Formerly made fashionable by French philosopher Foulcault, the term panopticon literally refers to the structure of a jail wherein the jailer can see from the guardtower (the panopticon of the panopticon) ALL OF THE PRISONERS but none of the prisoners can see each other.  The literal understanding of the term is important because if we look at the history of the institutions of punishment, and how they internally developed side by side with other societal mechanisms of human conditioning through punishment and surveillance, we see that the literal meaning of panopticon fits like a perfect hand into the metaphorical glove of the word panopticon.

Hula hoops in a panopticonic society throw back the gaze and blatantly kid the looker and the doer into exercising movement against the gravity of this big world (a body in motion will remain in motion) especially when done in a place or by a person you wouldn’t expect to be hula hooping (but even when and where you would expect it).  Check out some of the videos if you don’t believe me.

Foulcault theorized that panopticonic structures in society are a mechanism of severe control over a human’s life.  Gazing at the television set do you really imagine that it isn’t gazing back?  Here we must subvert back to the metaphor as it functions literally, through focus groups and Nielson reports the television really does gaze back at you, son.  

Even in little things like the way language gets used properly or not in this forum or that, the control of the gaze can be felt.

We at hoop revolution in bmore would argue that you need to fight back like a kung fu artist, in words and in deeds.  All hope is not lost just because our last president shoved through the Patriot Act into law and Police Helicopters still hover over parts of bmore like motherfucking gnats.  The complexity of the history and structural functioning of panopticon 2009 means that the deconstruction of it, and the subsequent rebuild of a different idea of spectacle/spectator, has to begin with community acts that, I’m sayin’, have to be fun.  At this point in history people need eye candy and activity that is fun, because that is what they are used to.  We need something that does not immediately seem to question all that they know.

Call me crazy but it is my contention that if you study hula hoops long enough it is clear that they argue against panopticon on MANY LEVELS.  Yet your average citizen passing a hula hooping man in the median of 33rd would not realize that this small act is an act towards reconstruction of the way we look at each other and are seen in society.