Dr. Ever Josue Figueroa
Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His primary research interests include sports communication, media sociology and media representations of race, gender and class.
Email: ever.figueroa@colorado.edu
The Olympic opening ceremony has always been ripe for academic analysis on nationalism, sports communication and culture. This year’s games were no different, with viewers quickly drawn to certain viral moments in the opening ceremony that made waves on social media platforms. The hooded person running on Paris rooftops reminded a segment of the audience of video games like Assassin’s Creed, and I would be remiss to not mention the final supper controversy that garnered negative responses from members of the right-wing. However, a moment that captured attention was when audiences quickly made the visual connection between Coco Gauff and LeBron James carrying the American flag on their boat and Emanuel Leutze’s painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware.
I have previously done research on how images convey ideological messages in news media during significant events. My work on newspaper images of Hurricane Harvey showed that photojournalism both constructs myths of heroism and draws from prior socially constructed forms of photographs. That is, that images taken during news moments often reproduce or replicate prior images that the photographer may have already been thinking about subconsciously. In turn, these images reinforce certain ideological values, such as nationalism, capitalism, masculinity and whiteness. These images also construct gender and racial stereotypes, where men are portrayed as heroes restoring order to chaos. Conversely, women and people of color are painted as victims that are reliant on powerful men to save them from suffering. Together, images rhetorically communicate men’s dominant status in society.
When audiences receive these images, they are quick to appropriate and twist iconography to their own needs, which are then circulated and appropriated in a wide variety of contexts. Context can also change depending on the perceived gender, race and class of the image subject. Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites argued in chapter 11 of Rhetorical Audience Studies and Reception of Rhetoric:
A crucial feature in the study of iconic photographs is tracking how meaning and effect are produced not only by the image itself and through its circulation but also through appropriation into other artifacts.
We can see the image of Gauff and James take upon these meanings as social media users were quick to not only make the connection to Washington Crossing the Delaware, but appropriate the image to celebrate ideological values they hold near and dear. The original painting is an iconic image of American exceptionalism and militarism, one that reinforces the mythology surrounding one of the country’s founding fathers and his military prowess. Moreover, it also carries connotations of freedom, grit and endurance, all coded in masculine undertones. There is also one more dominant organizing principle in the original image, whiteness.
One of the first social media posts that went viral at the moment was from a user on X that posted a phone recording of Coco and LeBron with the caption “telling my kids this was George Washington.” The post efficiently draws a semiotic connection between the two images, granting iconic power to the Olympic moment. Most importantly, it de-centers the whiteness from the original Washington painting and reorients Coco and LeBron image into an explicitly Black celebratory rhetoric. This reading of the image in the moment, showcases how marginalized groups draw from prior iconography and appropriate images to communicate a rhetoric of emancipation under white supremacy. Allowing them to create messages of resistance, hope and change. Another widely circulated user post on X read “LeBron James looks like he just founded America.” A powerful statement that constructs a representation of Blackness that is central to American national identity.
You may have noticed that I keep putting Coco Gauff’s name in front of LeBron James, and that is done intentionally. In most of the articles I’ve looked at so far, Coco Gauff’s presence in the photograph is widely ignored if outright omitted. It’s important to acknowledge she was Team USA’s second flag bearer, and in the photo she stands next to James gripping the American flag. In other words, a clear gendered dynamic in conversations about the image is taking form and these conversations are unfortunately sidelining if not erasing women’s presence and power at the Olympics. It’s here that I urge media and sports writers to remain vigilant of internalized biases towards women. LeBron James isn’t crossing the Delaware alone, he stands with other women who are just as much a part of United States multi-racial democracy, and their presence should be acknowledged.
