Stages of the global : media, sport, racialization and the last temptation of Zinedine Zidane

Major sport spectacles are probably the most potent, vibrant stages on which human drama can be played out in real time before a vast international audience. Media sport, through global scale ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“frozen momentsââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢, can precipitate popular interrogations of ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“raceââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ and its myriad connections to other socio-cultural structures and identities. This article considers the case of the now infamous incident of French captain Zinedine Zidane head-butting the Italian Marco Materazzi during the 2006 World Cup Final of association football in Germany, as a striking example of the political resonance and reach of mega-media sport, as well as of the perils of being ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“lostââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ and ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“foundââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ in popular media translation. The persistence and pervasiveness of sexism in the language and metaphor of racism, it is argued, is an essential ingredient of the ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“sexual racismââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ within the patriarchal genre of sports field insults. The immediate speculation and intense search for ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“signsââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ of racism in the Zidane-Materazzi affair reveals that it lurks close below the surface of contemporary sport. This article advocates a cultural politics that understands and resists the causes of racism through sport, just as it refuses to legitimize racialized categories of the human in the process.