Aaron Hubbard, The University of Akron<\/em> Recent\u00a0interest in Shakespeare\u2019s <\/span>Coriolanus<\/i> coincides with the rising popularity of the combat sport known as mixed martial arts, or MMA. According to the <\/span>World Shakespeare Bibliography Online<\/i> there have been<\/span> <\/i>fifty-three theatrical productions of the play since the year 2000; in 2011, the play was made into a feature film starring Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus and Gerard Butler as Aufidius. During this same time period, <\/span>Ultimate Fighting Championship<\/i> president Dana White was attempting to turn MMA into a commercial success. According to Michael Borer and Tyler Schafer, television broadcasters initially considered MMA \u201ctoo barbaric for mainstream audiences,\u201d so White sought to bring \u201cofficial rules, weight classes, and time limits\u201d into the sport. In 2005, his reality TV show, <\/span>The Ultimate Fighter, <\/i>debuted on the \u201covertly masculine\u201d cable network Spike TV. It was what Borer and Schafer called an \u201cinstant success\u201d (167). White\u2019s show, which recently completed its seventeenth season, brings together amateur fighters who compete to become the ultimate fighter. That is, they compete to make the step up from amateur to professional ranks. White\u2019s show presents us with a spectacle in which two men grapple and struggle in ways that we might imagine Coriolanus and Aufidius grappling and struggling in the play\u2019s action<\/span>.<\/i>[1]<\/a><\/p>\n It is clear, therefore, that\u2014in their depictions of masculinity, sexuality, and violence\u2014Coriolanus <\/i>and <\/i>the combat sport of MMA share a cultural logic. They both share a specific way of reflecting cultural fantasies about masculine intimacy; at the same time, they both depict attempts between male fighters to brutally suppress and destroy the other, and to suppress and destroy desire\u2014particularly homoerotic desire. That is, both texts reflect the way in which heteronormative culture\u2019s attempt to contain desire is shaped by a paradox between fantasy and perceptions of heteronormative masculinity. This hegemonic masculinity is enacted through the extreme depictions of violence in the texts of Coriolanus <\/i>and MMA.<\/p>\n 1. Parallels of Violence: Boxing and MMA<\/p>\n In her book On Boxing<\/i>, Joyce Carol Oates writes that during a fight \u201cso much happens so swiftly and with such heart-stopping subtlety you cannot absorb it except to know that something profound is happening and it is happening in a place beyond words\u201d (11). Although boxing is a different sport, it shares with MMA many of the same kinds of depictions and enactions of masculinity, sexuality, and violence. It is easy to get lost in Oates\u2019s romantic vision of boxing and to forget that MMA and boxing are both extremely violent activities. More specifically, MMA and Coriolanus<\/i> both engage with particular kinds of masculinity and combat which, as Robert Haywood argues about boxing, center on the \u201canxiety of masculine adequacy\u201d and a \u201cdemonstration of male potency.\u201d These in turn create a \u201ccommingling of desires\u201d and confuse brutality with sexuality. In other words, the homoeroticism that MMA and Coriolanus <\/i>try to escape is \u201cinescapably built into [their] action.\u201d Haywood argues that boxing engages and represents acts of combat and violence \u201cwhose ultimate purpose is the display of desire and then desire\u2019s destruction,\u201d specifically the destruction of homoerotic desire (14). MMA raises this violence to an even less restrained and minimally regulated level. This violence is represented in MMA by the fighter who is celebrated only to be driven to the mat and beaten into submission: likewise, Coriolanus enjoys military victories and consideration for consul, but in the end is torn to pieces by the Volscians as Aufidius stands by and directs the angry mob. Coriolanus\u2019s violent death is desire\u2019s destruction, or at least its attempted destruction, which is required by a heteronormative culture whose political order is, in part, shaped by a hegemonic masculinity.<\/p>\n According to Akihiko Hirose and Kay Kei-ho Pih, \u201chegemonic masculinity is viewed as impenetrable by what it is not\u201d (191), and the process of presenting desire only to attempt to destroy it works within this cultural logic that views masculinity as impenetrable. That is, this logic about masculinity dictates that while a man can admire another man, he cannot desire another man. Hegemonic masculinity denies the possibility of physical, sexual, and psychological penetration. Men can fantasize about other male bodies, as well as come into contact with other male bodies through violence, but these bodies must remain within a logic that precludes penetration. Working within this logic, MMA fighters use brutality and violence to fantasize about intimacy with other men, and even fantasize their own self-destruction at the hands of a more brutal fighter.<\/p>\n The role of fantasy in MMA became clear the first time I observed an MMA training session and spoke with fighters.