Mike's Special Stuff

In Generation Like, the importance and influence of branding is highlighted, however, the movie overstates its transformation. Branding has existed for centuries and fundamentally impacts the perception, motives, and identity of the average person. As Mara Einstein suggests, brands are pieces of our identity. Branding reflects a religious devotion and faith in companies.  As in religion, branding lauds the importance of seemingly insignificant and malleable notions. These seemingly arbitrary distinctions of sacred and ordinary, confuse many who are not personally engaged. For example, the act of celebrating Easter may confound and confuse many atheists. Branding behaves in a similar way.

Many athletes, both professional and amateur, rely on the effectiveness of Gatorade, I considered myself one. Before every game I would rush to get my lemon-lime Gatorade, scoff at Powerade and decline basic water. Gatorade was distinctly different and superior to those alternatives. Gatorade was what Michael Jordan had, it was what every athlete had. As its commercial said,  Gatorade was created in a University of Miami laboratory to optimize the ability of athletes. Even when athletes were drinking water, they drank it out of Gatorade cups.  I bought into the branding.  For a two years in middle school and two in high school, me and my teammates flooded our bodies with Gatorade It turns out, Gatorade is actually less refreshing and replenishing than water. Gatorade exemplifies Einstein's idea that “branding is about... taking the individual aspects of a product and turning them into more than the sum of their parts.” Gatorade was and is simply water, sugar and artificial flavor, no different than any ordinary juice. Reflecting on it, my comfort in Gatorade was no different than Mike's Special Stuff in Space Jam; simply mentally replenishing. Sure it was nothing, but belief in it was good enough. Despite its simplicity, Gatorade was double the price and double the authenticity. 

Branding and our Identity

           

As a capitalist society, the importance of companies and brands in America cannot be understated. The power of marketing can be seen everywhere around us, whether it be a simple commercial on television or a more subtle sign in the Hamilton diner encouraging you to drink Coke. This has an important effect on our individual and collective identities. According to Mara Einstein, “Brands are not just perceptions about a product or service, they are also bits and pieces of our identity” (Einstein, 73). In many cases, people will actually pay more to make a brand a piece of their identity. A plain white shirt is a common and cheap item, yet when Kanye West designs and brands one, it sells for $120. People believe that by purchasing and wearing the "Hip Hop T-Shirt", it incorporates Kanye's brand, and even his persona, into their own identity. This is what APC, the company that manufactures the Kanye clothing line, aims to accomplish. This is a very common phenomenon throughout marketing and branding. Gatorade’s marketing campaign that simply states “Be Like Mike, Drink Gatorade” is a particularly blatant example of this.

            This phenomenon of forming an identity through branding has helped replace religious identity in an increasingly secularized society. As Douglas Atkin explains, “People today pay for meaning more than they pray for it” (Einstein, 73). With the rise of mass media, the prevalence of branding has changed how we inherently define ourselves. In the past it was family, friends, or religion. Today, our identities can be formed by a patchwork of logos, slogans, and brands. This morning I saw a student wearing a Nike Hoops sweatshirt, along with Jordan sweatpants and shorts, probably indicating that they play basketball and identify with the overall branding message of Nike. On the other hand, that same student would never dream of wearing a Hello Kitty shirt, as it would distort the carefully constructed identity that he, and everyone else, creates for themselves. This common societal understanding of what companies represent shapes the brands we choose to incorporate into our identity, and is replacing traditional sources of identity.

Sports and Religion

Sports and Religion

     In order to first understand ritual in sports, it is necessary to define what a ritual is. Rituals give bonding, while also granting freedom to a group of people in a shared context. In terms of sports, symbols play an important role in supporting ritual. For example, players go about their daily rituals in order to elevate the overarching symbol of their franchise. For example, every game for Michael Jordan, a “sports deity”, was an opportunity to partake in the rituals of basketball to both represent the symbol of the Bulls, and his own symbolic representation of the Jordan brand (Laderman 59).

