The iconic and iconoclastic singer/guitarist/songwriter/cultural lightning rod was found dead today in an elevator (wasn't that somehow part of "Let's Go Crazy"?) at his home/recording studio/complex in Minnesota. In a year with entirely too many musicians slipping off this mortal coil, this one was a cannon shot to the solar plexus for those of us of a particular age.
Prince wasn't without his affections for sports, especially for his Minnesota-based teams. He once wrote a song for the NFL's Minnesota Vikings, took in the NBA's Timberwolves, and threw was has been called an epic concert for the WNBA's Minnesota Lynx after they won their league championship.
But perhaps his most indelible mark in the sporting world was his performance for the halftime show of Super Bowl XLI, in Miami in 2007.* This was the Super Bowl that was unique for more than its particular combination of Roman numerals; it was the one Super Bowl that got rained on, pretty much for the whole game.
*Corrected; originally "2012" -- apparently I can't do Roman numerals anymore.
In this story (from The Weather Channel...well, he did sing about purple rain) the story is told of Prince's reaction when NFL foofs checked the weather that morning and folks in charge of the halftime show reported the rain to Prince. His epic reaction: "Can you make it rain harder?"
He of course proceeded to go out and blow the Super Bowl away, rain-slickened stage and all.
What is interesting, in watching the event all these years later, is how little Prince particularly cares to be part of the NFL's spectacle; Prince was a spectacle all by himself, and that year the NFL was fortunate to tag along with a performer for whom a downpour was just an interesting stage effect.
But Prince at the Super Bowl does raise some interesting points about the spectacle that attaches itself to the Super Bowl and other major sporting events (and indeed, to almost all professional and major-college sporting events to some degree). The very idea of a halftime show at a football game points to the degree to which some kind of spectacle has attached itself to that particular game for a very long time. (It might be worth the recollection that, throughout high school and my first two years of college, I was part of that spectacle -- a band geek.)
If you think about it, that's a little bit different from other sports. Most sporting events anymore begin with the national anthem -- a bit of patriotic spectacle, if you will -- but, unless you're in the playoffs, that's about it for a baseball game (unless you count "Take Me Out To the Ballgame" as a kind of spectacle; I could see it, but I think of it as something different.) Basketball games, on the major-college level at least, are increasingly offering some sort of halftime entertainment, which might vary from some sort of musical performer to a juggler or tumbling act or aerial acrobatics -- what might have been called "sideshow entertainment" in the past. Having not been to an NBA game I can't comment on what happens there.
The longstanding tradition of halftime spectacle, though, seems fairly unique to football. This I suppose is fairly sensible, since of the most popular sports going today football has the most in common with the kind of sporting event that used to be called "spectacle."
Yes, kids, it's time to bring in the good ol' Roman Empire and its "spectacles."
I have remarked in previous blog entries on the relative lack of sustained development of theological consideration of the ongoing saga of brain trauma and football; one partial exception is discussed here, and Dr. Hoffman's book is among a rather larger (though still not huge) body of literature that takes on the subject of Christianity and sports more generally. One of the inevitable tropes that appear in such literature is the games and sports of the Roman Empire, events to which are frequently attached the term "spectacle." This emphasizes, beyond the simple physical brutality of the contests (includiating gladiatorial combats and chariot races), the degree to which extra-sporting events accrued around the sporting contests. Of course, in the case of Rome, it might in some cases be that the sporting contests wormed their way into the specacle.
At times the spectacle was overtly religious, in the context of the Roman Empire and its pantheon of deities. Multiple such deities might have been appeased or honored in the ceremonies surrounding the contests, and of course the emperor or any representative of the emperor could expect his own share of adulation as well. (Looking slightly further back in history, much the same would have held true of the Athenian spectacles surrounding the original Olympic Games.)
Of course, the contests themselves were much more immediately harmful to their competitors, and in some cases much more immediately fatal, depending on the whim of the emperor or crowd. Though there are exceptions, we do not expect our competitors to die in front of us at sporting events we attend, and when it does happen the sporting entity in question goes through all manner of soul-searching and procedural review. Even an organization like NASCAR erupts in a paroxysm of new safety measures and guidelines in the wake of a death or major injury on the track (although, with the sometimes highly personal affection for the competitors in that more individual sport, perhaps that's not so surprising).
Nowadays, the adulation of "idols" surrounding our sporting events is rather more discreet as well. While a great deal of adulation seems to be directed at God by some athletes on or immediately off the field, it's not always certain how much that adulation is actually directed at the God revealed in the crucified Christ, the Man of Sorrows, the Prince of Peace. (But that's a discussion for another book, some of which have already been written -- but that's another blog post.) There are plenty of other idols surrounding our sporting events, though, if you look hard enough.
One might think of the corporate sponsors, who now generally have their names spashed on everythign from the stadium itself to the timeouts, not to mention in signs all over the place. (I once went to a minor-league baseball game where the strikeouts were "sponsored by Circle K"; funny, but if Circle K didn't pony up the dough were the pitchers not allowed to strike anybody out?) Perhaps the cheerleaders on the sidelines become objects of, uh, we'll call it "worship" for now although we know darn well it's anything but. The coaches increasingly become figures of a particular kind of adulation. Celebrities who appear in the stands (particularly in Fox baseball broadcasts) might fall in here.
Perhaps even the players themselves, or more specifically the bodies of the players themselves, become these objects of devotion. This is of course particularly ironic in the case of football or other sports in which intense physical damage or harm is the frequent (or possibly inevitable -- yes, that entry again) consequence of the action on the field.
One of the questions that is inevitable is: how much does the spectacle surrounding the game a cover for the destructiveness of the game itself on the bodies of those who play, or how much does the game seek cover in spectacle? Or does the spectacle seek to draw attention to itself by attaching itself to the game?
In this context it's interesting to go back to Prince's halftime show, and to remember why such shows became the norm. In case you don't remember, or you're a little too young to remember, you kinda have to blame Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans for that.
In 1992 Fox (not yet privileged to broadcast the Super Bowl, I guess?) went after the NFL's halftime activities (at that point the most frequent performer for SB halftimes was still the Grambling University marching band, I think, and Up With People was another common guest performer), counterprogramming a strange little halftime called "Winter Magic" with an episode of their sketch-comedy program "In Living Color," starring Carrey and Wayans and others. The counterpunch was effective enough to draw more viewers than the Super Bowl halftime show. (This after the previous year's halftime show had been pre-empted, at least on the air, by ABC News coverage of Operation Desert Storm.) The NFL was going to have none of that; the following year's halftime show featured no less than Michael Jackson, and such major acts has been the trend ever since (with a brief detour into former major acts after sister Janet's exposed nipple).
Clearly in that case spectacle became a means of propping up the game. Or is it that clear? After all, the audience that flipped the channel for "In Living Color" did seem to return to the game right afterwards. But incomplete or distracted adulation of idols apparently doesn't cut it; it seems you are required to stay for the whole worship service.
This is far from a complete survey of the relationship of sport and spectacle, and football is far from the only sport to indulge in it to some degree. (At some point we really need an examination or dissection of the crazy ceremonies that precede soccer matches, especially FIFA-sponsored contests.) We're not far from another round of the modern Olympics, where sport and spectacle are joined at the hip. But the relationship of sport and spectacle in a sport still grappling with its frequently destructive tendencies towards its players can't be neglected in seeking to sort out the allegiances of those who continue to participate (as fans or supporters) in the game, or the spectacle, or in some combination of both.
RIP Prince. Regrettably, the rain was not purple that night.
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