The Use Of Stereotypes In Sports

Ever since the day of the greeks, mankind partook in sports. From the first race, the first fight, the first game, these sports became a social construct. As a social construct, jointly constructed understanding about the world that form the basis for shared assumptions and reality, their social purpose can be assess, but this purpose was often different on a situational personal level. It can be seen that a single sporting event can have different meanings to different people depending on how that meaning is constructed through the differing viewpoints of Rocky and Creed in Rocky, Rudy in Rudy, and Mandela and Francois in Invictus.
In Rocky, the difference between Apollo Creed and Rocky Balboa was immense in and out of the ring. Apollo, being an already successful boxer, treated the fight as entertainment. To him this sporting event was more about the leisure than about the …show more content…
Invictus takes place after Nelson Mandela’s presidential win and his effort to unify South Africa. Mandela uses Ruby as a method to unify South Africa. This is the purpose of ruby to Mandela. Throughout history, sport has been used as a method of unification, and to Mandela this situation was no different. The whites enjoyed ruby well before the world cup and the public relations campaign run by Mandela was a way for the Springboks associate with the blacks as well. While this was a large scale and noble purpose (that ultimately worked), the rugby world cup had a different primary purpose for Francois. For Francois, the Springboks were an underdog, similar to Rudy and Rocky, and he just wanted to win. He wanted to go out and prove that the Springboks were a team that deserved respect. While to him the unification of Africa may have been important, his demeanor and attitude showed he just wanted to win. Unlike in Rudy and Rocky the “bystanders” were very affected because of great social change the Springboks brought to South