Globe: Ian Brown, Quite a smart Zidane theory - for a snail-sucking gasbag
Post
Quite a smart Zidane theory - for a snail-sucking gasbag, Ian Brown, Globe and Mail, Saturday July 15 2006
I was sitting at my desk, reading in the newspaper about how the world is descending into eternal damnation when, by way of diversion, I imagined that the phone rang.
It was Monsieur Henh.
Monsieur Henh shows up in my mind on occasion. He is a difficult man. I have named him in honour of his affection for France -- and also because of his French accent, which M. Henh picked up the way Toulouse-Lautrec picked up syphilis -- unexpectedly.
He was aghast from the moment he said hello. As always.
"You son of an Algerian whore," M. Henh said. "You are all wrong about Zidane."
"Your maman, Henh, if you ever had one, wore les initialisations de combat." This sort of trash-talking is commonplace between Henh and me, a part of our game. "You mean Zinédine Zidane, the Todd Bertuzzi of soccer? Who head-butted an Italian and possibly cost France the World Cup?"
"Whoreson journalist! He is not a thug!"
"Well, what would you call him? A trendsetter? From France, the nation that gave the world the double air-kiss, a new greeting -- le head-butte."
"I would call what Zidane did the act of a man who can no longer lie, you licker of dogs."
"Henh, you unshaven monkey, it was an act of pique. And not out of character for old Zizou, either. He likes violence. He was thrown out for stomping the back of a Saudi player in the World Cup in 1998."
"And Marco Materazzi, the Italian dirtball who provoked him, is better? He once kicked an opposing player in the intimate region so viciously it would take away the breath of even a North American eunuch like you. You can see it -- search for 'brutti di Materazzi' on YouTube.com."
"No one knows what Materazzi said, or what Zidane said back to him, you snail-sucking beret-head. The lip readers hired by TV networks can't agree if he referred to Zidane's mother as a terrorist whore, wished her dead when she had in fact that very morning taken ill, or just called her a hamster." I paused. "Not that being called a hamster is any less insulting."
M. Hehn made the French version of a huffing sound. "Whatever he called him," he said, "Materazzi should get the Oscar for the way he fell over from the head butt. Zut alors, I've never seen such histrionics. Madame Streep couldn't have performed that collapse better than Meryl Materazzi. And he was back on his feet in 30 seconds."
"Well," I countered, "there was nothing fake about Zidane's tantrum. He was driven by demons."
"Ah!" he snorted. "You are one of these imbeciles who thinks Zidane did this because he grew up in a ghetto in Marseilles? That you can take the boy out of the rough part of town, but you can't take the rough town out of the boy? Or worse, you are one of the super-imbeciles who think he did it because he is a man, and because his honour was affronted, and this is how men act, like troglodytes? If so, you are worse than a terrorist whore. You are a generalizing journalist! A columnist!"
"Bastard son of an orphan pig, don't call me that, Henh! I agree it's stupid to reduce what Zidane did to a generalization about soccer or men or Algerians or anything else."
"On the other hand," M. Henh replied (and he's always changing directions like this), "what Zidane did certainly has roots in his past. It came from what psychologists call a primal wound via an unresolved and constellated complex."
"Well," I stuttered, "Materazzi sure said something that transformed Zidane from a rational guy into an irrational, unconscious lunatic."
"Mais oui. I suspect he implied that Zidane had failed the expectations of the world. Zidane's genius as an athlete -- a fact of his birth, a thing of luck -- made him a public hero, and then a public god. With all the superhuman demands a god must shoulder. I suspect there is a darker, more human Zidane who lives inside the outer, public Zidane. I suspect this inner Zidane feels oppressed by the demands of godhood.
"He is paid nearly $20-million every year," M. Henh continued, "to play soccer, to be physically brilliant. Unfortunately he is expected to be morally perfect as well. And moral perfection is a lie, like a man's public reputation. As Albert Camus, another Algerian Frenchman, pointed out." He paused. "In fact, they are quite similar."
"Who? Camus and Zidane? Does this theory come to a conclusion any time soon, Henh? Because my holidays begin in two weeks, you continental gasbag."
"McDonald's eater! I am almost finished. So Zidane leads France to one World Cup. Then he emerges from retirement to lead them to the brink of another. In the final, he scores a goal in the first half, inspiring his team to dominate the Italian squad. He comes literally within an inch of scoring a winning goal, off a header, stopped only by the brilliant Italian goalie. He tries to be a god, even if he doesn't want to, even if he can't always be a god."
