Title: The Origin of the Swedish Olympic Hero: Incorporation of Olympic Sport Stars into the Myth of the National Hero
Abstract: The origin of the Swedish sports hero can be linked to the Olympic Games in Athens in 1906. It was then that Swedish newspapers for the first time had on-the-spot reporters who followed and reported from the competitions. The Games were portrayed in the media as a fight between nations, where the individual sportsmen were described as some kind of unknown soldiers at the service of the nation. From the early twentieth century up until the present day we can talk about two clear discursive shifts in the media's construction of the Swedish sportsman as a national hero. The first involved a shift from a view of sportsmen as a kind of unknown soldier at the service of the nation to a view of the sportsman as a national hero, where interest focused on individuals rather than on the collective performance of the Olympic squad. The heroic ideal that formed during the interwar years was more or less intact up until the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. It was characterized by an out-and-out amateur ideal and a restrained common touch. The ideal Swedish sports hero was a common, simple citizen who worked during the day and won Olympic gold medals for Sweden in his spare time. The change towards a new heroic discourse occurs in connection with society's increased commercialization and globalization at the beginning/in the middle of the 1980s. Today's Swedish sports hero is highly professional and international. Making a living from your sport and residing in a tax paradise is not seen as a problem but rather as a sign of success. Furthermore, today it is quite possible for a woman to become a Swedish sports hero, which must also be seen as something new. In this article, I will discuss the first discursive shift, which meant that individual sports stars were raised to the status of national heroes. I will show that a myth of a Swedish hero already existed before modern sport made its breakthrough in Sweden at the beginning of the 20th century. What happened during the interwar years was that the media, for different reasons, which I will return to, began to associate Swedish sportsmen with a heroic myth that had previously been reserved for explorers, engineers, and scientists. My point is that the national sports hero is not unique but, rather, based on an already existing national heroic myth. Modern sports just offered new content to that myth. The Concept of the National Sports Hero By national hero, I refer to the myth of certain individuals whose achievements are experienced as meaningful to his nation and who represents dominant qualities and values in society. In calling the national hero a myth I mean that modern heroes are social constructions based on an idea, a modern myth, of what a hero is and should be. By connecting the lives and achievements of sporting stars with a heroic myth, they become immortal and universal models of morality and masculinity. (1) For someone to be considered a national hero, it is necessary that this person is described and hailed as a hero in all social groups and in all parts of the country. A person who is considered a hero in a limited social group or a particular part of the country can therefore hardly be considered to be a national hero. Many researchers distinguish between celebrities and heroes, often inspired by Daniel Boorstin's famous phrase, where he distinguishes between the hero as a great man and the celebrity as a great name. (2) They argue that the modern media society produces celebrities rather than heroes. These celebrities have rarely achieved anything of importance and, furthermore, they quickly become forgotten and are replaced by new celebrities. The reasoning is that in such a celebrity culture there is no room for genuine heroes. (3) This line of reasoning has led to a discussion on the question of whether there are any heroes at all within sport any longer. The problem with this view is that it is based on a fixed heroic ideal. …
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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