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50 • Sport, Media and Society
Applying Berger’s (1992) categories illustrates that baseball films seem to share a
number of themes and conventions. It might be argued on this basis that the baseball
movie is a genre in its own right. However, some of these elements are generalised
among sport films—for example, the ‘against all odds’ plot line. The baseball movie
might be considered only a subgenre of a wider sport movie genre. Considering
components of genre, however, can help to reveal the strategies that fi lm-makers use
to (re)create the mythic qualities associated with baseball. Narrative conventions and
systems of signification work together in sport movies to construct a particular vision
of sport and society. The analysis of narrative and formula can help illuminate the
assumptions on which they rest.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
• Sport fi lms use signifying systems that the audience is expected to under-
stand; it is useful to think about the ways meaning is constructed by the
camera, lighting, editing, sound and mise en scène
• The creative use of audio and visual communication in film can render a
powerful experience of sport for the audience
• The signifying systems of film create meanings within and between the
shots, helping the audience to construct a narrative by interpreting and con-
necting events portrayed
• When films display shared elements, such as recurring plots, conventions,
themes and values, it may be possible to group films into a genre
• We can consider whether sport films constitute a specific genre by analysing
the extent to which certain features, such as time, place, heroes, villains,
secondary characters, plots, themes and costumes, occur with regularity
across a number of individual fi lms
Suggestions for Analysis
There is an ongoing debate about whether sport films constitute a genre in their own
right. Select a range of films with sport-related content and apply the parameters
suggested by Berger (1992), to consider commonalities across time, place, heroes,
villains, secondary characters, plot, themes, locomotion, costume and weaponry. Are
there sufficient similarities to identify a sport genre or sport-specific subgenres (e.g.
a soccer film genre)? Are other aspects of recognisable cultural narratives present
in the films (e.g. fairy tales, Christian parables)? How are themes central to sport
treated in different sport films? For example, how is damage to the body discursively
constructed in boxing films and baseball fi lms?
