BAD BOYS AND GENTLEMEN

Abstract

This article considers television sport as a gendered genre. Drawing on film theory and feminist media studies, it illuminates the essential masculinization of the hero function within the narrative of televised sport, and suggests that the presence of a number of characteristics (clarity, banter and obscenity) may account for television sport's address to an overwhelmingly male audience. However, not every sport attracts the same audience, and while motor racing draws more male than female viewers, a relatively high proportion of the audience for a sport like snooker is female. The semiotic analysis of these two sports presented in this article suggests that the address of television sport is highly complex. The analysis points to the importance of the interplay of class, gender and nation in the construction of the hero within the narrative of television sport. It is argued that the cultural specificity of the manifestations of the hero in television sports helps explain their varying gendered address.