Zidane and the Head Butt Debated Around the World

Along with a billion-plus World Cup watchers, I was tuned in to the last minutes of the final between France and Italy when Zinedine Zidane nailed Italian player Marco Materazzi with that now infamous head butt. More than shocked, I felt instantly sad. And then, strangely, embarrassed, because I could just imagine the emotions on the streets of France, in that Berlin stadium, and around the world at that moment. I doubt many people truly enjoyed watching a star like Zidane go out on that note. The next night, when I watched the nightly network news (France’s loss was largely blamed on Zidane for being ousted with a red card), it irked me how the American anchorman had denounced Zidane as having gone “from legend to lout.” Where was the middle ground, I wondered? Or at least some hint that Zidane’s action could lie somewhere between salvation and sin? The anchor’s quick condemnation brought to mind a certain French friend of mine who always insisted that Americans (particularly, perhaps, yours truly) are too quick to see things in black and white.

Predictably, the French media were a bit softer on their hero, denouncing Zidane’s action, to be sure, but in a fair few shades of gray.

“This exit from football is unworthy of him,” Le Parisien declared.

Added La Montagne, “He is prone like all of us to weakness and anger.”

It’s been more than a week since Zidane lost his cool, and the initial reactions have spawned some interesting commentary and evolved into deeper discussions.

Washington Post staff writer Shankar Vedantam had an interesting take in Monday’s paper. Vedantam explores cross-cultural expressions of insults (Zidane later said that Marco Materazzi had insulted his mother and sister). He wrote:

The potency of particular insults seems closely tied to notions of masculinity: Men from southern Europe are easily wounded by suggestions they lack virility, whereas that carries little weight in northern Europe. One study found that American boys from the South were more sensitive about their reputations after being dressed down in public than Northern boys.

The ancient Greeks called foreigners “barbaroi”—babblers. In Dutch, to accuse someone of being infected with typhoid is a biting insult. Other rude expressions are specific to religion, body parts and, of course, sexual behavior.

All is fair play, it seems, in the game of international insults and interpretations.

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