Social Tragedy: Zidaneâs Role in Franceâs Tragic Epic
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Samuel Huntington notably predicted that post cold war conflicts would originate from cultural and religious differences that he referred to as the âclash of civilizations.â Communicated through evocative symbols, civilizations construct and maintain a sense of identity through social myths: explanatory ideas that reflect sociocultural differences and continue to permeate public consciousness in the domain of popular culture and sport. The capacity for social myths to shape public opinion will be explored in this chapter by examining how Zinédine Zidaneâs infamous 2006 World Cup misdemeanour was mediated as a social tragedy in France. A neo-Aristotelian perspective is employed to demonstrate how the footballerâs on-field misconduct was constructed as mythos (a tragic plot) by framing the historical episode within racial, ethnic and religious discourses pertaining to Franceâs political geography. Staged within the countryâs emotional climate of postcolonial guilt, Franceâs President, Jacques Chirac, possessed the power to reorient prevailing social myths of racial inequity by scripting the Franco- Algerian footballerâs personal misfortune as a social tragedy âwrit-largeâ for the Republican nation. Mediated through poignant symbols that equated Zidaneâs revered emblem with French supremacy and postcolonial unity, this âsocial tragedyâ is drawn upon to examine how the political logic of the sacred and profane transformed an historical episode into a tragic event that hindered public contestation of the French footballerâs scandalous transgression. Social myths solidifying Franceâs moral order around such âlogicâ framed Zidaneâs headbutt as an âhonourableâ contest of colonialist âpollutionâ and defence of Republican values - the insult towards the footballer offending the moral sentiments of the social collectivity with his personal transgression emblematic of a social tragedy in postcolonial France. Finally, it is argued that the way in which mythos is constructed and disseminated for public consumption results in tangible social consequences as models through which audiences recognise themselves and the society to which they belong.