Katharina Bonzel - National Pastimes: Cinema, Sports, and Nation

Analyzing more than a dozen well-known films from the U.S., UK, andimportantly and unusuallyGermany, Bonzel demonstrates how and why our sense of belonging to (or marginalization within) a nation morphs over time. This book is for anyone interested in national myths, dreams, anxieties, and nightmares, as conveyed through sports films. A welcome study of a burgeoning and influential film genre!

Chris Holmlund, professor emerita of cinema studies, women/gender/sexuality studies, and French at the University of Tennessee

Katharina Bonzel eloquently explores the complex intersections that exist between national identity and class, ethnicity, and gender in sports films. Her historically nuanced readings trace the complex ways in which sports films have sought to generate a sense of emotional authenticity that promotes audience engagement with their visions of the nation. This book is therefore a valuable intervention both in film theory and in ongoing debates about national identity.

Nicholas Chare, author of Sportswomen in Cinema

Sports, Media, and Society

Series Editor

Aaron Baker, Arizona State University

Advisory Board

David L. Andrews, University of Maryland, College Park

Andy Billings, University of Alabama

Grant Farred, Cornell University

Frank Guridy, Columbia University

Rachel Joo, Middlebury College

Richard King, Washington State University

Daniel A. Nathan, Skidmore College

Amber Roessner, University of Tennessee

Katharina Bonzel

University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln

2020 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image Everett Collection.

Author photo Praveen Kumar.

Portions of chapters 1 and 4 were previously published in Reviving the American Dream: The World of Sports, in Learning from Mickey, Donald and Walt: Essays on Disneys Edutainment Films, ed. A. Bowdoin Van Riper (Jefferson NC : McFarland, 2014), 2018. 2011. Used with permission of McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640. www.mcfarlandbooks.com.

An early version of chapter 2 was published as Soccer to the Rescue: How The Miracle of Bern Gave Germans Their Identity BackTwice, Sporting Traditions 22, no. 2 (2006): 112. Used with permission of the Australian Society for Sports History.

Portions of chapter 5 were previously published as A League of Their Own: The Impossibility of the Female Sports Hero, Screening the Past 37 (2013): n.p.

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bonzel, Katharina, author.

Title: National pastimes: cinema, sports, and nation / Katharina Bonzel.

Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2020] | Series: Sports, media, and society | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019007288

ISBN 9781496215529 (cloth: alk. paper)

ISBN 9781496218247 (epub)

ISBN 9781496218254 (mobi)

ISBN 9781496218261 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Sports filmsHistory. | Nationalism in motion pictures. | National characteristics in motion pictures.

Classification: LCC PN 1995.9. S 67 B 66 2020 | DDC 791.43/6579dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007288

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For Katie

Sometimes writing this book has felt like going thirteen rounds in the ring with Rocky; but thanks to the enduring support and cheer from family, friends, and colleagues, it has also at times felt like running up those stairs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This project would not have been possible without those who encouraged and supported me along the way. I am grateful to my colleagues at both the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University, and for the financial and in-kind support I received from both institutions and their libraries; this project was also generously supported by an Australian government scholarship. In particular, I would like to thank Jeanette Hoorn, Barbara Creed, Wendy Haslem, Nicholas Chare, Will Christie, Leslie Barnes, Kate Flaherty, Monique Rooney, Catherine Travis, Kate Mitchell, and Julieanne Lamond.

Friends near and far have commiserated and cheered in equal measures through this project, and I am grateful for their support, in particular Susy MacQueen, Rohan Chandran, Ishita Palit, Shae Parker McCashen, Isolde Lueckenhausen, Suntje Schmidt, and Sarah Cutfield.

My sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewers at the University of Nebraska Press, who pushed the manuscript in new and improved directions, and editors Alicia Christensen and Abigail Stryker, who have made the process of publishing as painless as possible; I am especially grateful to Alicia for her enduring enthusiasm and support for this project, and series editor Aaron Baker for supporting this publication from the start. Many thanks also to Sara Springsteen and Jane M. Curran and the rest of the production and design team at UNP for their keen eye for detail and the wonderful cover design.

My family both near and far has also been a wonderful source of support: Helen and Tassilo, Maria and Udo, Judy and Kevin, Kandida and Jrgen, Roman and Susanne, and all my fabulous nieces, nephews, and fairy godchildren! Lastly, none of this would have happened without my partner, Katie, to whom Id like to say: Yo, Adrian, I did it!

The name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back!

Herb Brooks in Miracle (2004)

The name on the front of the team jersey in the epigraph above is, of course, that of the United States of America. In Miracle (OConnor, 2014), which celebrates the momentous win of the American national ice hockey team over the much-favored Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, Coach Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) works hard to forge a team from a group of college players heavily invested in their existing college rivalries: to his oft-repeated demand Who do you play for? he receives answers such as University of North Dakota or UMD Bulldogs. It is only after the captain of the team, Mike Eruzione (Patrick OBrien Demsey), finally answers I play for the United States of America that the teams fortunes slowly begin to change: the seeds of success are sown in this patriotic declaration of national identity.

The Miracle on Ice depicted in this film demonstrates how closely ideas of nation and sports are intertwined. Remembering the event thirty years on, New York Times veteran sports reporter Gerald Eskenazi wrote that Coach Brooks spoke passionately of creating an American style of hockey, a form of sport making use of capitalistic idealscompetition, exuberance, This crucial match came at the height of the Cold War, and in the dramatic historical context of the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, it was widely received as a battle between West and East. This match, like many of the contests examined in this book, whether played out on ice, the football field, the athletics track, the baseball diamond, or on the basketball court, shows how sport so often transcends being merely a game that people play. It is intimately connected to a societys cultural, social, and national values and ideas. Sports films reflect and expand on these ideas and, most importantly, bring them to life in an emotionally engaging viewing experience. Film engages the spectator through sight and sound; it can persuade or deter, make the audience cry, laugh, or shiver with fear: it has the power to inspire emotions, values, and ideas. The sports film multiplies the affective potential of film with that of the sports contest to great effect, creating an emotionally charged experience that can help turn any number of social, political, and cultural issues into a persuasive narrative.