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The Historical “Free and Easy” Life of Dennis Rodman
Dennis Rodman. This NBA star is famous for far beyond his recalcitrant demeanour on the basketball court. The 6ft8 Chicago Bulls forward bulldozed through fashion’s pervicacious cycles with painted nails and technicolour hair, skewing its trajectory forever.
Pop culture in the 90s was chronicled by Rodman’s basketball reign and off-court antics. Within his large frame, Rodman harboured eccentric and non-conformist qualities, authentic and unpredictable. He was a sportsman, a rockstar, an ally, an entertainer, a fashionista, and so much more. Dennis was never simply one thing. He refused to be.
Before Young Thug and A$AP Rocky, both rappers who challenged the gendered rigidities of their chosen industries, there was pop culture’s favourite iconoclast – Dennis Rodman. His name is no longer as ubiquitous as it was in the 90s. However, he is constantly memorialised through music, even to this day.
Rodman’s cachet is evident once you appreciate the pervasiveness of his name within the rap industry. Known as a place dominated by hypermasculinity and heteronormative conventions, one realises the enigmatic personality and boundary-breaking individual that was Dennis Rodman.
The Tales of Dennis Rodman
His counterculture approach to life is manifested visually and often symbolically. He challenged the taboos around sexuality in his masculine-centric sport. Most of his stints under the spotlight explored the different fractions that form identity. Rodman was the one who pioneered the buzz cut as a canvas. The Hall-of-Famer would sport tesselated colours or emblems on his crown whenever he annihilated his adversaries.
Amidst the AIDS epidemic in the 90s, Rodman entered the 1995 playoffs with bleached blonde hair and the blood-red AIDS ribbon stamped on the back of his head. This move would’ve been contentious for anyone at the time, let alone a basketball star. But Rodman was an unapologetic ally to the LGBTQ+ community. He always has been. The man is still embellished with facial piercings and parades around with polychromatic hair to this day.
Challenging Gender Binaries
Rodman’s affinity towards challenging gendered binaries and heterosexuality stemmed from his early life in an unconventional environment. This is why his allyship was so natural rather than performative. It was never intentional but rather just the resulting paideia of his unorthodox upbringing. In a GQ interview, he credited them for pulling him out of despair after an attempted suicide back in 1993.
The heavily tattooed and statuesque figure was known to cross-dress, something he had done since he was a child growing up around primarily women. To him, this display of gender fluidity was his way of showing the world ‘all the sides of Dennis Rodman’, a way to submit to all the facets of his identity and commemorate it.
The five-time NBA champion continues to frequent these spaces to this day. Dennis has always admired their impenitent self-expression and learnt to embody it himself, too, wholeheartedly. Despite his subversive and peculiar comportment, the othering and outcasting of the phenomena that is Dennis Rodman never triumphed as he became a beloved friend to many.
As Outrageous as Dennis Rodman Gets
In 1996, upon the release of his book Bad as I Wanna Be, Rodman wore a wedding dress to a local bookstore, claiming that he would be marrying himself. For his other book, I should be dead by now. He arrived at the signing in a coffin.
When a candid of Rodman in a locker room surfaced and got everybody talking, it was a culturally significant moment. Glorious pink hair drew your attention whilst Rodman seemed to be in the middle of a conversation on the phone. Iconic silver hoops hugged his earlobes whilst he nonchalantly boasted a shirt that said, “I don’t mind straight people as long as they act gay in public”. Remember, Rodman was in locker rooms full of brutish men. All at a time when people cowered in the comforts of gender binaries, and sports was still an incredibly hostile space for queer men.
Another iconic moment occurred when he strutted into NYC Fashion Week, where designers flaunted their fur garments. He bellowed the ‘Think Ink, Not Mink‘ ad that he had just done with PETA – “Be comfortable in your own skin and let animals keep theirs.” Like in the ad, where Rodman posed bare with only his tattoos ornamenting his skin, he wore an unbuttoned shirt and let it fall to his fingertips as he touted the beautiful works of art he had chosen to inhabit his skin.
Dennis Rodman in North Korea
In 2013, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, a basketball superfan and avid supporter of the Chicago Bulls, invited Dennis to Pyongyang. Dennis, along with three others and Vice journalists, met the 21st century’s most infamous dictator.
Rodman and Kim developed a friendship, and he visited North Korea regularly over the years. He starred in a documentary about it where he sought to ameliorate international relations between the US and North Korea. The premise was to stage a basketball game between the two countries – Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in Pyongyang. North Korea actually beat them.
Since becoming the unofficial US ambassador for North Korea, Rodman has been there to play and also help players train. Beyond that, rumours say that his friendship with the dictator is why Kim Jong Un released a Korean-American missionary detained in 2014. This was after he was accused of attempting to overthrow the North Korean government.
Committing to the Bit
Dennis’ antics these days are just as grand but much less culturally emblematic. He recently got a tattoo of his girlfriend’s face on his face.
Dennis’s commitment to living an eccentric, spontaneous and never-boring existence is unmatched. Stupid decision aside, there is something to learn and admire about the now 62-year-old basketball, fashion, rockstar, and philanthropist amalgamation of a wonder. For someone who has lived such an influential life and had such an awe-inspiring existence in so many ways, I anticipate a resurgence in the discussion of his timeless impact that seems as relevant as it was back in the 90s.
