I would have totally attempted to write a post about football and sports culture today, in honor of the Super Bowl, and then I realized that I know approximately nothing about football. Apparently there’s tackling involved and something called a “down”? I dunno, it just seems way less interesting than The Lies of Locke Lamora.
Nevertheless, for a lot of men, sports culture in general and football culture in specific is a huge part of their masculinity and gender-role-enforcement and all that stuff! So I figure the people who have opinions about football and sports can discuss it here, and the people who don’t can go eat day-old Chinese, listen to indie music, and read fantasy novels.
Possible topics of conversation:
- Why do you, personally, love football, assuming you do? What is really fucking awesome about it?
- Does football involve the commodification of bodies (often of men of color, young men, men who grew up poor, and similar marginalized men) for the greater enjoyment of mostly-more-privileged men? Does this tie into the concept of the disposable male?
- Does football serve to reinforce negative parts of masculinity? The association between masculinity and violence? Ideas of “toughing it out” that keep men from getting the help they need? Rape culture? Substance abuse?
- Conversely, does football provide an outlet or channel for some things which masculinity generally doesn’t allow, such as emotional expression and male bonding?
- Which team is better/deserves to win/whatever? Which players made the most crappy mistakes or best plays? Which coach is a fuckhead who deserves to be fired? Who has the best recipes for their Super Bowl parties?
- Seriously, what the FUCK is a down? I’ve read calculus papers that make more sense than the Wikipedia page on the subject.
The post Open Thread: The Super Bowl appeared first on The Good Men Project.
