Representations, Discourses and Aesthetics of Pain in Sports Films
Abstract
This article examines the representation of pain in sports films as both a bodily experience and a cultural metaphor. Far from being merely a physiological phenomenon, pain becomes a narrative and aesthetic resource through which discourses on masculinity, sacrifice, social class, and nation are articulated. The aim of this study is to analyze how sports cinema transforms physical pain into a symbolic device that legitimizes cultural values and constructs narrative models of athletic identity. The films examined present different modes of representing pain: as a moral test and a narrative of self-improvement; as stylized self-destruction; and as transcendent sacrifice associated with spiritual and patriotic values. This first part argues that sports films released between 1976 and 1981 established a visual and discursive repertoire that continues to shape contemporary understandings of athletic suffering as a genuine epic.
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