Girlhood: A Global History

10. Rebels, Robots, and All-American Girls: The Ideological Use of Images of Girl Gymnasts During the Cold War

10 Rebels, Robots, and All-American Girls the ideological use of images of girl gymnasts during the cold war ann kordas Gymnastics, a sport that cultivates and rewards agility, grace, and elegance in young women, would, on the face of it, seem unlikely to generate controversy in the international arena. Women’s gymnastics, however, has long had a political dimension to it. Although women’s gymnastics has been an Olympic sport since 1928, its political import first became apparent at the 1952 Helsinki Games, when the young female gymnasts from the Soviet Union dominated the competition, garnering hundreds of points for the USSR and enraging the American media. The newly politically charged nature of gymnastics, and of the gymnasts themselves, was the result of the Cold War. During the period ranging from the late 1960s to the 1990s, changes in the presentation of girl gymnasts in the American media accompanied changes in the Cold War relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this chapter I explore the ways in which the American media employed images of both U.S. and Eastern-bloc girl gymnasts to convince American citizens, and presumably citizens of the unaligned nations of the world as well, of the benevolence and superiority of the United States and the evil nature of the Soviet Union and its Eastern-bloc allies. Cold War Gymnastics: Girls’ Bodies as Sites of National Reproduction Following the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union entered into a fifty-year battle for world dominance. Beginning with Stalin’s demands for control of eastern Europe at Yalta in 1945 and ending with the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991, the two superpowers confronted one another in many arenas: political, economic, military, social, and athletic . During this period, girls around the world found themselves drawn into the international arena as both agents and pawns in the new realignment of world power as both the United States and the Soviet Union used 195 images of girls, especially girl gymnasts, to serve the ideological purposes of their respective regimes. Since its founding, the Soviet Union had recognized, as E. Thomas Ewing discusses in his chapter in this volume, the importance of youth to the reproduction of the political order. In the post–World War II era, the United States also made great use of images of young girls, especially girl gymnasts, to tout the superiority of the U.S. political and economic system. During the Cold War, teenage girls became objects of great interest in the United States, and many organizations assumed the task of preparing them for the roles they would one day play as citizens of both the United States and the world. Although organizations that sought to prepare girls for adult roles, such as those Melissa Klapper mentions in her chapter on Jewish girlhood in turn-of-the-century America, had existed in the United States for many years, during the Cold War such groups assumed a new political dimension. For example, the Camp Fire Girls, as Jennifer Helgren discusses in her chapter, sought to prepare young girls for world citizenship by teaching them to respect the cultures of other nations and urging them to work for world peace, while simultaneously conveying the message that peace and unity could best be achieved if other countries adopted American culture and values. During this period, girl gymnasts gained prominence as defenders and reproducers of American values. There are many reasons why girls, especially girl gymnasts, were readily co-opted as objects of nationalistic propaganda during the Cold War. Lauren Berlant argues that, as innocent beings needing protection, children become the subjects of state action. Unable to care for themselves, children exert “ethical claims on the adult political agents who write laws, make culture, administer resources, control things.” In caring for children, states display “the nation’s value.”1 Girls, who occupy the vulnerable position of being both female and children, are thus ideal subjects of state action and perfect vehicles for conveying nationalistic propaganda . If girls in general are the natural subjects of propaganda, girl gymnasts are even better at serving such nationalistic needs. As Ann Chisholm, building on Berlant’s theory of “infantile citizenship,” argues, Americans have long displayed concern for girls because their bodies serve as sites of both physical and cultural reproduction. According to Chisholm, girls who have trained their bodies to be strong, healthy, graceful, and disciplined through the practice of gymnastics are perceived...