Maradona. Der Sportheld als Patchworkidentität

Abstract

This essay examines Diego Armando Maradona as a paradigmatic figure of popular heroism. Heroes of popular culture hold a derivative status in relation to other heroic types, as they continually recombine their features in ever-changing contexts. Building on and extending narratological and cultural-theoretical approaches to heroism, I argue that Maradona’s figure represents a patchwork of heroic modes: he appears successively as triumphant athlete, martyr, deity, national savior, tragic hero, and antihero. His popularity derives from the fluid interplay between sacralization and profanation – an interplay that typifies modern media heroism. As a product of participatory popular culture, Maradona’s myth is continually rearticulated through stories, images, songs, memorabilia, and rituals that reconfigure fragments of traditional heroism. The sports hero thus emerges as a dynamic bricolage, eliciting a form of veneration that is both playful and ironic.