Iakov Levi

Soccer Games and Caravaggio



English version of the message Squadre di calcio e Caravaggio, sent to the Forum of Scienza e psicoanalisi on October 22, 2002 at 10:23:04:

Jerusalem, October 21.

Yesterday, it has been broadcast that during the Sabbath usual soccer game, the fans of Maccabi  Jehuda stoned the fans of Hapoel. The outcome is counted in numerous wounded, among them women and children. Violence by the public during soccer games is a social phenomenon beyond borders, racial, religious or national discriminations.
British soccer fans, even if they belong to a very civilized people, are specialist in inventing new expressions of violence while we deal with watching a group of young men kicking a ball.
They all agree that when 11 x 2 = 22 young heroes run after a ball in order to kick it (her), the best way of celebrating is in throwing stones, if not worse.
Why particularly during soccer plays, and not during other sports activities?
We are dealing with kicking; a locomotor discharge of energies acted out through the legs, which are the organ that best fits the aim.
We are witnessing the same acting out that Caravaggio has expressed in a sublimated way in the La Madonna del serpente; namely, the anal sadistic drive aimed at the female body. The ball, as the apple and every rounded object, is the symbol of the woman. A group of eleven young novices fights another group of the same number of youngsters, as in the puberty rites of savages the initiation rite is concluded when the novices display bravery and courage; as described by Theodor Reik in "The Puberty Rites of Savages". Reik analyzed the group - dynamics through which a group of novices acquires cohesion. As part of the process, a new sentiment is shared by the members of the group: misogyny. With the author's words: "We have seen how an unconscious hostile attitude towards the women is clearly expressed in the puberty rites of primitive peoples" (in Ritual – Psychoanalytic Studies, Farrar,  Strauss & Co., New York 1946, p.154).
The locomotor discharge of puberty energy is directed at the ball (= the woman), exactly as William Tell aims at the apple with his arrow.
As I have shown, the legend of William Tell contains the mnemonic traces of archaic puberty rites. The excitement reaches its climax in watching the group of youngsters kicking a ball, as the Child in Caravaggio's painting discharges his energies treading on the serpent. All are eager of participating, not being satisfied with passively assisting at the scene in which they are confronted with their own anal sadistic drive of kicking the woman. The erotic excitement is just too strong.


After all, it is not casual that it is very unusual for a woman to be fond of soccer games. As we know, it is considered a very manly game.
It is a little different with American football. We have the same groups of novices confronting each other, but the hostility towards the ball (the woman) is less evident, even if it is not absent.
The ball is often embraced (a display of affection), even if sometimes it is violently kicked. So that there is more place for the two apects of the ambivalence towards the woman: love and hatred.
May be that this is the reason why in American football women partecipate by the sidelines, even if only as cheerleaders.
That is the mnemonic trace of the women of the primal horde, inciting the Brothers into fighting, and into killing first the Horde's Father, and then into confronting each other for the Horde's leadership. The loved - hated woman, as we know, is always the prize


Links:

Caravaggio and La Madonna del serpente
Caravaggio and the Deposizione nel sepolcro
Caravaggio, Clitorectomy and the Talion of the Woman
Who Burns the Books?

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