Sports in French Culture
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Sporting Frenchness: Nationality, Race, and Gender at Play by Rebecca W. Wines A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Romance Languages and Literatures: French) in the University of Michigan 2010 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Jarrod L. Hayes, Chair Professor Frieda Ekotto Professor Andrei S. Markovits Professor Peggy McCracken © Rebecca W. Wines 2010 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Jarrod Hayes, the chair of my committee, for his enthusiasm about my project, his suggestions for writing, and his careful editing; Peggy McCracken, for her ideas and attentive readings; the rest of my committee for their input; and the family, friends, and professors who have cheered me on both to and in this endeavor. Many, many thanks to my father, William A. Wines, for his unfailing belief in me, his support, and his exhortations to write. Yes, Dad, I ran for the roses! Thanks are also due to the Team Completion writing group—Christina Chang, Andrea Dewees, Sebastian Ferarri, and Vera Flaig—without whose assistance and constancy I could not have churned out these pages nor considerably revised them. Go Team! Finally, a thank you to all the coaches and teammates who stuck with me, pushed me physically and mentally, and befriended me over the years, both in soccer and in rugby. Thanks also to my fellow fans; and to the friends who I dragged to watch matches, thanks for your patience and smiles. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Abstract iv Introduction: Un coup de boule comme coup d’envoi 1 Chapter One: A Game for Barbarians Introduction 13 Class and Rugby in French Writing 32 Pierre Danos the Piano Player 37 Antoine Wisser, dit Paparou, and the Anti-Paris 50 Sancey-Soro and Violent, Rebellious Masculinity 65 Class, Violence, and Masculinity 72 Chapter Two: Men In Pink Allez le Stade Français! 77 Stade Français 83 Dieux du Stade 88 Conclusion 105 Chapter Three: Soccer, Race, and Migration: Black, blanc, beur et les Bleus Introduction: World Cup 1998 107 Soccer in France 114 Banlieue noire 130 Le ventre de l’Atlantique 147 Conclusions: Soccer Is Not the Answer—Or Is It? 170 Conclusion: Policing Boundaries, Producing Bodies 172 Appendix: Glossary of Rugby Terminology 199 Works Cited 202 iii Abstract Concerned with modern sports in French culture since 1870, this dissertation explores how gender, class, and race, as well as local identity, shape and are shaped through interpretations of cultural events, through literature, and through images that are imbricated with sports. Primarily through literary analysis but also employing postcolonial theory, cultural studies, and feminist theory, it will examine sports’ entanglement with postcoloniality, commercialization, and immigration. Chapter one looks at the construction and performance of masculinity in three short stories about rugby published in a 1961 collection by Henri Garcia, Les Contes du rugby. I argue that the prevailing cultural climate combined with rugby culture to foster a localized interpretation of masculinity in Southwest France that permitted certain classed variations of gender roles within its own confines. In contrast, chapter two examines the more contemporary Dieux du Stade commercial ventures of the Stade Français rugby team and details the impact of professionalization and globalization on rugby’s particular brands of masculinity. Players’ masculinities have become more homogeneous as market demands push the men to train more and play more internationally. Their bodies have become, in addition to the tools of their trade, commodities to be traded and flaunted. The Dieux du Stade calendars exemplify these phenomena, as players transform their already marketed and marketable iv bodies into differently consumable objects and rupture the traditional rivalries among different rugby teams and different sports. Finally, chapter three focuses on soccer, a sport whose long history of professionalism contrasts with rugby’s recent shift from amateurism. The salaries earned by the sport’s stars as well as those stars’ diversity have contributed to soccer’s construction as a meritocratic vehicle for upward social mobility, but in readings of two recent novels involving soccer, race, and immigration (Banlieue noire by Thomté Ryam and Le ventre de l’Atlantique by Fatou Diome), I argue that these books demystify certain perceptions of the game’s power to help individuals transcend social marginalization. Taken together, these three chapters examine questions of Frenchness and sports’ roles in defining nationality, class, race, and gender, proposing sports as a new site for thinking through intersectionality. v Introduction: Un coup de boule comme coup d’envoi During the final game of the 2006 Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup in Germany on July 9, a single action threatened to