UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Los Angeles and the 1984 Olympic Games

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Los Angeles and the 1984 Olympic Games: Cultural Commodification, Corporate Sponsorship, and the Cold War A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Josh R. Lieser December 2014 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Catherine Gudis, Chairperson Dr. Molly McGarry Dr. Kiril Tomoff Copyright by Josh R. Lieser 2014 The Dissertation of Josh R. Lieser is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Los Angeles and the 1984 Olympic Games: Cultural Commodification, Corporate Sponsorship, and the Cold War by Josh R. Lieser Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in History University of California, Riverside, December 2014 Dr. Catherine Gudis, Chairperson The 1984 Olympics offer an unprecedented opportunity to consider the way that sports were used as cultural and ideological warfare or soft power in the late stages of the Cold War era. Despite the Soviet Union’s decision to boycott the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics were a claimed “victory” by President Ronald Reagan in the Cultural Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Los Angeles won the right to host the games, and was a politically prudent choice for the United States within the context of the Cultural Cold War. The complicated history of Los Angeles and its constructed post-WWII identity are important elements to the choice of Los Angeles as host city. The Soviet boycott of the 1984 Olympic Games by the Soviet Union is central to the buildup to 1984, but due to the financial success of the Games the Soviet absence was not the crisis that many predicted. This fact was largely due to how the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee utilized corporate iv sponsorship to make the most financially successful Olympic Games of all time while simultaneously creating a “look” for the Games that would present the United States and the city of Los Angeles in an idealized manner that appeared bereft of hyper-nationalism. The economic success of the Games was the greatest weapon the United States had in the cultural battle it fought in 1984. The cultural legacy of the 1984 Games also hinged on the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival which was organized by the LAOOC. The Olympic Arts Festival, like the Games, was an opportunity for the United States to create international influence and legitimacy while simultaneously claiming the position of diplomatic host nation. Through the exploration of these avenues, the 1984 Los Angeles Games are evidence of the significance of sports in the Cultural Cold War, the corporatization of sports, and the commodification of both sports and the Olympics through modern means of spectacle and profit motives. v Table of Contents Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter One: Bringing the Games to Los Angeles …………………………………….. 44 Chapter Two: Negotiating “Games”: The Boycott of 1984 ……………….………….... 71 Chapter Three: The “Look” of the Games: Advertising and the Rise of Corporate Sponsorship …………………………………………………………………………… 127 Chapter Four: The Olympic Arts Festival as Cultural Exchange and Legacy Builder …………………………………………………………………………………………. 196 Conclusion ………………………………………..………………………………… 236 vi List of Figures Figure 1: Soviet published Bezbozhnik cartoon …………………...…………………… 10 Figure 2: Sam the Eagle plush toy ………………………………………...………….. 169 Figure 3: The card "stunt" at the Coliseum at the 1984 Opening Ceremonies............... 179 Figure 4: IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch and President Reagan …………… 180 Figure 5: Gina Hemphill carries the Olympic torch; Rafer Johnson salutes the crowd and prepares to light the Olympic Bowl …………..………………………………………. 182 Figure 6: The pastel color palette on display at the Coliseum ……………………...… 184 Figure 7: “Festive Federalism” on display at the Coliseum ………………………...… 186 Figure 8: The US crowd at the 1984 Olympics …..……………………………….….. 188 Figure 9: Waseda Sho-Gekijo performing The Trojan Women in 1984 ……………... 210 Figure 10: Ulysses Jenkins, Transportation Brought Art to the People ………………. 218 Figure 11: Unity by Roderick Sykes ……………………………………………….… 219 vii Introduction The 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games The Olympic Games of the modern era are far more than international sporting events. The transnational competitions between athletes have been at varying moments in world history a metaphor for clashes between nations, cultures, religions, and political ideologies. With their visible nationalistic elements (flags, uniforms) and the opportunities they provide propagandists, commentators, and audiences to interpret individual or team accomplishments as tests of national character, will, and achievements, such sporting events provide a showcase for leaders or advocates of causes who compete for world attention.1 Thus, the Games have been a showcase for ideology and systemic vitality. The international influence and projected power of a state can be displayed at the Games. From the start, the modern Olympic Games, which began as the brain child of a French nobleman, the Baron Pierre de Coubertin, were fraught with political intrigues, antagonisms, and conflicts.2 In 1936, the world observed as the Berlin Olympics were remade as a presentation of the Third Reich’s introduction of a supposedly revived Germany to the international community. The 1936 games served as a lynchpin in a new form of politicization of the Olympic Games. After the end of World War II, the growing conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States would factor 1 Jarol B. Manheim, “Rites of Passage: The 1988 Seoul Olympics as Public Diplomacy,” The Western Political Quarterly 43, no. 2 (June 1990): 279. 