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video on demand all keys mind little girls and says feeds now in the palm of your. comb. more news today violence is what this again flared up. these are the images the world seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations are today. the lead. to me. politics has no plot to play on the field of strife of competition. throughout history we've been told that sports and politics don't mix and this is.

exactly why i lose you think that sports people should take more of a political view of no look we've been told that in the arena of sports it's all about things like achievements athletic performance competition individual is more playing the game and playing it well that's all that matters. to a shilling and yet everywhere we look there seems to be a strange contradiction of this no politics rule prominence and powerful displays of nationalism and patriotism and military might that seemed nothing if not political all of it set against politics of an entirely different kind throughout the history of sport performances and actions patriotic in their own right and seemingly in seeking was one of the oldest credos of athletics to do one's best with respect for others and the rules of the game without feeling.

this is a film that takes forced seriously as a cultural force a shared social space and a political force that reflects an intern shapes are often conflicting ideas and beliefs about who we are how we view others now we see ourselves as a country. i'm dave zirin and i love sports i grew up idolizing guys like lawrence taylor gary carter and magic johnson. i played baseball in high school and was the center starting. my basketball team the frightened quakers at new york friends my god we were terrible but sports remain life like most young boys in this country one message was fed to me every time i took a field or watched

a game the idea that sports and politics just don't mix we're all supposed to just kick back relax and enjoy the show everyone to break through that is rich koerner were not a mystery but for me all of that changed back one day in the early one nine hundred ninety s. i'll never forget it i went to madison square garden the world's most famous arena to watch a basketball game it was during the lead up to the first gulf war in one thousand nine hundred one and that half time i kid you know one of the mascots started to beat up this guy who was wearing this arab costume and the jumbotron was whipping the crowd up into a frenzy getting everybody to chant usa usa usa i mean it was sick i came to watch a game but i got served something else entirely. this was about as explicit a political spectacle as you could imagine to discuss athletes and activism we now

welcome dave zirin and i've basically made a career out of trying to understand that murky place where sports and politics collide as a writer as a commentator on e.s.p.n. and other major networks and in my sports radio show you know we got a hell of a show this week you know where it's ok this is where sports and politics collide and one of the first things i discovered was that sports is political in ways we don't often even notice especially on the level of culture where our ideas and attitudes as a society are shaped. historians have long known that you can find out a lot about the wider culture by looking at its sports culture. and history has taught us that sports is never just something that we just sit back and watch sports always. i've had an important social function and the history of american sports is no different it's here where societal and cultural meanings play out are very notions of who we are and how we see each other not only as americans but as

individuals as boys and girls and men and women ideas about gender and race and class. and as we'll see sports culture produces stories that become the dominant narratives that make certain ways of seeing the world normal conventional just the way it is at the same time actively trying to silence anything or anybody who doesn't fit in this accepted fray and this is what our football. friday. that's up. with everything you know what the world of sports has traditionally been thought of as a male i. think. masculine pumped up comfortable violence immunes again and again showing vulnerability of any kind of. sports culture offers a role models for what it means to be

a man and real men will do whatever it takes to win. when it. is never whether that means taking steroids to hit more home runs or pitching on a bloody ankle sports culture tells us that real men are willing to sacrifice their bodies for the team they play with pain they man up they shake it off they get back in the game physical investment you're hurting your soul you're tired just what you'll be killed and nothing in bodies and reproduces this masculine ideal better or more effectively than n.f.l. football there are shown weakness never shown weakness only friend of measure paying you in for being masculine means being able to inflict pain and to endure it no matter. violence and without regard for the consequences.

least. important. to him her soon could be. but this where image moves beyond personal identity to link up with and reinforce larger forces and values in the culture most notably militarist in ford all the object is for the quarterback otherwise known as the field general to be on target with his aerial assault riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the bullets even if he has to use the shotgun. with short bullet passes and long bombs the marches the troops into enemy territory balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack which punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's offensive line. and the militarization of sports culture might be even funnier if so many guys didn't take it so literally this war. will break and you know what about you they will kill you they're out there to kill you if i didn't hurt him you

hurt me you're going to feel my legs. come right back out of. soldier professional sports leagues actively promote this idea making it so commonplace in our culture that we don't even notice it we don't even question it actually actions including the super bowl forty three general david petraeus will tell us the point . and it's not just the national football league i went to a baseball game a few years back and it turned out i was also attending something called military appreciation night before the opening pitch with george w. bush in attendance a whole group of marines were sworn in at home plate then the p.a. announcer came in and said for those of you in the audience who also want a career in the military please. the appropriate she asked. if going to war isn't political there's nothing in. this hour as it

naturalizes ideas and images that deflect attention away from other realities and this is where it really starts to make. many people who follow professional football were saddened to learn last week that the hall of fame sort of like webster died at the age of fifty after years of combat on the field he had heart disease and brain damage however it is hard to find a former pro football player whose body hasn't paid a very high price the dominant narrative in sports culture presents a narrow glamorized view of militarism and violence that conceals many of the costs and consequences of this fictionalized ideal of male invulnerability you do feel like you are. so you can do anything you. want to where you want to go in the militarized spectacle of football especially there seems to be no room for the statistical fact that this sport takes a terrible toll on the human body. one two three.

