Society/Culture Sport and Australian Intellectuals

[Old Spice]

What do Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, Roland Barthes, Albert Camus, CLR James and Marcel Duchamp have in common? They are intellectuals with an appreciation for sport and what it signifies in the modern age.

Trying to find any cultural equivalents in Australia is a sport in itself. Maligning sport has been something of an occupational pastime for sections of the cultural and intellectual vanguard of Australia to the extent it is focused on at all. Donald Horne in The Lucky Country saw sport as a type of egalitarian aspiration of the poor to “enjoy the games of the rich” but also as a vehicle for reproducing a “masculine sameness” which he saw functioning in Australian society as “one of the most flattening sources of uniformity”.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...al-irrelevance-sport-australian-intellectuals

Why is it that we don't have Norman Mailer types in Australia given the enormous popularity of sport in the nation?

 

[Norwegian Blue]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...al-irrelevance-sport-australian-intellectuals

Why is it that we don't have Norman Mailer types in Australia given the enormous popularity of sport in the nation?

Tom Keneally is a mad keen Rugby League fan, living in, and supporting, Manly. Does he count?

 

[Gough]

Tom Keneally is a mad keen Rugby League fan, living in, and supporting, Manly. Does he count?

Gideon Haigh has written a few books on non-cricket subjects and Geoffrey Blainey wrote a A Game of Our Own, a history of Aussie Rules footy.

 

[clogged]

Geoff Lemon.

 

[Old Spice]

I think it's more about whether Australian intellectuals write about sport as a vehicle to explore the broader society. Australian academic and intellectual life tends to exist in discrete silos. Mailer and Plimpton were American intellectuals of wide interest and who saw the social and cultural significance of sport as enmeshed - not separate from - American life and mores. Blainey is the only one I can think of who tried to do similarly in Australia.

 

[Gough]

I think it's more about whether Australian intellectuals write about sport as a vehicle to explore the broader society. Australian academic and intellectual life tends to exist in discrete silos. Mailer and Plimpton were American intellectuals of wide interest and who saw the social and cultural significance of sport as enmeshed - not separate from - American life and mores. Blainey is the only one I can think of who tried to do similarly in Australia.

I'd argue Gideon Haigh has managed that in his cricket writing, it's his ability to look at the game in the context of Australian society that makes him such a great writer IMO.

 

[clogged]

I think it's more about whether Australian intellectuals write about sport as a vehicle to explore the broader society. Australian academic and intellectual life tends to exist in discrete silos. Mailer and Plimpton were American intellectuals of wide interest and who saw the social and cultural significance of sport as enmeshed - not separate from - American life and mores. Blainey is the only one I can think of who tried to do similarly in Australia.

Probably because many Australian intellectuals see sport as something beneath them. Paul Keating is probably the most notable proponent of this belief.

 

[Old Spice]

Probably because many Australian intellectuals see sport as something beneath them. Paul Keating is probably the most notable proponent of this belief.

If you look at some of the comments I'd suggest you're right.

 

[clogged]

Also, for the other side of the ledger, Australian sport doesn't really supply a groundswell of intellect when Tony Shaw and Ian Healy are commentators.

 

[blackcat]

America of Mailer's era, about 8, 9 times the population of 2015 Australia.

stats?

Malcolm Knox as well as Haigh.

 

[Gough]

I've always been intrigued that cricket has a long and rich literary tradition, while the winter sports, the Rugbys, football and Aussie Rules over the years struggle to produce much more than badly ghosted autobiographies. That said, Johnny Warren's Sheilas, Wogs and NTTAWWTters, plants the game in the context of the development of multicultural Australia.

 

[pokerspiv]

Tony Shaw makes Ian Healy look like Stephen Hawking, and I'm not just talking about his athleticism.

 

[blackcat]

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2012/06/18/3527712.htm

the Australian male culture evolved to mean men and sons, use sport to navigate emotional life, sport as cipher

This is a boyo sports panel from the Sydney Writers' Festival; but you don’t have to be a sports fanatic to like it.

You don’t have to know what a shortstop is to want to buy The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach or to know one end of a surfboard from the other to go out and buy That Life by Malcolm Knox. This is a conversation about male companionship, father/son relationships and the usual ‘sport as a metaphor for life’.

If you were lucky enough to catch that brilliant drama series ‘Friday Night Lights’, about the local gridiron team in Dillon, Texas, you’ll also like this panel discussion.

