Sunday, November 21, 2004
Basketball violence and a secret thrill
It didn't start in Detroit. Here's a more, er, nostalgic look at basketball fisticuffs between the Rockets and the Celtics 25 years ago.
I have a confession to make: deep down, I enjoy a little sports violence, and I think many normal middle-American males who would not themselves throw a punch secretly agree with me. How else to explain the incessant rebroadcasting of the video from Detroit, and its omnipresence in the blogosphere? Millions of us are fascinated, and not because of the revulsion we feel when watching, say, a decapitation video from Iraq. We are fascinated because we are not so different from the Romans, and every now and then we want our circuses to get a little crazy. If the price is a couple of fat lips and some thrown beer, what's the big deal? And don't give me that the children might see something ugly. The children will get over it, as they always do.
I have a confession to make: deep down, I enjoy a little sports violence, and I think many normal middle-American males who would not themselves throw a punch secretly agree with me. How else to explain the incessant rebroadcasting of the video from Detroit, and its omnipresence in the blogosphere? Millions of us are fascinated, and not because of the revulsion we feel when watching, say, a decapitation video from Iraq. We are fascinated because we are not so different from the Romans, and every now and then we want our circuses to get a little crazy. If the price is a couple of fat lips and some thrown beer, what's the big deal? And don't give me that the children might see something ugly. The children will get over it, as they always do.
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