            Sports themselves offer an alternative movement to religions that offers the opportunity for people to both religiously follow athletes and teams. For fans, sport creates “enjoyable diversions from daily routines, a model of order and coherence, and heroes to look up to and follow” (Laderman 47).  Within the context of Bull Durham, the character Susan Sarandon portrays describes her plight of trying to find a religion to follow, and eventually chooses baseball because “it is the only church that feeds the soul day in and day out”. For her, and many other fans, sports fulfill similar spiritual needs as traditional religion does by taking people out of the profane and bringing them into the sacred. In other cases, it can serve to bring order and healing. For example, after the September 11^th attacks the Mets played a very emotional game in which Mike Piazza hit a game clinching home run in New York. According to a widowed wife who attended the game: “when Mike hit that home run, the release of everyone around us was just incredible. We never thought there would be a light at the end of the tunnel” (Botte). This is also an example of how sports can work as a force of theodicy, as they bind “fans athletes and teams together around idols that are worshipped in ways that, for some, create shared experiences and memories as impressive and meaningful as any other sacred encounters in this life” (Laderman 62). This ritualization of sports brings together the entirety of humanity by taking the universally familiar aspect of play and giving it religious connotations that transcend everyday life.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/9-11-family-forget-mets-piazza-article-1.1470645

Luis Serota, Eric Seiden, Eric Lintala

Jordan, Jesus, and Ritual

        Different religions have inspired faith in fanatics and have used rituals to express devotion for hundreds of years; we've found that sports' institutions have offered individuals the same.
Laderman discusses the immortality that arises from a hero. In Christianity, fanatics are often inspired and motivated by Jesus to do and be good. Laderman points out the "immortality...and iconic status" (61) of Michael Jordan even when his basketball career has come to a close. Critics might argue against the immortality of Jesus' spirit, but no could deny the power of his being that lives on in countless Christians. In this same way, Jordan doesn't "fade from the public eye," he "remains an irresistible figure in American and global cultures," where "millions consume, and are consumed by, his unique spirit." (61)
          Another similarity between sports and religion are the rituals involved. There are many rituals performed by both the players and the spectators. For instance, in Bull Durham, Annie Savoy says “there's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career.” Sleeping with Annie is a ritual performed by many baseball players because they believed that it influenced their playing skills. In reality, the two seem uncorrelated, but that is the beauty of a ritual. Rituals in religion are often irrational, but people believe that they will have an impact, just like the baseball players in the movie. 

            

         

The fanatics that religion and sports attract invoke similar idolizing of heroes in different religions, and rituals offer players meaningful practices in the same way rituals function in common religions.

The Idolatry of Emulation

Why do Americans participate in idolic worship of celebrities?

People have a natural desire to imitate those they look up to, "to yearn to be intimate with them, if not desire to actually become one of them", in order to move from the painful, profane world they live in to the sacred sanctum of the stars (Laderman, 72). The thought is that by worshiping Oprah or Michael Jordan we can somehow find true salvation in their messages.

The creation of a shrine to Michael Jackson by a devoted fanatic is not simply a means in which he can worship Jackson's memory on earth through an "enduringly provocative" image, it is a way in which he can escape his current situation and enter a highly sacred realm devoid of everyday problems (Maniura, 55). The process of worshiping a celebrity can lead to higher levels of emulation and idolatry as well, processes in which people physically re-conform their bodies and lives, spending thousands of dollars at times to look like Kim Kardashian or George Clooney. This "pursuit of physical beauty, the attainment of fame and wealth, and the desire to be loved by adoring fans" in accordance to the celebrity "way of life" is a way in which people try to divine find purpose and meaning, much like how Christians seek to find purpose to life in the way that Jesus lived (Laderman, 74).

Idolic worship of celebrities is more than a desire to be like them, it is a yearning to become them so that one can "transcend current life circumstances" and uncover the sacred realities that only celebrities hold (Laderman, 76).