Jean-Marie Brohm (born 14 December 1940 in Mulhouse) is a French sociologist, anthropologist and philosopher. Professor of sociology at the University of Montpellier III, he was also the founder of the journal Quel Corps ?,[1] member of the editorial staff of the monthly Répertoire and is actually director of the journal Prétentaine. Brohm has written many books and is the leading proponent of the radical critique of sport in France.
According to Brohm the "[....] critical theory of sport is founded on three principal axes:
1) Sport is not simply sport but a means of government, a means of pressure on public opinion and a mode of ideological framing of the populations and of parts of the youth, and this in all countries of the world, in totalitarian countries as well as in so called democratic countries. This was noticeable during the big political events which were the Olympic Games in Moscow, the soccer championship in Argentina and, more recently, in France.
2) Sport has become a sector of accumulation of wealth, money, and therefore also of capital. It attracts considerable amounts of money; I would even say today it is the most spectacular showcase of the globalized society of commodities. Sport has become a key commodity of this society.
3) The last point, the ideological aspect properly speaking. Sport constitutes a political body, a space of ideological investment in gestures and movements. You can see this for example with Combat sports. It’s also an ideological valorisation of efforts via asceticism, training, self-sacrifice; sport is presented as an ideological model. Sport institutes a bodily order founded on the management of sexual drives and aggressive impulses; insofar as it seems that sport is a form of social appeasement, social integration, reducing violence, allowing fraternity; this type of discourse to me is a load of muddled illusions and mystifications. We have therefore scrutinized sport starting from these three viewpoints: political, economical, and ideological."[2]
Despite two older articles of Brohm[3] the radical critique of sport really began in 1968 with number 43 («Sport, culture et répression» [Sport, culture and repression]) of the leftist magazine partisans.
"[…] the texts which were published in this issue […] had the effect of a bomb on the world of sport and physical education. Sport and physical education, which up to this time were considered only in positive terms, were brutally attacked in their very foundations and their social function. In reply, the resistance in both fields was equally violent."[4]
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