To Haka or Not To Haka?
Shame, shame, shame...Davonne Bess!The University of Hawaii football team will be making a change to their haka that they peform every week both pre-game and post-game. Apparently, a professor at the University was concerned that it would be violating a copyright because the dance is performed by New Zealand's rugby team, the All Blacks.
Personally, I really wouldn't care if they got rid of it totally. I know a lot of people are fans of the dance and enter the stadium early and/or stay after the game's over just to watch the haka. I've seen it lots of times and I really don't find it all that inspiring. To be honest, it's boring and I can see how other teams would be bothered by it with its borderline offensive gestures such as the "up yours" move and the throat slashes. These kinds of gestures would be flagged for penalties if they occurred during the game. Especially the one WR Davonne Bess is showing in the above picture (yes, I know it's not part of the haka, but still classless nonetheless and inexcusable). I don't know why we do it in the first place. The dance has no connection to Hawaii!Anyways, I know I'm in the minority on this. So for the UH football team, change it, keep it, lose it, it doesn't really matter to me. What do y'all think?
posted by Myong Choi at 9:41 AM
2 Comments:
Ha. That li'l capture of D. Bess's, uh, "addition" to the haka, yeah, Warrior fan and proud graduate from UH-M that I am, I gotta say that's pretty not pretty.
As long as the Warriors' record doesn't slip over the years, KEEP the haka (and is the activity being borrowed by other collegiate teams? Or was that a figment of my imagination seeing a few BYU players doing almost the same thing last weekend during an ESPN news montage?).
Furthermore, if (and I WILL stress if) part of the ceremony's original instruction (whether the Warriors are violating copyright or not) involves a move that seemingly looks like "up yours," well, please reference Said's (a prof' I don't normally like to cite) Orientalism; methinks seen through eyes tainted by pop' culture, we Westerners can tend to misinterpret things indigenous. And, to add, other cultures misinterpret us, too (i.e., all Americans wear cowboy hats)
Yeah, heh, sorry, man, you're probably in the minority. Most folk I know dig this thing . . . for now. I certainly hope the dance stays, just like how I hope the green, black, and silver stays, too.
I'm clueless since it's been a few years since I've gone to watch a game, but I think it gives the benchwarmers something to do after the game other than fighting the other team.
Oh, and by the way, one of Cal's chants for the Big Game talks about decapitating the opposition with the perpetual trophy. Nice.
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