"Once Brothers"

Here is the link to a great documentary produced by ESPN about two NBA basketball players from former Yugoslavia, Vlade Divac and Dražen Petrović. It tells the story of how the relationship between two young, impressionable players in the US changes while developments back home worsen - this happens concurrent with the disintegration of Yugoslavia. After having read Jansen's dissertation and Kelly's post, I've been thinking more of the ways in which asserting your supposed "private" identity in the public sphere can be problematic, especially as competing ideologies are vying for currency in a diverse society and crumbling political structure. Also, how do sports play into this private/public dichotomy? In the documentary, you see that the falling out between these two players happens as a result of performances of identity (dictated by an ideology). It also begs the question of how we are perceived by others. Often when we don't confirm those perceptions, we agitate those onlookers who had made previous assumptions about our identity, basing their conviction on signifiers such as last name, place of birth, etc. etc.