On January 26, 2020, former Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant passed away suddenly in a helicopter crash. Drawing on theoretical frameworks of racial and gender politics in the U.S. context, and media framing, we conducted a textual analysis of mainstream news media’s framing of “Mamba Mentality” in the immediate aftermath of Bryant’s death. Across the 119 articles retrieved for analysis, we found Mamba Mentality consistently framed in four ways: a performance standard, both mental and physical; a symbol for overcoming adversity; a commodity; and a legacy/ethos. While mainstream media was complicit in absolving Bryant of his 2003 sexual assault allegation, the allegation was folded into his complex celebrity identity, which ultimately legitimized his Mamba Mentality persona as strong, tough, and able to overcome any obstacle that stood in the way—regardless of the cost. Our findings implicate how a celebrity athlete’s life is valued by contemporary media, and how media portrayals represent historical underpinnings of identity politics and oppressive practices, in line with structural and systemic violence in American society.

2020年1月26日，前洛杉矶湖人队的超级巨星科比·布莱恩特（Kobe Bryant）在一次直升机坠毁中突然去世。借助美国背景下的种族和性别政治的理论框架以及媒体框架，我们对科比死后不久主流媒体对“曼巴心态”的框架进行了文本分析。在检索到的用于分析的119篇文章中，我们发现Mamba Mentality始终以以下四种方式进行构架：身心方面的绩效标准；克服逆境的象征；商品；和遗产/精神。虽然主流媒体都在为科比免除他2003年的性侵犯指控，但这一指控被并入了他复杂的名人身份，最终使他的曼巴心理人物角色合法，坚强，并且能够克服所有障碍，而无需考虑成本。我们的发现暗示着当代媒体如何评价名人运动员的生活，以及媒体的刻画如何与美国社会的结构性和系统性暴力相呼应，体现了身份政治和压迫性行为的历史基础。