[2]<\/a> The MMA training facility is the place where the cultural logic of a hegemonic form of masculinity is cultivated. In a surprising echo of Hirose and Pih, Kyle Green echoes writes that at MMA facilities \u201cyou are allowed to admire, and seek to emulate, the bodies of other men, but you are not allowed to desire them\u201d (389). Fighters begin their training sessions by shadowboxing\u2014that is, by throwing punches into the air at an imaginary opponent. This resonates with Aufidius\u2019s dreams of fighting Coriolanus: \u201cI have nightly… \/ Dreamt of encounters \u2018twixt thyself and me\u201d (4.5.121-22). His dreams are a kind of shadowboxing that enacts his fantasy about fighting as well as a particular kind of masculinity. One gets the impression that today\u2019s MMA fighters are dreaming of their favorite counterpart as they dance and shadowbox around the cage.<\/p>\n Both MMA and Coriolanus <\/i>are texts in which men seek to violently control their own anatomies as well as the anatomies of other men, while at the same time fantasizing about an ultimate form of intimacy achieved through brutality. One fighter told me that the training at his facility is very pragmatic: MMA hierarchy is determined by physical achievement. That is, the order or hierarchy of MMA is determined by the fight in the cage. In Coriolanus,<\/i> Aufidius tells us that he has fought Coriolanus five times and that Coriolanus has often beaten him (1.11.7-8). And if the hierarchy of masculinity is best determined in the fight or in the cage, as MMA fighters argue, then we might consider that Aufidius perceives himself as being low in the order of things in comparison to Coriolanus. Desire in both Coriolanus <\/i>and MMA is suppressed, in part, by the ways in which the fighters submit to order or hierarchy, and this is an important feature of both texts.<\/p>\n Desire, however, is always present in the cage and in the play, as well as in the experiences and practices of individuals, both women and men, regardless of the heteronormative contexts in which organizations, institutions, and cultures orchestrate their power in order to regulate or deny its presence. As Tim Dean writes, \u201csexuality has less to do with genitalia than with the unconscious\u201d and that \u201c[s]exuality conforms to the dictates of fantasy, not to those of anatomy\u201d (148). MMA and Coriolanus <\/i>are shaped by the paradox that exists between the dictates of fantasy and desire, and the perceptions of heteronormative masculinity. Aufidius attests to this paradox when he embraces Coriolanus and says, \u201cHere I clip \/ The anvil of my sword, and do contest \/ As hotly and as nobly with thy love \/ As ever in ambitious strength I did \/ Contend against thy valour\u201d (4.5.108-12). This hot and noble contest between Coriolanus and Aufidius mingles fantasy with anatomy in a way that produces a form of masculinity that in turn enacts hegemony over both the spirit and the flesh.<\/p>\n Hegemonic masculinity is generated by the dramatic acts of brutality and violence that we can read and see in Coriolanus<\/i> and MMA. We see this masculinity at work when Coriolanus refuses to show his wounds to the people\u2014wounds that have been inflicted upon his body by other soldiers, including Aufidius. Coriolanus states, \u201cI cannot bring \/ My tongue to such a pace. \u2018Look, sir, my wounds. \/ I got them in my country\u2019s service, when \/ Some certain of your brethren roared and ran\u2019\u201d (2.3.46-49). Not only does this image of Coriolanus present us with his distaste for the common people and an ideal masculinity in which men do not roar and run away from a fight; it also might imply that the only men worthy of mingling with, penetrating, or even gazing upon the body of Coriolanus are men such as Aufidius. But Coriolanus, as the ideal masculine subject, cannot allow himself to be penetrated by even the best of others, even though he and Aufidius desire each other. That is, there is an ironic contrast between brutality and intimacy in both MMA and the play, because at the same time that these fighters want to be made impenetrable, they also dream of discovering themselves, as Aufidius and Coriolanus do, in the merging of identities and of damaged bodies which can only occur in the context of the fight.<\/p>\n 2. The Brutality of Words: Language and Hegemonic Masculinity<\/p>\n While I was observing an MMA training session, a fighter told me that \u201cwords defile things.\u201d Not only does this statement bring us back to Joyce Carol Oates\u2019s claim that a fight happens \u201cin a place beyond words,\u201d but it also connects us to Coriolanus\u2019s own views with regard to words versus actions: \u201cWhen blows have made me stay I fled from words\u201d (2.2.68). This statement indicates Coriolanus\u2019s preference for physical action and his need to have control over his own anatomy, but it might also indicate unconscious and unspoken fantasies about Aufidius that rise to the surface when Coriolanus is engaged in brutal and violent combat. Both Coriolanus and these MMA fighters distrust language because they think it lacks the clarity of a fight. They fear words because language has the potential to reveal the fantasies and desires that these fighters labor to repress, because they are unable to control how people might interpret their speech, and because language carries the potential to expose their heightened masculinity as a fa\u00e7ade produced within heteronormative cultural codes.