The purpose of this study is to clarify the Olympism represented in several sport films and to interpret the symbolic meanings according to the direction of the sport images idealized therein. The Olympism, as a sport ideology, was examined by interpreting the concept transmitted by the sport films, prevailing and changing those images in general.
In this study, as a cultural study, cultural hermeneutics, cultural semiology, symbolism of culture, and text theory were applied. The sport films representing the Olympic Games were interpreted, especially with reference to the framework of sport hermeneutics, that is, “the interpretation of play-text of sport performer in accordance with a specific context and in consideration of the prevailing meta-text.” The subject of the interpretation were seven films, three were official Olympic documentary films, and four were dramatic films related to the running of the Olympic Games.
From the point of view of trying to idealize the sport images, the text of the films were rearranged. Thus, it was clarified that the following multidimensional representations of Olympism were depicted in these sport films; (1) individualism; the personal fulfillment and achievement, (2) ethnocentrism; the admiration of the teams and races, (3) nationalism and patriotism; the honor of country and nations, (4) internationalism; international interchange, mutual understandings, international goodwill, and peace, and (5) transnationalism; universal humanism, no segregation, equality, love, and friendship.
Hegemonic devices were present, and which were, in some sense, gimmicks to condense the memory and settle the sport images that were idealized, turning them into legends and mythology. In these sport images, there were scenes that tried to fix and transcend the idealized Olympism from adults to children through the narrations of the TV announcers, the narratives of the great achievements of athletes at the Olympic Games, and the capturing the victories in newspapers and magazines. In a similar manner, Olympic sports were represented under the structure of legend and mythology. Therefore, it is possible to argue that these Olympics sports films contained specific device designed to represent idealized sporting images of the athletes' great performances as well as mythological kind of Olympism, and to settle these images deeply into people's consciousness.
