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70 • Sport, Media and Society

the extent to which White male perspectives and experiences are still dominant in
discourses of American identity.’
Following this episode, the hugely semiotic parade of nations took place, with the

disparity of team sizes redolent of the significance of the nation itself. The second
interpretative sequence engaged differently with issues of race and nation. Repre-

sentatives from the five Native American nations (Ute, Goshute, Shoshone, Paiute
and Navajo) emerged onto the ice in traditional costume performing tribal dances.
Spiritual leaders of the five tribes then welcomed the athletes from the fi ve continents

in indigenous language. This section was highly affective in its performance of com-
munication across the division of culture and language. Hogan (2003) saw similari-
ties in this sequence with the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony’s incorporation
of indigenous peoples. She suggested that it was unclear whether ‘the indigenous
performers are guiding and teaching their young White observers or performing for
them’ (Hogan 2003: 116). Hogan (2003: 116) argued that this ‘useful ambiguity’
allowed the spectators to interpret for themselves the relationship between colonizer
and colonised in the performance. There was similarly useful affective ambiguity in
the synthesis of funk, rock and Native American music in the performance by Robbie
Robertson and the Red Road Ensemble, which helped construct a fragile, momentary
feeling of multicultural unity.
In the ‘Pioneers’ sequence, the child of light and a solitary Native American led
varied groups of settlers to Salt Lake City. Hogan (2003) pointed to the absence of
historical tensions or lethal conflict represented in this segment, as people of all

backgrounds marched together and joined in a hoedown. The triumph of technol-

ogy was figured in the joyful coming of the railroad, as the contemporary country
group the Dixie Chicks provided a musical bridge from past to present. As a link
back to the seriousness of the sporting event, the composer John Williams conducted
the Utah Symphony and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in ‘Call of the Champions’,
which included firework accompaniments to the Olympic motto ‘citius, altius, for-

tius’ (faster, higher, stronger). Sounds and images were used throughout the cer-
emony to weave together a narrative of nationhood around diverse and contradictory
elements. Kellner (2003: 25) discussed the ways that the array of signifi ers within
the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics combined to construct

an ‘orgy of patriotism’ that benefited President George W. Bush. The nationalism
of Bush’s opening speech—‘On behalf of a proud, determined and grateful nation,
I declare open the Games of Salt Lake City’—was interwoven with signifiers of the

9/11 flag and the sounds and images of a momentarily unified, multicultural nation.

While Mike Eruzione and the 1980 US ice hockey team that defeated the Soviet

Union in Lake Placid lit the Olympic flame, the crowd chanted ‘USA, USA’. Kellner
(2003: 25) argued that Bush’s decision to surround himself with the team made for
‘a spectacular photo opportunity that combined patriotism, power and US victory in
the cold war’. Television provides a global audience of viewers ready to consume the
image of the nation constructed during this and other Olympic opening ceremonies.
Spectacle is central to contemporary production of televised sport.