<\/p>\n The MMA fighters that I spoke with revealed a distaste for language when asked to describe a maneuver called a rear-naked choke-hold. In their view, the word naked <\/i>defiles the perceived athletic purity of the hold. Many of the fighters I spoke with expressed disgust at the name of this particular hold, in which one fighter grabs another from behind, wraps his legs around the other\u2019s waist, and attempts to choke\u00a0 him around the neck. The implications of the hold\u2019s name, which makes room for the presence of desire, interfere with the notion of the sport or the fight as being pure or in an ideally masculine place beyond words. Words sexualize the hold and therefore emphasize vulnerability and penetrability. The fighters\u2019 discomfort with the terminology, rooted in a fear of penetration, mirrors Coriolanus\u2019s disgust at the idea of making his wounds visible to the people. That is, Coriolanus fears that, in examining his flesh, the people will speak impure words that would violate the nobility of his wounds\u2014the very wounds earned in the purifying violence of battle\u2014and therefore undermine the power of his masculine body. Menenius says to Coriolanus, \u201cyou must desire them \/ To think upon you,\u201d and Coriolanus responds, \u201cI would they would forget me like the virtues\u201d (2.3.51-53). The thought of exposing his naked wounds to the common people is disgusting. He is enraged at the ritual he must go through to become consul. \u201c[I]f he show us his wounds,\u201d one citizen says, \u201cwe are to put our tongues into those wounds and speak for them\u201d (2.3.5-7). Coriolanus, however, does not want them to penetrate him with their tongues. That is, he does not want the common citizen to think upon him, let alone speak for his wounds. His wounds serve as vulnerable holes in the history of his body. If the people can verbalize the history of Coriolanus\u2019s body, then they might be able to subvert the myth of masculine exceptionalism that has shaped Coriolanus\u2019s identity as a Roman nobleman.<\/p>\n While the cultural logic of MMA and Coriolanus<\/i> attempts to suppress desire, this desire still manages to rise to the surface. Fighters are concerned that their masculinity will be betrayed by a sexuality that is embedded in the language of the sport and in the gestures of the fight as well. Just as Coriolanus does not want his wounds to be penetrated by the thoughts of the people, at certain moments fighters are disturbed by and disgusted at the thought of anyone outside of the sport thinking of them as being vulnerable to, or desiring, penetration. It is not that fighters are or are not homosexual, but that homoeroticism is built into the action of the fight, just as it is built into the dramatic structure of Coriolanus<\/i>, only to then be actively suppressed and denied.<\/p>\n Still, there is a desire for intimacy on the part of fighters. They seek to emulate and admire the bodies of other men, and even submit to the more idealized bodies in the sport as a gesture of male friendship. Yet at the same time, as Green points out, fighters are not allowed to desire other male bodies. In other words, they are not allowed to penetrate them. Green attempts to sustain his denial of penetration by applying his reading of the work of Georges Bataille to an interpretation of the sport. Building on Bataille\u2019s theories of excess and transgression as ways to create community through \u201ca shared escape from the self,\u201d Green writes that the \u201cMMA school is a site that facilitates intimacy\u201d (389). Fighters cultivate relationships through violence; or, as Green states it, a fighter \u201cchokes\u201d his \u201cway to friendship\u201d (388). Here he describes how he applied the rear-naked choke-hold to his opponent. He writes:<\/p>\n I could feel him tiring as his breathing became more ragged and his grip weaker. Taking advantage of this I managed to transition to his back. As he continued to take deep breaths, trying to twist into me, I managed to sink in the rear-naked choke. I hesitated but then slowly began to squeeze until he tapped. Afterward we lay on the mat breathing deep into our lungs….An hour later I knew all about his failing business venture. (389)<\/p>\n Green uses this anecdote to demonstrate the presence in MMA of intimacy and friendship, which in his view are cultivated by violence. The language in this passage is full of sexual energy and desire, and yet Green goes on to say that fighters are not allowed to desire the masculine body\u2014that is, to penetrate this ideal body. Anyone who reads this passage, however, should easily recognize that both men have penetrated one another\u2014although the penetration is psychological, it is mediated by physical violence and enacted through the homoerotic rear-naked choke-hold\u2014and that real intimacy cannot occur without physical vulnerability and penetration. This paradox between fantasy and perceptions of heteronormative masculinity, or the desire for intimacy and at the same time the denial of the desire for penetration, is at the heart of what makes MMA such a difficult cultural text. The violence is meant to both repress desire and at the same time fulfill a desire that is not simply being marginalized, but denied. For fighters and theorists like Green, the paradox between fantasy and perceptions of heteronormative masculinity depends on a logic or style of reasoning that is shaped by the ways in which they confuse brutality and sexuality, or violence and intimacy.