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Date: | Wed, 27 Jan 1993 09:57:11 EDT |
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While reluctant to get involved in e-mail disputes, I am
so shocked and appalled by G. Parsons' comments on violence
and the superbowl that I feel I must respond. Parsons,
since he is logged into Screen-L, is presumably a media
scholar of some sort and at least an academic, and yet is
working from truly frightening classist and sexist
assumptions.
First, the history of European football, or soccer, as we
call it here, is truly complex and has deep roots in the
working class. While I do not condone violence of any
kind, it is also important to realize that the media
portrayal of football hooliganism, in England at least, has
been, in part, an effort to disparage the kind of class
identity that has been forged through soccer fandom. And as
for the relative excitement of the two sports, has Parsons
read Mike Real's piece on the Superbowl in which he states
that there are approximately two minutes of action during
the whole interminable telecast?
Second, the very word 'nagged' reveals deep patriarchal
assumptions about stereotypical female behavior with no
sensitivity to the exploitation of women within the domestic
sphere. And I cannot believe that Parsons truly means
that's it's okay to beat someone up because she "nags" you.
Roberta Pearson
Annenberg School for Communications
University of Pennsylvania
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