2 Alfred E. Senn, Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games: A History of the Power Brokers, Events, and Controversies that Shaped the Games (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Press, 1999), 2. 1 heavily in world events. The Olympics were no exception, and became expressions of soft power.3 The Soviet Union sent Olympic Teams to participate in 1952 and 1956, and gained much momentum in their results. In 1956, the Soviet Union finished ahead of the United States in total medals won, and created international controversy by crushing the Hungarian Revolution that same year – leading to a boycott by several nations including France and Spain. In 1960, Rome hosted an Olympic Games that placed the growing international Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union at front and center, as the Soviet Union again finished ahead of the United States for the first time in the total medal count – one year before the Berlin Wall was completed.4 Pravda, the leading political newspaper of the Soviet Union, claimed that there were thirty million athletes trying to make the 1960 Soviet Olympic team.5 This propaganda piece demonstrated the growth of the political meaning of sport to the Soviet Union along with the official state support of athletics. International competitiveness fostered a surge of growth in state-run advanced training methods, as well as other structural aspects of sports institutions, and created a situation that made it very difficult for smaller nations to find a global voice by competing in or hosting the Olympic Games.6 Two interlinked elements that underlie the Soviet sports system were the “Ready for Labor and Defense” mass fitness program and the Uniform Rankings system for proficient athletes in 3 For a discussion of the term “soft power” see: Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004). 4 Medal count has long been used to determine the overall success of a participating nation in the Olympic Games. In this case, winning the medal count is the ultimate validation. 5 David Maraniss, Rome 1960 : The Olympics That Changed the World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008). 6 Philip D’Agati, The Cold War and the 1984 Olympic Games: A Soviet-American Surrogate War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 3. 2 individual sports. Both were intended to serve the twin aims of all-around ability in a number of sports and a whole set of qualifying standards, rankings, and titles in individual sports intended to stimulate the best performers to aim for certain graduated standards. At the top of the rankings systems are two sports titles: “Master of Sport of the USSR, International Class” and “Master of Sport of the USSR.”7 The emphasis placed on Olympic sports grew quickly within the Soviet Union, and the political relevance of athletic performance was the core reason the state directed this change. From the 1960 Games until the end of the Cold War in 1991 when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union was dismantled, international athletic competitions were hotly contested by the United States and the Soviet Union at nearly every turn due to their political and ideological meaning. The Olympic Games offer two distinct avenues for nations to demonstrate importance. Developing powers often seek to host the Olympic Games and have continually utilized the Olympic Games in the modern era to announce cultural, economic, and ideological significance to the international community. Nations or political organizations who do not host the games often utilize the event as an opportunity to make a statement through competitive success or otherwise. The amount of money spent on these spectacles has been staggering. Japan, the nation whose leaders had hoped that hosting the Olympic Games would crown its rise to Pacific hegemony and global superpower status had its dreams of hosting in 1940 supplanted by the self-determined 7 Richard Riordan, “Soviet Sport and Soviet Foreign Policy,” Soviet Studies 26, 3 (July 1974): 324. 3 advent of World War II.8 Tokyo's grand plans for a massive Olympic complex had been incinerated, along with the rest of the Japanese capital due to its leader’s aggressive pursuit of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and eventual attack of the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The leadership of Japan was not content to wait for the Olympics to announce their arrival as a world power, instead choosing military action to do so.

Load more