Why footballers cry - HMNS 2015 Seminar Series

Event Details

Date:

Friday, 15 May 2015

Time:

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Room:

127

UQ Location:

Human Movement Studies Building (St Lucia)

Event category(s):

Full Description:: Displays of emotion are now a normal and even integral part of professional sport. Nobody seems much concerned if players kiss each other - or spectators - or burst into tears of joy or despair.
It wasn't always this way; there was a time when displays of emotion in sport were not only absent but frowned upon. It is tempting to think that change occurred because of a general loosening of codes of behaviour in Western culture or evolving expectations about masculinity. The historical data I have gathered suggests a very different explanation; that footballers cry because they are rich. By extension, my hypothesis predicts that players would start crying at different times in different sports depending on the size of their salaries, a prediction which, so far, appears to be robust. But this phenomena is not restricted to sport; we now see a version of it in advertising, reality television and the broader Western preoccupation with 'passion' and 'authenticity'.
In life, as in sport, emotion has become the most recent antidote to the anxiety about wealth, greed and economic disparity that has always existed.

Presenter:
A/Prof Michael Gard teaches, researches and writes about how the human body is and has been used, experienced, educated, measured and governed. His work includes projects on the science of obesity, the history of sport, the uses of digital technology in health and physical education, and the sexual and gender politics of dance education.