Northern Ireland I don't have any patriotism at all. Visiting America felt wierd because even these old ladies had these USA tatoos. Sometimes I think it would be nice to feel patriotic to somewhere and other times I'm glad I don't believe in these bullshit concepts.
Do you feel any sort of Irish ethnic pride?
Sometime I think it would be nice to experience the comforts of obedient religion or nationalism, but I suppose I never will. Unless you count REPPING BOSTON FOREVER KEHD.
That's funny since every dude in Boston is obsessed with Ireland, but an actual dude from Ireland isn't into it at all.
Igh, nothing worse than St Patrick's Day here. Which is actually every day.
https://putthatshitonthelist.com/2011/03/happy-st-patricks-day-i-hope-you-choke.html
I get totally weepy and gay over this video http://youtu.be/nb3Sl3pSP2w - I tried to post it earlier but it disappeared.
Being from the North of Ireland is wierd though - we're surrounded by two countries that kinda wish we would just float the fuck away.
Irish-Americans are out of their minds.
That is a weird post 9/11 thing with the enforced patriotism. Different cities are different. I noticed that in the last world series Texas was laying on the militarisim/republicanism super thick. SF really didn't bother with that shit.
Really, nothing in SF huh? Well, they are all godless homos liberals out there, right? Although Massachusetts is weird, because it seems like we'd be like that too, but it's really not at all, especially in the sports fandom world.
Plenty of drunk idiot sport fans but the whole patriotism thing isn't really their deal:
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/6881597/two-shot-candlestick-park-parking-lot-oakland-raiders-san-francisco-49ers-game
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