This thesis considers the perceived athleticism of synchronized swimming by looking
at the implications of representations of Esther Williams and "pretty swimming" in popular
culture, the allocation of space for women's sport in a local public swimming pool, and an
inaugural championship event. Focusing on the first British Columbia (BC) synchronized
swimming championships, which were held on February 5, 1949 at Crystal Pool in
Vancouver, it shows that images of synchronized swimming as "entertainment" facilitated
the development of a new arena of competition for BC women, but that this was
accompanied, in effect, by a trivialization of the accomplishments of organizers and athletes.
Chapter One examines the construction of a "global" mermaid by analysing Esther
Williams' first film, Bathing Beauty (1944), as a typical example of the Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer (MGM) aquamusical, a genre that produced images of synchronized swimming as
frivolous entertainment. Chapter Two considers how these sorts of images affected the
allocation of physical space at Crystal Pool, Vancouver's only indoor public swimming pool
at the time, for women's sport. Chapter Three introduces two women who were involved in
the 1949 BC synchronized swimming championships: May Brown, who at the time was a
University of British Columbia (UBC) Physical Education instructor and synchronized
swimming judge, and Maureen Bray (Hibberson), a UBC student who won the individual
championship event. Their recollections provide an important corrective to the "pretty
swimming" stereotype by demonstrating that these women used the cultural and physical
space allotted to them to create a new sport for local women. The final chapter also includes
episodes from my personal experiences as a synchronized swimmer in BC during the 1980s
to underscore the complicated and conflicted heritage for synchronized swimmers in BC
represented by the legacy of the 1949 championships and the MGM aquamusical.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11883 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Thomas, Laura Michelle |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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