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manykinsmen · 4 months

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hi jon, i was reading your post about nico rosberg being a divisive figure in f1 and first of all i wanted to say it was so perfectly written i would read an essay of yours but it also reminded me of the similarities with motogp. (i'm assuming you don't follow it)

casey stoner has had a similar experience to nico rosberg, the year he retired (2012) he finished 3rd in the championship and they year before he had won so to many he is a 'what could have been' even though he is a double motogp world champion (2007 & 2011). years later he finally revelead that he was struggling with chronic fatigue (!!!can you imagine riding in the highest category of your sport with chronic fatigue??) and also depression and anxiety. he said that his depression was worse after the weekends he went well for fear of disappointing his team afterwards. so it truly was either his career or his life

also they way you categorized the dead drivers has mythological characters people romanticize really spoke to me. in the 'patroclus' category i would put marco simoncelli. i have compared him to jules bianchi multiple times to explain it. he passed away in 2011 after a crash in sepang. valentino rossi was also involved in the collision. him and vale were really good friends and he has said that marco's death had influenced the decision to create an academy to help young italian riders (cause he had been helping marco) and has called marco the 'first student of the academy'. valentino's academy has had amazing results, this year world champion pecco bagnaia is an academy boy and so is marco bezzecchi third in the championship. he has 4 riders in motogp !!(pecco bagnaia, marco bezzecchi, luca marini, franco morbidelli). simoncelli's dad paolo has created his own team to rember his son (sic58 squadra corse -> sic was his nickname and 58 his number) creating new opportunities for riders. so they're honoring him and keeping his legacy alive the same way charles is doing at ferrari for jules and his dad.

sorry for the rant and sorry if there's any mistakes english is my second language, i'm was just really fascinated by the way you explained the narratives

thanks for the ask! your english is perfect.

i don’t watch motogp at the moment but i really should. one of my partners and two of my cousins are very into motorcycles and love it. like it clearly has the same capacity for grand narratives as f1 does and i am all about those grand narratives.

i think lots of sports fans (especially very masculine cis het men who are into sports for masculine cis het men reasons) like to view sports as a scientific pursuit, as more deserving of their time and attention than art because it can somehow be objectively quantified. and really that’s not true - yes there is a lot of data and numbers, but we invent the terms of the game just as much as we invent the themes of art. and even then people will throw away those numbers in a heartbeat to defend the narratives they have attached themselves to (see everyone repeatedly insisting senna is the greatest f1 driver of all time when no metric we’ve used to quantify racing data will testify to that being true).

people become most upset when their narrative expectations are denied. this isn’t an “oh the villain won” issue - that’s a tragedy, but tragedy still gives us catharsis, we get our emotional pay off, it still fits into narrative archetypes. no, it’s when people like nico rosberg and casey stoner pack up and go home and reveal the artifice of that narrative. imagine if the actor playing hamlet got up in the middle of the to be or not to be soliloquy, wiped off his makeup, got out of his costume and left via the fire exit.

(side note - the original film of jesus christ superstar pulls this off incredibly. in the final scene, you see all the actors, bar the one playing jesus, out of costume, boarding a bus to leave the set, leaving us asking ourselves a bunch of uncomfortable questions about viewing the crucifixion for entertainment).

#nico rosberg #casey stoner #motogp #jesus christ superstar #shakespeare #narrative theory #performance theory #okay there are some wild tags on this one

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