Sports films
Much as the sports film was identified as playing an important cultural role in affirming the American Dream ideology, this ideology has principally been associated with men, an association affirmed within the sports film genre historically.
Indeed, sport has historically been concerned above all with the glorification of masculinity and the male body.
David Scott has surmised—Within the western tradition from the Greeks onward, masculine identity seems ,much more so than feminine identity, something that had to be constructed.
masculinity—power strength height wealth which men in the United States and elsewhere in the Western World have been encouraged to aspire to.
Ideal masculinity hero individual
Erving Goffman note that—In the important sense there is only one complete unblushing male in American: a young, married, white, urban, northern, heterosexual, Protestant, father, of college education, fully employed, of good complexion, weight, and height,and a recent record in sports.
Much as the sports film was identified as playing an important cultural role in affirming the American Dream ideology, this ideology has principally been associated with men, an association affirmed within the sports film genre historically.Women may today feature more prominently in professional sports and within the sports film genre and such representations may suggest that a considerable degree of gender equality has been achieved. However, successive studies have indicate that gender equality in terms of material resources, power,and status continues to be a major issue in the modern world, including in the United States and in the world of sport. Indeed, the institution of sport continues to be a principe site for the ‘inculcation, expression, and perpetuation of masculine habits, identities, behaviour,and ideals, including a belief in patriarchal supremacy over women,
Elite sport in particular and its representation is overwhelmingly associated with men who provide the standard for performance.
McDonald and Andrew—dominant constructions of athletic masculinity help to construct sport as a male preserve, a site where, regardless of their background, men are encouraged to misidentify the physically of male athletes as a sign of male society superiority.
the role of women in the mainstream sports film
How do sport films represent women in a society which is constructed by patriarchal ideology?
How do women make their own voice or establish the subjectivity in sports film?
What functions or effects do sports movie produce in promoting gender equality in society?
