Schwarzenegger and Bodybuilding

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Schwarzenegger and Bodybuilding

• From a sportsman to a cultural icon

Melanie Gruber Sebastian Grondorf Björn
Bollermann Patrick Heinze
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Content

• Introduction
• Presentation of different narratives
• - discipline
• - individuality/ singularity
• - success
• Conclusion

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Discipline

• Was da für ne Disziplin hintersteckt, sieht
  eigentlich keiner.
• Benjamin Franklin (1706 1790)

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How did they reach their goals?
Schwarzenegger
Franklin

• Adopted training methods of Reg Park
• Training twice a day

• Adopted view and attitudes of philosophers
• 13 virtues

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Schwarzenegger
Franklin

• Perfection of the Body
• I want to be the best built man in the world.
  (Education of a Bodybuilder, p.19)

• Moral Perfection
• I wished to live without any faults at any
  time. (from The Autobiography, 1771)

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Singularity / Individuality

• Ich hab also gemerkt, dass ich irgendwie anders
  angeguckt werde. Da bin ich dann bei geblieben
  he continued working out , das hat mir schon
  gefallen...

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• What was Arnolds motivation to start working out
  ?
• However, by the time I was thirteen team sports
  no longer satisfied me. I was already off on an
  individual trip. I disliked it when we won a game
  of soccer and I didnt get personal
  recognition.
• from The Education of a Bodybuilder, p.14
• ? Bodybuilding expresses the fundamental will to
  be special

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• Arnold anticipated the idea of being special
  through physical workout. This had a recognizable
  impact on the sport itself.
• I wanted to do something special, to be
  recognized as the best. I saw bodybuilding as the
  vehicle that would take me to the top,
• from The Education of a Bodybuilder, p.19

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• The will to be singled out has a long American
  tradition
• Lives of great men all remind us
• We can make our lives sublime
• And, departing, leave behind us
• Footprints on the sands of time
• from A Psalm of Life, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• There is a time in every mans education when
  he arrives at the conviction that envy is
  ignorance that imitation is suicide
• from Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Success

• Der is als 19-jähriger mit ner Sporttasche
  nach Amerika gegangen Ich glaub nicht, daß es
  jemand noch mal so schaffen wird.
• He is arrived on a new continent a modern
  society offers itself to his contemplation,
  different from what he had hitherto seen.
• from Letters of an American Farmer, Crèvecoeur

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• Both quotes exemplify what it means to be
  typically American
• American identity
• ? Coming to America, Arnold also relied on his
  physical capacity (connection to the body as an
  instrument to be successful)

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• Bodybuilding as a part of the success-story from
  which Arnold gained his status of a sports icon

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Conclusion

• Through the ideals of bodybuilding Arnold became
  a model citizen of the United states.
• He is an icon because the ideals of sports
  (bodybuilding) and the essential cultural
  narratives merge into one another in his persona.
  

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• The goals that he set for himself (to be the
  best-built man) automatically matched the ideals
  of American culture.
• To be the best-built man in the world and to be
  a quintessential American it takes the same
  qualities
• ? Discipline (Franklin)
• ? The will to be individual (Emerson)
• ? The courage to make it in a foreign
  country (Crèvecoeur)

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• Thus, he became a cultural icon as well.
• His status as an icon is also reflected and
  confirmed in the average bodybuilders attitudes
  towards him.

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• Thank you for your attention!!