The other day, while scrolling through the television menu on my home screen, I accidentally landed on a documentary series called Gladiators: Warriors of the Ancient World. The same series is also available on YouTube here.

I came across the episode on Commodus, and it felt oddly relevant.

Commodus is often remembered as a mad Roman emperor, and with good reason. It was not enough for him to rule Rome. He wanted to be seen, admired, even worshipped. He stepped into the arena, imagined himself as Hercules, and turned combat into a show centred on himself. This was not really sport at all. It was really about turning himself into the main event.

And that, to me, is where the connection between sports, music, and politics begins.

We like to pretend that some parts of life are “just entertainment,” as if that makes them harmless or neutral. But entertainment is never just entertainment. It shapes emotion, loyalty, memory, identity, and the way people see the world. Once something does that, politics is already in the room.

The stage as an instrument of power

The Commodus episode shows that his cruelty and instability were only part of the story. He also understood how to use public entertainment to strengthen his image. He did not just rule Rome. He made sure people were always watching him.

The arena was not just there to entertain the crowd. It also became a way of showing power. The emperor was not only ruling Rome; he was making himself the centre of attention. People may have come for the show, but the point was bigger than that. It was about strength, image, and control.

Of course, the Roman elites eventually had enough. According to the traditional story, they first tried to have him killed through his mistress. When that failed, he was strangled by an elite wrestler. That was the end of Commodus.

But the larger point remains. Rome understood something we still wrestle with today: public entertainment can never be fully separated from public power.

The myth of neutrality in sport

This is why I find it hard to take seriously the old claim that sports are “not political.”

The Olympics, for example, are often presented as a celebration of human excellence, national pride, and peaceful competition. And yes, of course, they can be that. But they are also wrapped up in symbolism, rivalry, money, national image, and power. Every few years, we are told that the Olympics rise above politics, and every few years, reality proves otherwise.

International sport is one of the easiest places to see the overlap between entertainment and politics. The athletes are on the field, but whole countries are wrapped up in what happens. Governments celebrate the medals. Protests and boycotts are never far away. And there always seems to be some question about money, influence, or corruption. Even the word “neutrality” is tricky, because someone always decides what can be said, shown, or protested.

Ancient Rome had its arena. We have ours.

The costumes have changed, but the idea is not so different.

When music carries history

What about music?

Music is often described as a universal language, and there is truth in that. It reaches people across cultures and borders. It can move us before we have even figured out why. But that does not make it separate from politics. Very often, music is shaped by the history people have lived through.

I was reminded of this by a CBC Ideas program, Iranian Musicians: On the Power of Music in Times of Crisis. The musicians interviewed were Iranian émigrés, and what came through so clearly was how deeply history, exile, and cultural memory shape the music they make. Their work is not just performance. It tells the story of where they come from, what they have lost, and what they refuse to forget.

That is what music so often does. It carries the past into the present.

A friend of mine also told me recently about attending Shen Yun in Toronto. Whatever one thinks of the production, it is clearly more than dance for dance’s sake. It presents an unapologetically political vision of pre-Communist China. The choreography may be beautiful, but it is also making a point about history, culture, and national identity.

Art does not stop being political because it is elegant.

Memory, continuity, and identity

This is also true much closer to home.

Back on December 31, 2020, I wrote about Music and the Cantorial Art, and I still feel strongly about that subject. Jewish music is much more than something beautiful to listen to. It carries memory, continuity, prayer, sorrow, joy, and collective identity. It binds generations together. It reminds people who they are.

That is political too, but not in the way we usually use the word. It is about survival, memory, and belonging.

And then this morning I heard about n10.as, an international volunteer-run internet radio station broadcasting from Montreal and now entering its tenth year. No government money. No large organization behind it. Just people keeping music from around the world on the air because they believe it matters.

To me, that points to something more hopeful. It suggests that music can also create peaceful connections across cultures. It can bring people together rather than set them against one another.

At its best, that begins to resemble what Jews sometimes speak of as the messianic world to come: not a world where everyone is the same, but one where differences do not have to turn into conflict.

What awards really reward

And then there is film.

We have just witnessed another Oscars season, and once again, people are asking: are the Oscars political? Some people clearly think so. Out of curiosity, I typed the question into Google: Are the Oscars “woke”?

I was met with page after page of opinion pieces, complaints, and reactions. One representative example is this Sky News Australia segment: “Oscars descend into woke clown show as celebrities lose touch”.

Agree with it or not, that is not really the issue. The larger point is that very few people see the Oscars as separate from politics. These awards are not just about who gave the best performance or wrote the best script. They are also about what a culture wants to honour, what it wants to say about itself, and which stories it chooses to lift up.

That is why people care so much. They are not only arguing about movies. They are arguing about the culture that produces and celebrates them.

When news becomes performance

And then we come to journalism, which has been a pet peeve of mine for years.

Is journalism entertainment?

With the rise of 24/7 television and radio broadcasting, journalism has had little choice but to become more entertaining, even when that comes at a cost. It has to hold attention. It has to keep viewers from switching channels. It has to compete with everything else on a screen. And under that kind of pressure, the news can start to change.

Stories become more dramatic. Personalities become more important. Anger keeps people watching. A lot of loose speculation starts getting treated as if it were fact. And conspiracy, which should stay on the fringes, can suddenly make money.

That is one reason it has become harder to tell where news ends and entertainment begins. People are not just watching for facts. They are also watching for outrage, reassurance, and a sense that their side is being affirmed.

And once journalism starts operating like entertainment, politics does not just show up in the newsroom. It starts shaping the whole thing.

The real question

So what is the connection between sports, music, film, journalism, and politics?

It is this: all of them shape the way people see the world.

All of them attract audiences.
All of them stir feelings.
All of them influence how people see themselves and others.
All of them carry stories about power, belonging, memory, and who gets taken seriously.

That is why they can never be fully neutral.

Sometimes they are used to glorify those in power, as in the case of Commodus. Sometimes they preserve memory and identity, as in Jewish music or the work of exiled Iranian musicians. Sometimes they create real connections between people, as with a volunteer radio project like n10.as. And sometimes they become one more place where people argue over culture, values, and power, as with the Oscars or modern news media.

But in every case, the political element is there.

The real question is not whether entertainment is political.

It is.

The real question is what kind of politics it serves.