Socceroos exorcising our Cultural Cringe
Roar Pro By Con Stamocostas, 15 Jul 2009 Con Stamocostas is a Roar Pro
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Australia is a land and a people unto itself. At the same time, our geographic isolation lends to our sense of wanderlust as we peer over the horizon imagining about the different people and places that exist.
Any cultural expression that we catch ourselves doing causes our bodies to elicit a reflex gag in the form of a cringe. More specifically, a Cultural Cringe.
An Australian coined the term, a chap by the name of A. A. Phillips wrote an essay in 1950 under the same heading.
Does the Cultural Cringe still exist? Is it relevant today? And does it exist in football at all?
Some AFL types think calling Soccer by Football is a form of it. Here is a letter I found by an irate ex player who refuses to join the football bandwagon:
“Let’s not revive the Cultural Cringe on the football field,” he protested. “Many millions of Australians ‘going to the footy’ most decidedly does not mean attending a soccer match. Australian journalists, sports writers and commentators should be mindful how we Australians think of and talk about our games, and resist inducements to jump on yet another trendoid bandwagon.”
The A.A. Phillips essay explored ingrained feelings of inferiority that local intellectuals in Australia struggled against. The essay spoke of an internalised inferiority complex.
One article on the essay said that ”in the back of the Australian mind, there sits a minatory of Englishman. His ghost sits in on the tête-à-tête between Australian reader and writer, interrupted in the wrong accent.”
It seems Australia has taken self-deprecation that the English made into an art form and taken it to a new level.
Whereas the English like to sing, “we’re shit and we know we are,” Australian’s like to sing “we’re awesome ,but we’d rather be shit,” as to avoid at all costs the Cultural Cringe’s closest relative: the Tall Poppy Syndrome.
The Socceroos recent success and some of the media reaction to that success could be a case of the Cultural Cringe and Tall Poppy syndrome, particularly with the Tim Cahill and E-E-mail-gate stories.
Perhaps certain sections of the media who have the job of peddling League, Union and AFL are now suffering from Football Cringe. That is, every time the Socceroos are successful, they can’t help but cringe.
The success of the Socceroos and the rise of football in Australia may not sit well with all the locals, but with A-League season closing in and the World Cup on the horizon, rather than cringe or wrangle with a syndrome or feelings of inferiority, I think the year ahead will see me cheering for my football.
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July 15th 2009 @ 9:31am
Redb said | July 15th 2009 @ 9:31am | Report comment
“The A.A. Phillips essay explored ingrained feelings of inferiority that local intellectuals in Australia struggled against. The essay spoke of an internalised inferiority complex.”
Who has the inferiority complex again?
Some food for thought in terms of insecurity:
The AFL has what the FFA want a viable highly popular domestic competition with intense rivalres and history that drive big crowds and interest.
The FFA has what the AFL want, an international platform to create more opportunities for players, aspirational,etc.
The who or what is called football argument is boring. In this country it will always be different to different people.
Redb
July 15th 2009 @ 9:32am
Infarction said | July 15th 2009 @ 9:32am | Report comment
I for one do not understand the angst caused regarding the name each sport should be called. I call Soccer Football, Rugby League is League, Rugby Union is Rugby or Union and the AFL is Aussie Rules or simply AFL. When it comes right down to it, what each of us calls a code is not all that relevant.
The FFA has as much right to call the game Football as the AFL or Rugby League do.
I would like to hear from those that do get offended by what each code is called as to why they do and what actual difference it makes. As it stands it simply seems like it is whinging for the sake of it.
July 15th 2009 @ 9:55am
Koala Bear said | July 15th 2009 @ 9:55am | Report comment
Here we go again the Loony Tune from Wally World USA is on a Football Thread with his usual rant of disgust with the beautiful game calling itself Football… He has once again escaped from his ventriloquist master to post his ridiculous comment during a graveyard shift before anyone could get in before him…
Bozzokurt please post some sort of evidence that the English coined name “Football” was indeed stolen from your Melburnian game called Marngrook..?
If there is a cultural cringe it lies with the AFL for not recognising the true origins of Australian Rules, the Marngrook game… It’s time to walk the walk, as you have talked the talk with this indigenous claim of the Marngrook origins as being truly the indigenous code… And I see that is your real problem not we Football folk wanting to call or inherit right to call our code Football in Australia..
