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Week 2 - Recording Reality

In this week’s lecture we were introduced to the theories surrounding the depiction of gender and how different types of documentary can show the representation of masculinity in sport.
I found that in observational documentaries like Senna, the social norm of men being competitive and regarded as ‘god like’ for winning in sport was a central part of the documentary. At some points, Senna appeared to be emotional and the opposite of a stereotypical ‘macho man’  like when he won the grand prix for the first time and cried however the documentary goes on to represent Senna as competitive and aggressive. 

The display of Senna’s ‘pure anger’ towards losing and his constant need to ‘humiliate’ Prost shows that even though Senna was regarded as a pure and untouchable figure in formula one, he still had the capacity to act like a stereotypical ‘macho man’ that needs to constantly prove their superior ability.   Arguably this could show that even though the representation of masculinity in sport has evolved, the underlying stereotypes of men being aggressive and driven by desire to win still circulates in the media. 


Senna also had a lack of female presence throughout the whole documentary, in fact there was only one woman, who seemed to be hysterically excited to even be near Senna. I personally interpreted the woman’s appearance as being a negative aspect of the documentary because she said, “I’m a big fan of yours, and many Japanese girls are a fan of you” and this gave the impression that she was possibly only fascinated by meeting this global success story rather than being interested in the sport of racing. 

On the other hand, others may think that her reaction to Senna would have been typical because Senna is a signifier of formula one and he represents the level of myth of winning for Brazil and being a national hero therefore it’s a special thing to meet this ‘god-like’ figure.

Comments

  1. Tom O11 December 2018 at 08:11

    Again, feeds into your interest in theories of masculinity

    ReplyDelete

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