A professional athlete, whom we don't know much about outside of his versatility and dependability on the field, which are admirable traits, commits a terrible act. Someone films it, sends the disc to the league officials. The commissioner is informed, knows about the horrific act of the athlete, who is male by the way, beating his wife. The commissioner sits on it, or ignores it, or...well, we don't what he does with this knowledge, or if he's seen the disc. All we know is the net effect: the commissioner did nothing. Then the woman presses charges. Someone gets hold of the footage, and splays it on the Internet. Now the commissioner comes out saying he didn't make an announcement about the issue because he feared backlash. So now what? The commissioner, of course, is Roger Goodell, the player is Ray Rice, and the league is the N.F.L. which, a friend once commented, is entertainment. To a point.
I feel the same way about cinema. David Cronenberg said that we, along with our psychological underpinnings, create our culture. The underpinning in the above is anger and lack of control. It might be moral rottenness to the core, but we don't know that much about Ray Rice, and this isn't the first nor, I fear, the last case of spousal abuse in the NFL or society. He clearly cannot control one part of his persona, but is he the symptom of a larger machine? How he had talent and was groomed and lured to play football professionally? Does he know any different? Was there something before or after the incident that compelled him, or his lady, to act that way? This is the stuff stories are made of, and that thing called life.
I feel the same way about cinema. David Cronenberg said that we, along with our psychological underpinnings, create our culture. The underpinning in the above is anger and lack of control. It might be moral rottenness to the core, but we don't know that much about Ray Rice, and this isn't the first nor, I fear, the last case of spousal abuse in the NFL or society. He clearly cannot control one part of his persona, but is he the symptom of a larger machine? How he had talent and was groomed and lured to play football professionally? Does he know any different? Was there something before or after the incident that compelled him, or his lady, to act that way? This is the stuff stories are made of, and that thing called life.
