Outside
Oberlin
Sports and Art: Just Two Sides of the Same
Coin? by Channing
Joseph
“What
are sports really?”
A
simply-stated but elusive question. One that I have asked before,
and one that I will likely ask again. It resurfaced most recently
for me while I was conducting an interview with junior tennis-player
Laura Koehn, and our topic of discussion turned to the reason why
tennis had become her game of choice. She described to me how the
“fluid aesthetic” of tennis had been one of her initial attractions
to the game and how it was still one of the reasons why she loved it
so much. “I like the sounds of the game, the racket hitting the
ball, the ball hitting the net,” she said, adding, “I try to play
pretty.” On hearing this, it occurred to me that with some
digging, I could probably find some fascinating connections between
sports and aesthetics, even sports and art. After all, there are
always connections between any two things if you look deeply enough.
Even so, I thought that the Oberlin public, which tends to be much
more interested in art than in athletics, judging from the plethora
of well-attended college arts events and poorly-attended sporting
events, might appreciate knowing that something it seems to hate —
sport — shares a compelling commonality with something it loves —
art. And of course, I do not mean to cover only the very obvious
things that immediately come to mind, such as those physical
activities, like gymnastics, diving and synchronized swimming, which
involve such grace and beauty that they naturally evoke unthinking
comparisons to art. Nor merely would I want to discuss those
athletic events that involve such high degrees of technical skill,
comparable to the difficulty levels of arts like painting and
sculpture, as to be referred to as arts; for example, “the art of
archery,” or “the art of equestrian.” My point is that even
sports like football and basketball cannot really be removed from
notions more commonly associated with beauty and creativity. Take
the sport of football and the art of jazz for example. Both the
members of a football team and the members of a jazz band must
prepare themselves to work together to do what is best for their
respective ultimate goals; in one case, the game, in another, the
music. In both instances, members must be prepared to jump in at the
appropriate time and assert their individualities, either to make
that touchdown and gain team points or to take a melody in a lovely
new direction. In each example, the participants may have some sort
of idea of what they want to achieve — e.g., a game plan or an
intended musical mood — but are most often just improvising their
way through the situations that present themselves. For both, the
only reality that matters during a game or a performance is what is
happening in the present moment. There is very little focus on a
sense of past or future, and if there is, victory and beautiful
music are unlikely to result from such a self-conscious approach.
A
similar comparison can be made using almost any sport that involves
interacting with other people — tennis, volleyball, hackey-sack,
etc. — and any art form that involves some level of improvisation —
acting, dancing, improvised rapping and so on. At some deep
structural level, these sports and art forms are structured in
similar ways, which I think is one of the reasons why tennis-player
Laura can approach her sport in such an aesthetic way.
Also,
both art and sport can be potentially very competitive. Look at the
example of figure-skater Tonya Harding, who attacked her rival Nancy
Kerrigan in order to prevent her from competing. Look at how
ferocious competing freeform rappers can get with each other. Drag
queens, who transform themselves into pieces of art, have gotten so
competitive that their fights have become a dance form.
Moreover, both art and sport have the ability to deeply
affect the emotions. The ease with which one can be caught up in the
emotions of sport should be obvious to anyone who has been to a
well-attended athletic event. And I would think that few people
would honestly say that they have never been touched by the artistry
in a painting or a song.
Generally, however, there are simply different cultural
expectations for sport and for art. Art, for instance, is usually
created to convey some type of emotional, social, political,
spiritual or philosophical message. Quite often, nowadays, if it
does not seem intended to convey this type of message, it is said by
the many who staunchly oppose the notion of “art for art’s sake”
that this makes the work somehow invalid or irresponsible.
Therefore, it is my perception that, more often than not, it is
considered proper and appropriate that art in this era should tackle
important issues and should somehow be responsible to communities of
people. Art that fails to do this has lately tended to be
disregarded by people who care about such things. Hence, the popular
music of contemporary boy bands is not often referred to as art, nor
is it much respected by many who call themselves “artists.” On the
other hand, sport is generally viewed as entertainment, or at the
most, an entertaining, often patriotic exercise in boasting of how
much better one city’s team, or one nation’s team, is better than
another’s.
It is
rare that sports events tackle the sorts of hard messages that
artistic endeavors routinely undertake, and athletes, though they
are now often looked upon to be role models for youth, often cause
controversy when they stand up to profess a political stance. Boxing
great Muhammad Ali, for example, was considered a troublemaker for
merely changing his name from Cassius Clay to one more in-line with
his personal beliefs, and started an understandably even greater
whirlwind by conscientiously objecting to the Vietnam War draft. Yet
even when medal-winning runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos
protested institutionalized racism at the 1968 Olympics by lowering
their heads and raising their fists, controversy was stirred to such
a degree that the two men were not only suspended from their
national team, but even received death threats.
It is
thus considered proper and appropriate for sport and sports-figures
to be entertaining and apolitical, just as it is often felt that
true art should be, in some sense, the opposite: thought-provoking
and politically informed.
So in
the end, it is my opinion that sport does seem to share much in
common with art. However, the most interesting thing about the
relationship between the two things lies in the fact that our
society views these two things as completely different entities,
though they may not be so different at all. This difference is
maintained to such an extent by the societal reactions, criticisms
and controversies that result when artists and athletes cross their
respective boundaries. So what is the answer to the question,
“What are sports really?” Perhaps one possible answer is the stark,
“Sport is art, art is sport.” |