We Are All Witnesses

Had The Onion refrained from commenting on the recent spectacle of Lebron James, I probably would not have offered a sequel to my previous post. I probably would have let dead spectacles lie. But The Onion article reminded me that the spectacle does not die. And if it does, it is quickly resurrected.



Lebron's spectacle of excess, as I called it, certainly spawned a myriad of responses, though few failed to keep to themes of either commendation or contempt (despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that the event produced unprecedented ratings). My initial surprise was in the fact that so many people were disturbed, not by Lebron's decision to choreograph a spectacle in his honor simply to make an announcement about a career move, but by his decision to leave Cleveland. Moreover, a great many accused him of abandoning the "metropolis of the Western reserve," especially considering that the Miami Heat were not even his highest bidders. Talk about a perversion of Bakhtin's notion of the spectacle of the marketplace....

Hence why The Onion article is so apposite, depicting a city unable to eradicate the specter of Lebron, and despite its best attempts, fated to wake daily and "find the iconic, 10-story-tall image of James--his arms fully extended after tossing his signature talcum powder into the air--completely intact, dominating the city's skyline as if it had never even been touched." After all, while the symbols of the commodity marketplace of late capitalism were once fleeting and variable, capitalism itself seemed permanent, intact. Today the distinctions between constituent elements and elemental system are not so clear. Especially in sports, human beings long been transformed into brands, rendering the body itself--as well as its image--in commodity form (for those interested in brand recognition and brand management, a historiography of athletes as brands would be an incredibly interesting study. Since Michael Jordan, for example, athletes have been "branded." What is more, though I cannot for the life of me recall where I heard/read this, it has been rumored that the "jumpman" logo was once more recognizable worldwide than the Christian cross. I am obviously more inclined to read this solely as a capitalist fable, but the allegory resonates).

So it is that today we have Lebron the icon, an idol of the commons, imploring that we worship no other while likewise spreading image after image, likeness after likeness of himself for the world to see. King James, defender of his own faith, authenticating the spectacular life, crumpling the now indecipherable words of The Society of the Spectacle and using the torn and withered pages as kindling for the hearth. Late capitalism alights his fireplace. The mass media sits warmly within the inglenook, proclaiming that getting on board is going overboard, is vindication for a "topsy-turvy world" in the spirit of Guy Debord. Truth is false. Or so it is when the crowned king is decrowned only to be crowned and crowned again ad infinitum.

Yet both Bakhtin and Debord (albeit in starkly distinct ways) remind us that with the solemnity of the icon must come the laugh of the iconoclast. For Bakhtin, the carnival. For Debord, a detournement--a deviation and adaptation of an image, an icon, in opposition of the original often in the form of satire or parody. How disappointing to find little in the way of detours on this one-way road. Chip Bok presents a step in a direction, but hardly downside up, outside in, wrong way up.



The carnival, the detournement--they are supposed to disrupt, to play at critical thought. They are supposed to enable the idolater to break the spell, to close his or her eyes to unquestioned belief, to break the idol, to chortle at the shards of broken images on the ground even if the object itself remains. Neither is irreligious; neither is ungoldy; both are devout to humanity; both might be unclean. Following Kenneth Burke, they are piously impious, redefining impiety as reorientation, as revision.

The spectacle of Lebron is like the ancient Roman circus, one of innumerable staged acts in a much larger cultural production, designed to distract by way of absorption, to deflect by way of appeal, to blend oppositions into a theater mask that conceals deeper socio-political issues. Stop the world: the King is set to speak.

The spectacle of anti-spectacles, the deliberative play of the carnival, of the detournement, of the impious is a triad of tactical rejoinders that all share in the distant spirit of Dionysia. Stop the world, but only to spin it counter-wise on its axis, to mock, jeer and transform awe into irreverence.

Bok begins to lay bare the implications of, how shall we say, bearing false witness. But he gives much too much credit to the supposed puppet masters. Are we witnesses to collusion? I am not so sure. Today's spectacles are far too overt, far too unapologetic, far too normalized to be collusive. What is more, I wonder if we are all not far too complicit to make such an accusation. At least for the moment. At least for the vast number of Lebron-esque types that are incessantly, if not obsessively, idolized.

Then again, one wonders if idolatrey's triumph will always succeed our mockery....

Photo Credits: The Onion; Chip Bok.