Teach & Learn: Bodies & Pageantry
PrintObjectives
Students critically "read" Nazi propaganda images depicting idealized and dehumanized human bodies, reflecting on the intentions and consequences of these images.
Links to Historical Thinking Concepts:
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Use Primary Source Evidence - Students "decode" Nazi propaganda images relating to the human body and sport.
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Analyze Cause and Consequence - What is the relationship between a culture of dehumanization and policies of persecution?
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Take Historical Perspective - How did the Nazis take eugenic theories, prevalent throughout the Western world during the early twentieth century, to an extreme?
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Understand the Ethical Dimensions of History - Students ethically assess the visual culture of Nazi Germany, in particular Leni Riefenstahl's documentary film, Olympia.
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Identify Continuity and Change - How did the Paralympic movement change assumptions about athletic ability prevalent before the Second World War?
Defining Propaganda
As a class, brainstorm a definition of propaganda: a form of communication designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes or behaviour of its audience. Promotes biased information, ideas or practices and is transmitted in speeches, slogans, posters, newspapers, films, etc.
Discuss propaganda, using the following questions as a guide:
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What forms can propaganda take?
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What are examples of propaganda that students can think of?
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Optional: extend the discussion to consider how popular media influences attitudes towards different bodies: male, female, athletic, disabled, different ethnicities, etc.
Decoding Images
Note: when working with Nazi propaganda images, inform students in advance that they will be looking at material that they might find offensive. Explain that your intent is not to offend, but to work together to learn about the historical period in which these images were produced.
Students work in groups (there should be six groups with one image per group) to consider propaganda images relating to sport and the human body. The images portray idealized bodies, and their counterpart: those persecuted in Nazi Germany. One student in each group is assigned the role of recorder and one the role of reporter.
Make copies of Documents: Propaganda Images and distribute one image to each group.
Students examine their image and respond to the prompts below, in sequence. The recorder takes notes during the discussion. Groups may wish to make a chart to organize their responses.
1. Describe the appearance, gender, pose/action of body and relationship to surroundings.
2. Question - What questions do you have about the image?
3. Predict - Who do you think created the image? Who is the intended audience?
4. Read the caption.
5. Analyze - What is the message? How is the message conveyed?
6. Reflect: How does the image make you feel? Compare this image to similar images you may have encountered.
Reporters summarize the group’s conversation with the class. During the reports, teachers can make connections between the image and the contextual information featured in Student Reading: Antisemitism & Racism.
After the decoding activity, assign Student Reading: Antisemitism & Racism. Students write a journal response to the text, considering: what does a knowledge of the fate of Jews, Roma, Sinti and the physically disabled people in Nazi-occupied Europe affect your understanding of the images in the activity?
Extension: Leni Reifenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl was Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s favourite filmmaker. Her 1934 film about a Nuremberg Nazi party rally, Triumph of the Will, has been hailed as the most masterful propaganda film ever made. In 1935, Riefenstahl was commissioned by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry to create a documentary film about the upcoming Olympics. The resulting film, Olympia, featured many technical innovations and transformed the way sports were captured on film. Riefenstahl’s strategies for idealizing the human body and athletic performance have led many to argue that Olympia is closely linked to the Nazi racial ideals. Until her death in 2003, Riefenstahl maintained that her films were “merely” art, unconnected to politics.
Students view one of Riefenstahl’s films and/or do additional research about her life and work. Assignment: write a paper commenting on whether you think Riefenstahl’s films can be separated from Nazi ideology.
Extension: The Paralympic Movement
In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann decided that veterans of the Second World War suffering from spinal cord injuries needed their own sporting competition. Four years later, a second competition drew competitors from the Netherlands. By 1960, a series of Olympic-style events for disabled athletes with 400 athletes from 23 countries was underway in Rome. In 1976, the first-ever Paralympic Winter Games, which merged various disability groups for an international sporting competition, were held in Sweden.
Today, the Paralympics have grown into an elite sporting event that celebrates the athletic abilities of thousands of disabled athletes. The 2008 Summer Paralympic Games in Beijing featured 3,951 athletes from 146 countries, while approximately 1,350 athletes are expected to compete in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Paralympic Games.
Students analyze the Extension: Paralympic Images using the prompts outlined in the lesson: describe - question - predict - read - analyze - reflect
As a class, discuss:
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How do these images challenge your assumptions about disabled people? About athletic ability?
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Do you think the Paralympic Games can impact the status of intellectually and physically challenged people in our society? If so, how?
Student Reading: Antisemitism & Racism [PDF | 249 KB]