<\/p>\n It is interesting to compare Aufidius\u2019s dream to Green\u2019s description of his encounter above. Aufidius recites his dream after Coriolanus has crossed into his territory: \u201call-noble Martius. Let me twine \/ Mine arms about that body\u201d (4.5.105-06). This echoes Green\u2019s description of a rear-naked choke-hold. Aufidius\u2019s language, however, becomes even more erotically charged when he describes his \u201crapt heart\u201d at the sight of Coriolanus, which parallels Green\u2019s depiction of breathing in his fight, and how Coriolanus has \u201cbeat [him] out\u201d several times, finally saying to Coriolanus, \u201cWe have been down together in my sleep, \/ Unbuckling helms, fisting each other\u2019s throat\u201d (4.5.115-24). These lines intensify the eroticism that is present but denied in Green\u2019s depiction and interpretation of his MMA experience.<\/p>\n By using the work of Georges Bataille to rationalize the violence of MMA as a path to intimacy and community, Green turns violence into a means of encountering the other. Green writes that violence is a way to \u201ctransform and discover the self through pain and pleasure, blood and sweat, self and other\u201d (390). But Green denies the presence of sexual desire, and without the acknowledgment of desire and the possibility of penetration, it is impossible for Green to argue that intimacy can be cultivated within and through the violence of the sport. Fighters would like to maintain the fa\u00e7ade required by hegemonic masculinity, this impenetrable masculinity, while at the same time claiming that the sport is somehow a path to friendship and intimacy. While the potential for penetration and desire are present, it is the denial of their presence that makes Green\u2019s rationalizations untenable. The sport is shaped around the ideological fiction of masculinity, which is dependent upon the violent suppression of desire\u2014in particular, homoerotic desire.<\/p>\n 3. Conclusion: The Demystification of Masculinity<\/p>\n The play, which ends the way that I think many spectators might like to see MMA fights end\u2014with the death of one of the participants\u2014helps to reveal the logic that enforces this structure of suppression in the sport, while reading MMA next to the play helps to flesh out a vision of what an ultimate fight between Coriolanus and Aufidius might have looked like. The play ends with the Volscians surrounding Coriolanus and shouting \u201cTear him to pieces!\u201d (5.6.121) as Aufidius encourages them. The death of Coriolanus seems to be the attempted destruction of desire, as the play ends with Aufidius standing over Coriolanus\u2019s body and stating, \u201cMy rage is gone, \/ And I am struck with sorrow\u201d (5.6.147-48). Desire, however, persists: Aufidius\u2019s desires, and his need for an exclusively masculine intimacy through brutality, will remain unfulfilled or incomplete.<\/p>\n In the logic of masculinity in MMA and Coriolanus<\/i>, one fighter seeks to inflict pain and suffering on the other until the other submits, or is obliterated. MMA presents us with a culture of violence that seeks nothing less than the submission of the other to the authority of violence as the price for intimacy. It represents a rising trend in the celebration of the spectacle of violence that is emerging as a defining aspect of our culture. The text of Coriolanus, <\/i>through the symbolic power of its language, is able to demystify \u201cthe exemplarity of masculinity,\u201d which is an \u201cideological fiction\u201d in early modern society (Dittmann 655). Because Coriolanus<\/i> participates in the construction of this ideological fiction, only to dismember it in the end, when considered alongside MMA it can help us to better understand our own cultural moment and to consider what this sort of masculine violence might mean for our own society. In both contexts, masculinity seeks to make itself impenetrable to everything other than itself. And the more aware this masculinity becomes of its vulnerability to being penetrated, the more antagonistic and violent it becomes. Like Coriolanus and Aufidius, it is always looking for a fight.<\/p>\n Notes<\/p>\n [1].<\/a> Dana White\u2019s project is to present the combat sport to a mainstream audience; in other words, he is trying to create a popular audience for his business. The Ultimate Fighter<\/i> is the average sports fan\u2019s most accessible introduction to MMA. It is a sport in which two fighters, most often male, enter a cage and use different styles of fighting, such as Muay Thai or jujutsu, as well as various punches, kicks, and holds to beat each other into submission. To end the match, one of the fighters must either tap out or pass out.<\/p>\n
\nVolume V: 2012<\/em>
\nPrint as pdf<\/a><\/p>\n