overshadow the match and its result.1 France and Italy had played to a tie in regulation time and were still in a draw in extra time at the 110th minute when Zinédine Zidane, star and captain of the French team, head-butted Marco Materazzi in the chest, knocking the Italian defender to the ground.2 Zidane was shown a red card and ejected from the game. Because he had already decided to retire from soccer following the World Cup, the coup de boule—head butt—became his final moment ever on the pitch. Debate immediately raged about what Materazzi could have said to provoke Zidane to such violence, especially since his expulsion gave Italy the edge to go on to win in the penalty shootout.3 British paper Daily Mail summoned an expert lip reader who could “lip read foreign languages phonetically and translate with the aid of an Italian interpreter” and who claimed to discover that, “First Marco Matterazzi [sic] called the French star the equivalent of „n*****,‟ and then insulted both his mother and his Muslim background by 1 Associated Press sports journalist Robert Millward was at least one writer of this opinion, titling his article, “Italian triumph merely a sideshow.” 2 In soccer, the clock counts up. Soccer matches consist of two halves of 45 minutes, the end of which is called full time. In tournament play, if the teams are tied at full time, they play two additional fifteen- minute periods. If the game is still tied after extra time, each team selects five players from those on the field at the end of extra time to take penalty kicks and these players alternate shots on the opposing team‟s goalkeeper. The team with the most goals after the five rounds of kicks wins. 3 Despite the popular image of Zidane in France as a quiet, gentle man, he had, in addition to other infractions, already incurred a five-match ban in 2000 for headbutting an opponent during a Champions League game when he played for Juventus in Italy (Hale and Allen; May; Pugmire). 1 saying he is the „son of a terrorist whore‟” (Hale and Allen).4 French defender William Gallas, who played alongside Zidane, asserted, “The Italians did everything they could to provoke Zidane” (qtd. in Pugmire). The French anti-racism advocacy group SOS- Racisme issued a communiqué asking for an investigation into Zidane‟s ejection, stating, “Selon plusieurs sources très bien informées dans le monde du football, il semblerait que le joueur italien Marco Materazzi ait traité Zinedine Zidane de „sale terroriste‟” (“SOS Racisme demande une enquête”). [According to several very well informed sources from the football world, it would seem that the Italian player Marco Materazzi called Zidane a “dirty terrorist.”]5 For his part, Materazzi denied calling Zidane a terrorist and went so far as to claim he did not even know what an “Islamic terrorist” was (“Zidane: Quand on touche à la maman;” Moore). In France discussion about Zidane‟s action was all consuming for several days, if not weeks.6 Was he justified in his retaliation? Should he have taken the law into his own hands in such a way? Did he still merit the Golden Ball? Was his departure really shameful? Much of the debate hinged on guesses of what Materazzi might have said and thus to what extent, depending on the utterance, Zidane was or was not in the right to react physically. Some cited Zidane‟s Algerian Berber heritage to argue that culturally he was impelled to defend the honor of his mother and/or sister—the alleged target(s) of Materazzi‟s jibe—or to argue that his background encouraged the use of violence. Some went so far as to say that Zidane‟s ethno-cultural lineage was to blame for his temper in the first place: in his long career, he had received 13 other red cards for aggressive 4 Zidane understands Italian thanks to his years playing for Juventus in Italy. Benoît Vitkine‟s article provides a transcription of the supposed Zidane-Materazzi exchange in Italian with a French translation. 5 Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 6 Benoît Vitkine surveys some of the myriad websites devoted to the debate in his article “Le Web se saisit de l‟affaire Zidane.” 2 actions, including one for stomping on a Saudi Arabian player‟s groin during the 1998 World Cup. Others interpreted Zidane‟s gesture as a blow for pride and dignity, whether for those from poor neighborhoods in Marseille (such as La Castellane, where Zidane grew up), for children of Algerian immigrants, for Muslims (Amanullah), or for the French in general, as did François Sureau who claimed that for the French, “[d]‟un heureux coup de tête, [Zidane] a ressuscité notre belle réputation d‟insolence” [through a happy headbutt, Zidane resuscitated our beautiful reputation for insolence]. Others saw in the events simply “defeat and the disgrace of Zinédine Zidane, the national hero,” and claimed that “the captain and symbol of France‟s moral revival” had caused widespread disappointment through his actions (Bremner).