Nationalizing the Olympics Around and Away from “Vulnerable” Bodies of Women

Abstract

This article examines print media responses to the 1996 NBC coverage of the Olympic Games and the actual coverage of the women’s gymnastics competition. Whereas print media critics of the coverage emphasize NBC’s feminization of the Olympics, which they imagine as a unique televisual event, this article underscores the nationalizing function of the narratives (stories of personal trauma). By focusing on the production of women gymnasts as sites of national investment, the author shows how the coverage narratives function to contain other nationals and the individual vulnerabilities of the American gymnasts. More specifically, the author argues that even as “America” is separated and distinguished from other nations, and individual vulnerabilities are translated into the invulnerability of Team USA, both the coverage and the reactions to it attest to an anxiety that accompanies the production of “little girls” as main sites of national investment.