"Your point?" I said.
M. Henh sighed, as if speaking to an especially stupid tradesman. "It is immediately after this disappointment, that Materazzi sets him off -- by somehow implying that for all this, Zidane is still a failure. That no matter what he does, he cannot avoid being a failure. He is trapped. There is no way out of the failure of the public man.
"And so the inner Zidane, the shadow man who wants to live by his own standards rather than the whitewashed, oversimplified stereotypes of the world, rips through the chest and head of the public Zidane. It was just like a cartoon, no? The way Zidane was jogging away from Materazzi, and then turned back to butt him? Like a cartoon character who walks away, but whose shadow stays behind? Because Zidane the outer man cannot stand up to the unreasonable demands of the world, the inner man stands up for him. But the inner man is not supposed to be seen in public. And so -- bazi-bazook, as Tintin's friend, Captain Haddock, would put it -- Materazzi gets it in the poitrine."
"But Henh," I said, "you are saying what Zidane said on TV late this week, when he finally had a shave and went public: That while he regrets his action, he cannot apologize, because he was provoked. That is like saying that a man can be forgiven for hitting his wife in an argument. We discourage that in Canada. We tell people to 'use their words.' Maybe this is why we don't have race riots here."
"Maybe it is also why you are a nation of milquetoasts and tuque-wearers!" M. Hehn shot back. As I say, he can be difficult. "In fact," he continued, "the way Zidane and France have reacted -- even Jacques Chirac, the President, praised him -- is an astonishing development in the overblown and pretentious arena of professional sports. 'I am a man before anything else,' Zidane said, explaining why he retaliated over Materazzi's insults. And France is forgiving him.
"And so Zidane, one of the most powerful and yet most reluctant gods of professional athletics, is allowed to become a man again. Flawed, but more human. Zidane may have done professional sport, and himself, an enormous favour -- although he has made life harder for moralizing journalists everywhere."
Here, M. Hehn inserted a pregnant, very French pause. I could tell he wasn't finished.
"And best of all?" he finally continued, "Zidane has made France the centre of the world's attention in the aftermath of the World Cup! He has stolen the undeserving Italian team's time in the global limelight!"
"You might say he butted in on the party," I said. But by then M. Hehn had hung up. The NHL might want to give him a call.
I was sitting at my desk, reading in the newspaper about how the world is descending into eternal damnation when, by way of diversion, I imagined that the phone rang.
It was Monsieur Henh.
Monsieur Henh shows up in my mind on occasion. He is a difficult man. I have named him in honour of his affection for France -- and also because of his French accent, which M. Henh picked up the way Toulouse-Lautrec picked up syphilis -- unexpectedly.
He was aghast from the moment he said hello. As always.
"You son of an Algerian whore," M. Henh said. "You are all wrong about Zidane."
"Your maman, Henh, if you ever had one, wore les initialisations de combat." This sort of trash-talking is commonplace between Henh and me, a part of our game. "You mean Zinédine Zidane, the Todd Bertuzzi of soccer? Who head-butted an Italian and possibly cost France the World Cup?"
"Whoreson journalist! He is not a thug!"
"Well, what would you call him? A trendsetter? From France, the nation that gave the world the double air-kiss, a new greeting -- le head-butte."
"I would call what Zidane did the act of a man who can no longer lie, you licker of dogs."
"Henh, you unshaven monkey, it was an act of pique. And not out of character for old Zizou, either. He likes violence. He was thrown out for stomping the back of a Saudi player in the World Cup in 1998."
"And Marco Materazzi, the Italian dirtball who provoked him, is better? He once kicked an opposing player in the intimate region so viciously it would take away the breath of even a North American eunuch like you. You can see it -- search for 'brutti di Materazzi' on YouTube.com."
"No one knows what Materazzi said, or what Zidane said back to him, you snail-sucking beret-head. The lip readers hired by TV networks can't agree if he referred to Zidane's mother as a terrorist whore, wished her dead when she had in fact that very morning taken ill, or just called her a hamster." I paused. "Not that being called a hamster is any less insulting."
M. Hehn made the French version of a huffing sound. "Whatever he called him," he said, "Materazzi should get the Oscar for the way he fell over from the head butt. Zut alors, I've never seen such histrionics. Madame Streep couldn't have performed that collapse better than Meryl Materazzi. And he was back on his feet in 30 seconds."