three. six. her new surgery six out of ten former players say they have suffered at least one concussion while playing the average n.f.l. career is three and a half years and the average player will die twenty years sooner than the rest of the population twenty years it probably wasn't worth the kind of pain i'm in now but when i do it again absolutely all of which raises the question. does the cartoon version of violence we see in american sports culture sanitized and why i doubt the real life consequences of violence. and most importantly if sports glamorize war if they in effect deceive us about the reality and tragedy of war are we looking at a form of propaganda here. i

see back in two thousand and one tillman was coming off the best year of his career he was picked for sports illustrated's all protein and he just turned down a nine million dollar contract to stay with his team the arizona cardinals pats home and was tough and he was loyal then came nine eleven. respect for the unfolding tragedy the n.f.l. postponed a week of games but tillman went further than that he joined the army rangers my great grandfather was a pro harbor and a lot of my family has given up and i have since gone foreign wars and i really haven't done a damn thing this was the real deal a pro football player giving up a lucrative career to serve his country in the field of battle a true patriot and a true american hero news of another american as repo cost attention to me of sacrifice and service how tillman will be able to

a multi-million dollar contract in professional football has been killed pat tillman was dead his memorial service was aired on national television the army awarded him a silver star for his gallantry in action against an armed enemy they said tillman's convoy had been ambushed in afghanistan they said tillman charged up the hill to protect his men but was shot down by the taliban but there was only one problem it was a lie when he died in afghanistan on april twenty second two thousand and four the army told his family he'd been killed by enemy fire. after courageously charging up the hill to protect his fellow army rangers but that story didn't hold up he was really killed by friendly fire shot accidentally by his fellow soldiers and maybe the worst part about all of this was that this white washing of tillman story also hid what might be the most important part of his story he thought it. was

a mistake he thought it was going to be a disaster and you know you don't in the army you're not supposed to talk about you could you not he posed to talk politics and pat didn't shut up you know he told everyone you encounter this war as he was in fact when tillman was redeployed to afghanistan in two thousand and four he began reading the anti-war activists noam chomsky in the last ten years was devastated so the. tillman told his mother he wanted to meet chomsky in person after he returned to the united states was there any solace in the story the military told you about how courageous had been oh of course but what's interesting is the story itself seems so contrived this soldier you know running up the ridge line firing at the enemy you know saving his and. it did sound kind of put in john wayne movie the reason this misrepresentation of pat tillman matter so much is because it's so the

diddley exposes a fault line in the political mythology of sport it shows how the real man myth that gets reinforced in sports culture often works to marginalize actual men whose true acts of courage even if these take the form of standing up to the governments may be more admirable than the fictional half truths the science of them by the media sports complex forming a good deal to us but this is a. book which is exactly what happened recently when fox n f l sunday commemorated veteran stay. by broadcasting from airfield in afghanistan and proceeding to pay tribute to pat tillman without even hinting at the more complicated facts of his story the memory of pat tillman lives on at the u.s.o. center on this very airfield here at all rather than bothering to mention that tillman had turned against the war the fox commentators dressed in full camouflage used his life and death to promote war. time. in the n.f.l.

has always been a strong. ties between professional football in the us military have existed since the start of the n.f.l. back in nineteen twenty that relationship grew immensely during world war two and today that bonds is stronger than ever they allowed pat tillman's personal story to circulate within a larger political mythology in sports culture that seems more comfortable with men who fight wars than with men who fight against them when they believe them to be unjust. do you think. you know just insanely upset and i think you know like when you kind of look back on it he just he just laughed you know i can't you know this is just you know those are those are probably as exact words this is chris. it's as though questioning and wondering and thinking critically about the role sports plays in the wider culture

is somehow abnormal uncool and unmanly and it's just this attitude that throughout the history of american sports has marginalized entire groups of people. where. seemingly exhaustible storage. in schools began offering physical education in the late eighteen hundreds the prevailing belief was that women were too fragile for such physical exertion. and. respected scientists even argue that sports would make women infertile. sex crazed or just plain insane then along came the bicycle bicycling is a lot of good exercise in the fine print as absurd as it seems now the idea of women riding bicycles was a profound threat to the male social order the so-called experts scientists how old that riding a bike would implode a woman's uterus or give her what they called quote the bicycle face which was

