After Kobe Bryant: Legacy and Confrontation

Mithat Fabian SÖZMEN

As The Royal Tenenbaums, a Wes Anderson movie closes with the funeral of Royal Tenenbaum, the main character of the story, the following words causing the priest to roll his eyes frantically, can be read as the epitaph of the deceased:

"Died Tragically Rescuing His Family from the Wreckage of a Destroyed Sinking Battleship."

For the priest who knows the family and Royal, the lying epitaph with connotations to World War 2 is, to be sure, surprising but yet, the members of the family does not seem to be concerned about this. The conciliation they have reached in the last few month with their father who have turned their lives into “the wreckage of a sinking ship” had rendered this lie acceptable, which incidentally is his will, and they bury their father in comfort, having somewhat made peace with him.

Royal Tenenbaum, who is leagues away from being a war hero, is a father who had made life very hard for his wife (Etheline) and their children. His flaws, inconsiderateness and selfishness have had a serious negative impact on their lives but at the same time, in his final days, he seems to go on a kind of an atonement tour and is forgiven as a result. With his conduct in this period, he plays a role in getting the lives of the members of his family back on track, each of which had been enduring difficulties caused by him. In this respect what his epitaph says is, of course, not true but Royal wants to believe that this has a metaphoric meaning. At the end of the day, there is no one who has an epitaph which says “He was a shitty person.” What is written instead depends on imagination and censorship, or in other words, on myths constructed as much as the reality.

Since the really untimely death of Kobe Bryant (it was only a day earlier when we were reading that LeBron James had taken over Bryant in the list of top scorers of all time and LeBron’s statements about it), I am both going through my memories of him and these issues. This is because, while everyone was shocked about and mourning his death, there were those who reminded the woman he raped in 2003 (this is not an allegation but a truth Kobe accepted half-heartedly) who faced attempts to be repressed with mostly harsh reactions. (One of these people, Felicia Sonmez, the Washington Post reporter nearly lost her job because of this.)

Kobe Bryant was one of the heroes of the world he lived in; and considering that the heroism of “heroes” is contentious in all ages of history, this is yet more open to debate in our day and age when, as Leo Löwenthal puts it, “you are as much a hero as you are consumed.” In this system, those who have the privilege of producing/chiselling heroes for the rest of the world are those who possess the trade rights over the subject to be consumed and the story around the hero is written according to this.

The 19 year-old hotel worker which he silenced and forced not to appear before courts with his fortune and media power was not amongst the 10 things which came to my mind when the name of Kobe Bryant was mentioned. This was maybe because of the lengthy period which has lapsed since 2003 or maybe because, as a man, I did not understand completely what that women experienced… At the end of the day, this was the truth and the truth reveals that this image which is extremely objectionable for his marketing for those dictating the story of Kobe Bryant’s heroism is now largely whitewashed.

The year is 2020 and we are undergoing a period also known as #MeToo. In general the struggle of women across the world against the violence and hegemony of men is even more effective. The possibility of women subjected to the violence of a famous man to look for her rights without being isolated is much higher now. But how about the name Kathryn Mayorga, does it ring any bells for anyone? How many people did Mayorga found besides herself when she came forward telling that she was subjected to sexual violence by Cristiano Ronaldo? Are we going to be able to say Ronaldo was adjudged as he deserved when the time comes to pen his legacy as another hero of the modern age?

It is obvious that because of this that the world is still extremely male and bourgeois. For this reason we continue to read hero stories not on the epitaphs of Etheline Tenenbaum but those of Royal Tenenbaums. Those stories may be closer to truth but they are not neutral or the truth itself.