"Well," I countered, "there was nothing fake about Zidane's tantrum. He was driven by demons."
"Ah!" he snorted. "You are one of these imbeciles who thinks Zidane did this because he grew up in a ghetto in Marseilles? That you can take the boy out of the rough part of town, but you can't take the rough town out of the boy? Or worse, you are one of the super-imbeciles who think he did it because he is a man, and because his honour was affronted, and this is how men act, like troglodytes? If so, you are worse than a terrorist whore. You are a generalizing journalist! A columnist!"
"Bastard son of an orphan pig, don't call me that, Henh! I agree it's stupid to reduce what Zidane did to a generalization about soccer or men or Algerians or anything else."
"On the other hand," M. Henh replied (and he's always changing directions like this), "what Zidane did certainly has roots in his past. It came from what psychologists call a primal wound via an unresolved and constellated complex."
"Well," I stuttered, "Materazzi sure said something that transformed Zidane from a rational guy into an irrational, unconscious lunatic."
"Mais oui. I suspect he implied that Zidane had failed the expectations of the world. Zidane's genius as an athlete -- a fact of his birth, a thing of luck -- made him a public hero, and then a public god. With all the superhuman demands a god must shoulder. I suspect there is a darker, more human Zidane who lives inside the outer, public Zidane. I suspect this inner Zidane feels oppressed by the demands of godhood.
"He is paid nearly $20-million every year," M. Henh continued, "to play soccer, to be physically brilliant. Unfortunately he is expected to be morally perfect as well. And moral perfection is a lie, like a man's public reputation. As Albert Camus, another Algerian Frenchman, pointed out." He paused. "In fact, they are quite similar."
"Who? Camus and Zidane? Does this theory come to a conclusion any time soon, Henh? Because my holidays begin in two weeks, you continental gasbag."
"McDonald's eater! I am almost finished. So Zidane leads France to one World Cup. Then he emerges from retirement to lead them to the brink of another. In the final, he scores a goal in the first half, inspiring his team to dominate the Italian squad. He comes literally within an inch of scoring a winning goal, off a header, stopped only by the brilliant Italian goalie. He tries to be a god, even if he doesn't want to, even if he can't always be a god."
"Your point?" I said.
M. Henh sighed, as if speaking to an especially stupid tradesman. "It is immediately after this disappointment, that Materazzi sets him off -- by somehow implying that for all this, Zidane is still a failure. That no matter what he does, he cannot avoid being a failure. He is trapped. There is no way out of the failure of the public man.
"And so the inner Zidane, the shadow man who wants to live by his own standards rather than the whitewashed, oversimplified stereotypes of the world, rips through the chest and head of the public Zidane. It was just like a cartoon, no? The way Zidane was jogging away from Materazzi, and then turned back to butt him? Like a cartoon character who walks away, but whose shadow stays behind? Because Zidane the outer man cannot stand up to the unreasonable demands of the world, the inner man stands up for him. But the inner man is not supposed to be seen in public. And so -- bazi-bazook, as Tintin's friend, Captain Haddock, would put it -- Materazzi gets it in the poitrine."
"But Henh," I said, "you are saying what Zidane said on TV late this week, when he finally had a shave and went public: That while he regrets his action, he cannot apologize, because he was provoked. That is like saying that a man can be forgiven for hitting his wife in an argument. We discourage that in Canada. We tell people to 'use their words.' Maybe this is why we don't have race riots here."
"Maybe it is also why you are a nation of milquetoasts and tuque-wearers!" M. Hehn shot back. As I say, he can be difficult. "In fact," he continued, "the way Zidane and France have reacted -- even Jacques Chirac, the President, praised him -- is an astonishing development in the overblown and pretentious arena of professional sports. 'I am a man before anything else,' Zidane said, explaining why he retaliated over Materazzi's insults. And France is forgiving him.
"And so Zidane, one of the most powerful and yet most reluctant gods of professional athletics, is allowed to become a man again. Flawed, but more human. Zidane may have done professional sport, and himself, an enormous favour -- although he has made life harder for moralizing journalists everywhere."
Here, M. Hehn inserted a pregnant, very French pause. I could tell he wasn't finished.
"And best of all?" he finally continued, "Zidane has made France the centre of the world's attention in the aftermath of the World Cup! He has stolen the undeserving Italian team's time in the global limelight!"
"You might say he butted in on the party," I said. But by then M. Hehn had hung up. The NHL might want to give him a call.
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