My wife for years has maintained that the decline of traditional good sportsmanship in America began with Muhammad Ali. I can’t disagree. Ali was a talented fighter, no doubt, and I was a huge fan back then. It took some years for me to realize that he was also a mouthy blowhard who became a destructive role model for millions of kids who thought his histrionics were part of being an athlete.
Surprisingly, a new movie, “Thrilla in Manila,” about Ali’s fight with Joe Frazier in the Philippines, pulls back the curtain on the real Ali, or Cassius Clay, as Floyd Patterson always insisted on calling him. It is not pretty, not the iconic image of a shaking Ali holding the Olympic torch, or throwing geezer punches in a Gatorade commercial. It’s the image of a black man with major faults that the media couldn’t bring itself to criticize, as it should have:
By the time the two would meet in Manila for their ultimate confrontation in 1975, Ali was king of the media. His racist attacks reached new lows while the press corps giggled along.
“The language of racial superiority shaped Ali’s attacks on Joe Frazier, and in Manila, his relentless use of the word gorilla took on a sinister tone” Schreiber says.
It began at a press conference when Ali began his familiar rhyming sessions. “It will be a thrilla when I get the gorilla in Manila,” he boasts, then whips out a rubber gorilla that he called “the soul of Joe Frazier” and began beating on it. But it was more than just words, it became a full-fledged theme that spread out to T-shirts, dolls and even men in costumes sparring in Ali’s ring.
“Ali portrayed Joe Frazier as inferior, not only as a boxer but as a human being,” the film offers, showing clips of Ali using such terms as “Flat nose, ugly pug, can’t dance, ignorant” and the ubiquitous,
“gorilla.”
Watching the national press corps and late-night talk show hosts walk on egg shells, afraid to criticize Obama because they might be called racist, it looks like the media hasn’t changed much in 40 years. If the truth were known, I think we’d find that this predictable characteristic is part of Obama’s media strategy.
