We’ve had on the Winter Olympics in our house this weekend and this morning I found out who Lindsey Vonn is. Learning about Vonn’s recovery from serious injuries and determination to get back to a sport she clearly loves is inspiring in and of itself. But clearly, her participation in the downhill competition should never have been allowed. It smacks of that thing I keep banging on about - the commodification of everything, in this case, the commodified individual as celebrity and/or person of interest in arenas of mass consumption.
Vonn’s participation is, as I say, in part a personal desire to compete in an event she is passionate about. But it was also, no doubt, jumped upon by the American team hoping for greater chances of success (think Ronaldo being allowed to play in the 1998 World Cup Final despite suffering a convulsion in the morning of the game), and as selling point for TV.
Watching her (entirely predictable) accident this morning play out was a true spectacle of the grotesque. I was reminded of Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition. The slow-mo replays, the juxtaposition of genuine concern and excited speculation from the commentary, the sight of her being airlifted halfway, “hanging there” (quote from the commentary) as human external cargo with the winchman, and the on-off panning to the American team’s support, some in shock, hands on face, others smiling and laughing and waving to the camera (Hey mom! I’m on TV!), was disturbing not just because of the real-time viewing of the accident, but in the real-time commodification of it. Vonn and her story, already commodified as marketable, as in a thing that can be used for profitable outcomes - as a TV taking point, media discourse, and for TV ratings - became something else. Instead of the great comeback, Vonn is the heartbreak, the tragedy.
What have we become? Why are we like this? The refusal of the TV network (I’m not sure the BBC were in control of the images being broadcast) to keep their cameras away from Vonn demonstrated a basic lack of humanity. Rather than have the commentators provide updates (“Vonn has been transported to hospital”), we watch her receive long medical attention and preparation for airlift. Then the airlift and the slow flying away into the distance.
This is such a fascinating feature of the current human condition. We love our sports and major events. We love watching the amazing achievements of participants and the excitement of it. It’s great. But somehow, it has become something else. Sports and its participants have become products for our viewing, for our entertainment. But we are rarely conscious of this, and for many participants, there seems to be an embrace of it. Think again of the personal brand that is celebrity - those personal brands established long before the modern social media incarnation.
Vonn’s story will be one of many that will feed the media machine for days now. It will be lost, of course, in everything else. But watching it play out this morning was, for me, a visceral reminder of the commodified human. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t react or have any emotion to it. Of course, we should. We’d be emotionally defunct if we didn’t. But there is a troubling underbelly that is exposed in such moments, revealing a voyeuristic fascination with those commodified.