Gideon Haigh (cricket writer among other skills) is the moderator.​

 

[blackcat]

I've always been intrigued that cricket has a long and rich literary tradition, while the winter sports, the Rugbys, football and Aussie Rules over the years struggle to produce much more than badly ghosted autobiographies. That said, Johnny Warren's Sheilas, Wogs and NTTAWWTters, plants the game in the context of the development of multicultural Australia.

see: road cycling in Europe. Oxbridge grads drawn to it.

 

[blackcat]

Gough the time that those sports take up, the game/competition last most of a day, means it has a longer meditation of thought which will manifest.

And scribes may have to create fables to fill in gaps and offer a lure. hence, we get a culture that never existed in other sport.

p'raps, with 20/20 cricket, this culture would never have developed. Nor did it in track cycling.

 

[Contra Mundum]

I'd argue Gideon Haigh has managed that in his cricket writing, it's his ability to look at the game in the context of Australian society that makes him such a great writer IMO.

Best journalist in Australia - I read his stuff and go "Jesus that is great writing" - can't say I do that with many others. I like Greg Baum too

 

[Gough]

Best journalist in Australia - I read his stuff and go "Jesus that is great writing" - can't say I do that with many others. I like Greg Baum too

Haigh on the Brownlow Medal in The Vincibles;

The votes are read aloud by the league's CEO, rather like a bingo call, but delivered with the gravity of a declaration of war. The audience is composed of footballers, genial thugs in tuxedoes trying to look both coy and sober; alongside them lounge anorexic bottle blondes. No night on television is so butt-clenchingly embarrassing: imagine a music-free Eurovision Song Contest staged before several hundred nightclub bouncers.

 

[Contra Mundum]

I've always been intrigued that cricket has a long and rich literary tradition, while the winter sports, the Rugbys, football and Aussie Rules over the years struggle to produce much more than badly ghosted autobiographies. That said, Johnny Warren's Sheilas, Wogs and NTTAWWTters, plants the game in the context of the development of multicultural Australia.

There is a fantastic Lefty sports journalist in America called Dave Zirin. There is no one is Australia who puts AFL in its cultural context or who really analyses the rich culture of each team (beyond bulllshit cliches like toothless Collingwood supports and Snow loving Dees supporters). There is a stupid snobbbery among Aussie academics about sport - it is infused with meaning and culture - I wish there was someone who could chronicle it.

The footy almanac writers who are all amateurs are better at catching it

 

[Contra Mundum]

Haigh on the Brownlow Medal in The Vincibles;

See what I mean - how imaginative and accurate is it?

 

[Gough]

There is a fantastic Lefty sports journalist in America called Dave Zirin. There is no one is Australia who puts AFL in its cultural context or who really analyses the rich culture of each team (beyond bulllshit cliches like toothless Collingwood supports and Snow loving Dees supporters). There is a stupid snobbbery among Aussie academics about sport - it is infused with meaning and culture - I wish there was someone who could chronicle it.

The footy almanac writers who are all amateurs are better at catching it

Footy Almanac is the best writing on the AFL each year without fail.

 

[Contra Mundum]

Footy Almanac is the best writing on the AFL each year without fail.

I agree (conflict alert: sometime contributor ) it takes you back to the vibe of particular games - no paid scribe does that

 

[Gough]

I agree (conflict alert: sometime contributor ) it takes you back to the vibe of particular games - no paid scribe does that

That piece written by the eight year old on the Port v. Hawthorn Prelim this year was exactly why I look forward to it's release each year. Footy journos these days seem to write about themselves and each other more than the game itself.

 

[Illinois Nazi]

Adam Spencer likes soccer.

 

[Contra Mundum]

That piece written by the eight year old on the Port v. Hawthorn Prelim this year was exactly why I look forward to it's release each year. Footy journos these days seem to write about themselves and each other more than the game itself.

Yep and when Footy journos choose to write a long piece about a game the narrative is some contrived rubbish - its the random cliche generator. They can't even capture the enthusiam of a fan!

 

[Gough]

Yep and when Footy journos choose to write a long piece about a game the narrative is some contrived rubbish - its the random cliche generator. They can't even capture the enthusiam of a fan!

What's Patrick Smith going to do in 2056 when the ASADA/Essendon saga finishes, he'll have nothing to write about in the winter.