marked by peculiarities including pale complection and an anxious expression this was all part of a larger attitude toward women and physical activity take basketball the sport was invented in one thousand nine hundred one and women started playing it right away they were rough and aggressive despite having to wear dresses on the court alarmed these players were becoming too manly organizers instituted new rules that actually prohibited physical contact and any effort to hinder the shooter and just like that what started as scrappy and fun was made dainty and dull all in the name of keeping men manly and women womanly. surely women would be allowed to run right i mean it's a no bicycle face no context for it so what could be the problem the women's eight hundred meters debuted at the nineteen twenty eight olympics but at the finish some of the runners fell to the ground to catch their breath perfectly reasonable right

they were winded see this with men all the time too but for some reason this was considered so one lady like it caused an international scandal. deeming the sport too strenuous for the frail female form a limp it officials promptly banned the women's eight hundred meters for thirty years. the idea stuck so much so that one member of the international olympic committee would actually say in one thousand nine hundred fifty two that he hoped to eliminate women's track and field competition altogether from the olympics so that we all might be as he put it spare the unaesthetic spectacle of women trying to look and act like men. this all changed in the one nine hundred sixty s. and seventy's when women began toward and they broke out of traditional gender roles and took on responsibilities outside of the home it was called the women's movement the world has never been the same since.

and this struggle reflected itself on battlefields as unlikely as the boston marathon the race is going to be six miles three hundred eighty five yards from us in turn to boston this is normally all. most believe that women just couldn't handle the distance but nineteen sixty seven a woman by the name of kathy switzer registered as k v switzer and got into the race each of those bills are somewhat gilded when a girl appeared wearing number two sixty one listed in the program with letters her first name second name which are five miles into the race one of the marathon directors actually jumps off a truck to forcibly remove switzer from the course yelling get the hell out of my race but the men running with her fought him off for them kathy switzer had every right to be there and for them the boston marathon wasn't about proving male

supremacy putting boys against girls it was about people running a race when the pictures from the marathon were transmitted across the globe the world saw two opposing mom. of masculinity the violence and paranoia of the marathon director vs the strength and solidarity of the other male runners and at the center of it all the resolute focus of kathy switzer in that moment sports bridge the gender divide and gave the world a glimpse into what was possible. but maybe the most influential example of the fight for women's equality in american sports was embodied in the great billie jean king. has such a big ego trip that it's now worth it i don't you know i am not the only. one we think of politics and billie jean king today but a lot of us remember her famous battle of the sexes match against bobby riggs in

the early one nine hundred seventy s. so many. i've said it over and over again i throw away. one girl bobby riggs plays mrs billie jean king on a tennis court in houston's and i it's a match that's being billed as an epic battle of the sexes in front of a sold out crowd at the houston astrodome she beat the retired tennis star bobby rates in straight sets and what remains one of the most watched television programs in the history of sports to change the world you had to win i had to win you're absolutely correct and even though there's no doubting the importance of this event and the fact that it was a moment of tremendous symbolism billie jean king his contributions to women's equality far transcend that one match. tennis has always been a country club sport but billie jean king came from a working class background and grew up playing on public courts and when she finally got into the game she fought for pay equity every step of the way she was

the first ever president of the first ever women's sports union that organized women's tennis and she was also the first prominent woman to ever be out of the closet. right facing what is certainly the most serious. thirty seven year old really and that if you had a home in. maryland by now the revelation had an immediate blowback costing or a ton of prestigious money billie jean king was contract to make television the. company is not being renewed the new york daily news quotes a company of fish. saying she was too strong a personality that she was overpowering the product he denied of the company's decision that had anything to do with mrs paine's disclosure of a real relationship to take her years to win back her credibility but she was somebody who never shied away from who she was and what she believed. the fact that these women refused to accept the restrictive gender roles assigned to them and the

fact that their refusal sparked such widespread resentments and backlash from anik men is a crucial part of the history of sports and of this country it all goes back to its high i don't know i think in one thousand nine hundred eighty two law gave young women equal opportunity in education in sports before title nine roughly one out of thirty five girls played some form of sports today that number is one it out of three is amazing. it's a reform that has literally changed the lives of tens of millions of women but you wouldn't know that by looking at our sports media according to a series of studies done by sociologists michel messner and cheryl cookie the major networks and pretty much stopped covering women's sports altogether. coverage of women's sports on t.v. news and highlight shows has nearly evaporated since one thousand nine hundred nine

from a high of nine percent of airtime devoted to women athletes in one nine hundred ninety nine to an unbelievable one point six percent in two thousand and nine the best. said this back to you by. the major networks are more likely to promote women as swimsuit models cheerleaders or props for a beer commercial and serious athletes a bikini fashion still in the in old ladies how was that. kept telling on telly this fixation on women's bodies is no different from playboy is women of the olympics issue or n.b.c.'s prime time coverage of women's beach volleyball a sport that just so happens to be played the bikini's on synthetic rechelle is why they go down as well as that i'll ever forget athletes are no longer the focus they're just another excuse to sell women's bodies to male viewers. here.

bringing you the latest in science and technology from the realms. of the future of coverage. thank you i'm having here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

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