I personally don’t like the name Socceroos and would prefer our national team to be referred to as “The Australian National Football Team” or the nick name ROOS if you would prefer…
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KB
July 15th 2009 @ 10:00am
mahony said | July 15th 2009 @ 10:00am | Report comment
Gee – who would have predicted that this thread would go this way.
I am a football fan becuase my parents were English/Irish migrants. I played football as a kid in the Kuringai association and follow it passionately now as an adult. The “s” word has never been a part of my families vocabulary and never will – and the reasons for thes are both historical and political. This might make me different from some of the posters to the august online journal – but it makes me no less “Australian” than any other Sydney born working class person who went to public school and pays his taxes now so that out veterans are cared for and Medicare and pensions are there for all of us.
The use of arguments that begin with “we Australians….” and “most of us……” and “real Australians……” have always ignored the fact that the ‘minority’ football fan is still a very large part of our community and sought to set us aside as “the other” (ondest trick in the political play book). More recent and overt examples of football-phobia are just a predictable, almost natural responce to a changing landscape – the Australian sporting landscape which is Itself as diverse and fascinating as its natural namesake.
Bring on WC2010 and go the Australian National Football Team – you will make ALL Australians proud.
July 15th 2009 @ 10:05am
Pippinu said | July 15th 2009 @ 10:05am | Report comment
I actually agree with Kurt that the use of the term “cultural cringe” does not fit in this context.
If an aussie rules fan prefers the Australian game, and prefers to call it “football” (as is his or her right), that actually strikes me as the complete antithesis of “cultural cringe”.
Whereas the me-tooism inherent in ultra wanna bes fits in very well with what the term “cultural cringe” describes.
I also agree with Tom that both soccer and aussie rules complement each other quite nicely (in more ways than one).
July 15th 2009 @ 10:11am
Koala Bear said | July 15th 2009 @ 10:11am | Report comment
“our inherit right” (typo)
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KB
July 15th 2009 @ 10:12am
Dave said | July 15th 2009 @ 10:12am | Report comment
Your right it shouldn’t be called soccer and I’m going to write a letter now to the English and tell them to stop calling their top shows Soccer am and Soccer Saturday
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_Saturday
July 15th 2009 @ 10:18am
Andrew said | July 15th 2009 @ 10:18am | Report comment
@ KB
Well I like the name but largely because I’m used to it. I think my dad isn’t a fan but he hates all forms of marketing.
I don’t actually mind if the FFA uses Australian Football team as the official name…as they should. The Socceroos name can live on as the fans name.
I think it’s hurt because every national team in Australia tries to get a gimicky name going, Diamonds, Hockeyroos, Kangaroos (Rugby League for you southerners), Boomers etc etc.
But the Socceroos name has been around a long time (since the Vietnam war) and I would hate for it to be chucked out with the rest of the bathwater while we cover footballs past with a nice new coat of PC white paint.
Plus “2 nil to the Socceroos” sounds much better in song form than “2 nil to the Australian Football Team”.
I don’t want some bandwagon fan to thumb there nose at me because I use the word Socceroo
@ Albal
In QLD I heard a lot more about Nate Myles indiscretion than I did Timmy Cahill’s. I don’t think the Cahill story got a lot of traction outside NSW.
July 15th 2009 @ 10:28am
Michael C said | July 15th 2009 @ 10:28am | Report comment
Andrew -
nice comments.
Thankyou for doing what some others have failed to do – and actually address the article rather than the prervious post in isolation.
Mahony -
funny thing, this morning, on SEN, conversation turned to Racetrack Ralphy being somewhere odd and seeing someone in an AFL jumper; suddenly people are calling in and texting in with tales of themselves or their mates in really odd places with their AFL footy jumpers on.
It got me thinking – in the main – a Rugby Union supporter would pack their Wallabies jumper when heading overseas – - and be a proud Aussie?? Is it just a different way of being a proud Aussie. Does it always have to be a internationally profiled national team emblem – - or, can it just be what’s in your heart??
July 15th 2009 @ 10:33am
Pippinu said | July 15th 2009 @ 10:33am | Report comment
If we were to list every publication or show in England with the word “soccer” in it, that has existed the past century, it would be a very long list indeed.