Brassebönor, stålmän och svarta spöken. Idrottande kroppar i Ses bevakning av sommar-OS 1948-1980

Abstract

This artide deals with representations of sporting bodies in the weekly magazine Se's reports from nine Olympic Games, 1948-1980. Media representation (text and images) contributes to the process of shaping the reader's views on the world, and representations of sport communicate ideas on "natural differences" (based on, for example, gender, race or nationality) between bodies. I arglie that while male athletes are represented as sporfsmen, with an emphasis on their superior physical abilities and remarkable willpower, female Olympians are predominantly represented as women. Representations of female athletes thus help to uphold the boundaries between the sexes by displaying a passive female body not suited to represent the nation. The female Olympian's body is not primarily an athlete's body, but a female body. Representations of male "heroic achievements" in the Olympic Games, on the other hand, function as confirmation of belonging to a superior class. The "physical masculinity" displayed through sport stories emphasizes male affinity, and pictures of women function as invitations to the implied male reader to identify with this ideal masculinity. The ideal masculinity is, however, not only constructed through a contrasting comparison with femininity, but also against the "black" male body. The athletic achievements of the "black" body must be explained and presented as restricted to the area of sport. This is, I argue, done by constructing the "black" body as a different kind of body, guided by "natural instincts" as opposed to the "white" body's more intellectual and "civilised" skills.