What is the mere appearance of sports? On the surface, sports and sport competitions is all just fun and games. However, over the decades, sports have developed a more underlying message within society. International Sport Competitions either help build or diminish a country’s nationalism through social stereotypes that the outcomes of competitions create.
Competition is in fact not all just fun and games; there is one huge contradiction facing competition. It is understood that teams and its countries are supposed to be enemies on the field and friends outside the field. However, the contradiction is that countries carry the spirit of competition outside of the games and into everyday life.
Sports create two main stereotypes; the winners and the losers. It’s simple; a team either looses or wins a game, right? On the field, yes. However, sports and competition have become such a large part of society that, these stereotypes don’t just exist on the field. The stereotypes are now being carried off into the minds and hearts of the county. The outcome of a sport’s game or competition is how the country will be labeled. They will either be a winner, or a loser and each outcome has its effects on nationalism and society.
After a country wins a game, what follows that victory? Obviously the country is given the title of “winner,” which automatically gives that country a leg up in the sport’s world. Not only does winning the game boost the country’s sports status, but it also gives the illusion that the country is more powerful overall. One of the most interesting comparisons I have heard relating the county’s power and competition outcome is that the game is like war. In the blogging heads video, Eve Fairbanks points out a statement that when Germany was playing England, the German announcer stated, “Germany had broken England’s Resistance.” I found this quote interesting because to me, sports are supposed to be friendly competition, however, countries are now tying in their aggressive war pasts to regain power. If a country wins a game, their nationalism is suddenly twice as strong. The country feels more powerful, and proud that they have beat another country, just like in war. Making them feel as if they are better than the other country.
What about the losers? What are the social and nationalist consequences of defeat? In a sense, the team represents the country. So if the team fails, then it is viewed as the country failing. Blogging heads made many references to the fact that if during a game, a multicultural team does not work well together and loses, that symbolizes the ethnic groups within the county. Which is ridiculous because sports should not have any relation to politics and or the country as a whole. Yes, losing a game is an embarrassment to the team, but that should not have any bearing on one’s pride in his or her country. However, sports are now so popular in society that people get angry and loose their sense of nationalism if their team looses because they are ashamed and do not feel as powerful as the other country.
I never actually thought that nationalism and sports could have such tight ties between them. However, recently sport competitions are now parallel to a country’s nationalistic views through the stereotypes these games create. Only, is this how the human population should view sports? Should sports and sports teams represent the country as a whole, or should sports just be a friendly competition?
Try to hyperlink inside the text rather than list the URL outside it. Work on getting multimedia and also on formatting (no double spacing between paragraphs). Also, break up the longest paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteThe point at the end of the 1st paragraph seems not to depart much from the bloggingheads principles. What are you adding to the discussion?
2nd paragraph is better -- this could be a point of yours.
Bloggingheads was pointing out that we shouldn't make these connections, but your whole essay was showing how these connections exist, yet you don't take blogginheads head-on (pun intended) and actually discuss why they're wrong and you're right.
lose/loose
Not bad to end with a question if you're trying to provoke discussion among readers. But this question was already answered by the post, so maybe another question would be better at creating conversation.