FEMINIZING OLYMPIC REALITY

Abstract

This paper appropriates elements of Jean Baudrillard's provocative contemporary cultural theorizing as a suggestive framework for examining the nature, and influence, of the mass mediated spectacles that dominate American sporting culture. Concentrating on the National Broadcasting Corporation's coverage of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, this discussion highlights the ways in which the network manufactured a simulated model of Olympic reality that was explicitly designed to seduce female television viewers. More specifically, this paper explicates how NBC consciously mobilized traditionally feminine codes within, and through, the content and structure of its prime time televisual discourse. The paper concludes by advancing the notion that, rather than challenging them, NBC's feminization of Olympic reality merely accentuated the essentialist and hierarchically ordered notions of gender identities, practices, and experiences, which reside all too comfortably within the popular imaginary.