Basketball meets the French Avant-Garde

The other day a friend of mine invited me to a Texas Tech Basketball game. I had yet to attend a university sporting event, so I thought this would be an appropriate introduction to a dominant part of campus culture. The opponents were the University of Texas Austin, who are major rivals. When I say "major rivals", I mean that I have seen bumper stickers around town that include both the UT and TTU logos, with the caption "A House Divided." The proportions of this rivalry are, apparently, Biblical.

We bypassed the concession stand (Refined Carbohydrates R Us!), and made our way to our close-to-courtside seats. The man next to me asked "You yellin' for Texas?" (By Texas, they mean Austin - it's a bit confusing for the uninitiated). My friend said "No, we're not yellers." The Tech fan replied, "Well, as long as you're not yellin' for Texas. That I can't tolerate." No, certainly not. After the national anthem, the players were led onto the court by the Masked Rider, one of the school icons. She looks a bit like Zorro, but in a red cape. As she walked onto the court, the lights were turned down, and to my surprise, they played the score for TRON Legacy on the sound system. Suddenly, the Rider's costume was electrified - trimmed in blue lights, not unlike the characters in TRON with their day-glo outfits. I found this association puzzling, but I am always pleased by infusions of science fiction into everyday life.

The game was compelling enough, I guess. I am not a sports person, but things really got interesting for me during the second period. The crowd behind the home team's basket were given large disks with spiraling designs on them. They would spin them when the other team was trying to make a shot, thus disorienting the players. Naturally, the first thing I thought of was everyone's favourite Dadaist movie, Anemic Cinema. The Dadaists were a group of "anti-artists" who, having witnessed the horrors of the First World War, decided that the Western world needed a kick in the butt, so they sought to use art against itself - to shock and disorient the viewer so as to destroy the systems that had lead their civilization to such destructive ends. They did this with a combination of offensive stunts, baffling performances, and dirty jokes. Anemic Cinema consists of a series of rude French puns (the best kind!) and shots of spinning disks, called "Rotoreliefs", just like the ones at the Basketball game. I will be teaching Dadaism in my Intro to Film class this semester, and I can't wait to demonstrate its connection with local basketball culture.