Summary:
Two examples of true stories in which the real-life subjects have an unshakeable belief in their future are the autobiography "It's Not about the Bike" by Lance Armstrong and the 2000 film "Men of Honour" directed by George Tillman. The common theme is that anyone can overcome obstacles if they have a strong enough will to succeed.
Biographical texts convey a biased sense of reality and this is strongly influenced by the cultural background and life experience of the particular person conveying this view of reality. Lance Armstrong, in his autobiographical text, It's Not about the Bike, and George Tillman director of Men of Honour, both depict characters with an unshakeable belief in their future, through the use of various textual features which foreground the central theme that anything is possible and achievable. This dominant reading is privileged in both texts through discourse, which aims to position the audience to explore the cultural backgrounds that had significantly shaped the biased perceptions of life. The author and director's beliefs are further foregrounded through the representation of obstacles in their lives and the use of gaps and silences is also evident in both texts to privilege the dominant perspective and silence opposing views.
Both the author and the director have invoked the audience to share their strong cultural attitudes and beliefs about life to privilege their dominant readings through both texts. Lance Armstrong has displayed his optimistic attitude toward the cancer experience and his remarkable journey of surviving through the disease, positioning the readers to accept his belief that anything is possible, even for a cancer patient. This headstrong perspective on life is reiterated in the text and is evident through his survival of cancer and his success with the Tour de France, "you can be told you have a 90-percent chance or a 50-percent chance or a 1-percent chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight" (pg267). Similarly, George Tillman positions the audience to see life from the perspective of Carl Brashear and to accept the view that anything is achievable, even for a black man. His belief that he "was born to dive" inspires him to endure so many obstacles and through sheer force of will, he attains his ultimate goal. The perspectives of the author and the director encourage the audience to view the protagonists' lives from a biased viewpoint and furthermore, this invites the audience to delve more deeply into the central characters' cultural background to understand how it had shaped their perspectives on life.
The dominant readings of both texts provoke the audience to explore the cultural background of the author and the director through the use of discourse. In It's Not about the Bike, the love and support of Lance's family and friends guided him through dark sessions of chemotherapy and encouraged him to come back to the sport of cycling. Through discourse, Lance compares an American nurse to "an angel" (pg149) and this metaphor foregrounds how much respect he had for her hard work and support. In contrast, Tillman has foregrounded aggressive naval discourse characteristic to the 1960's American military context in the film, Men of Honour. The abundant use of swear words and offensive language such as, "we are gonna drown you nigger", toward Carl Brashear is privileged to emphasise that his perspective of life is shaped by a prejudiced and racist cultural background. Furthermore, phrases like "Son, you never quit" from the book and "be the best" from Men of Honour are utilised to position the audience to understand the positive cultural values that were instilled into the main characters through their parents. They are also reflective of a biased American viewpoint, focussing on competitiveness and aggressiveness, which might isolate readers of other cultures. Through the use of discourse, the audience is able to gain insight into the cultural milieu that underpins the main themes of each text and the central theme of persevering to achieve your goals is further explored through representations.
In addition, both texts have demonstrated biased representations, which portray obstacles in the main characters' lives to foreground the theme of struggling through obstacles to achieve your goals. In It's Not About the Bike, cancer is a strong representation of struggle in Lance's life and it is viewed as a terrible disease but not as incurable. Lance observes that "cancer is the Tour de France of illnesses" (pg 268) and he has survived it, consequently positioning the audience to accept his belief that anything is possible. Respectively, George Tillman in Men of Honour has represented obstacles in the life of Carl Brashear through the biased representation of a ruthless and bigoted U.S. Navy. Nevertheless, it was this blatant racial sentiment that inspired and fuelled Carl to be the best and to sustain himself through many struggles. When his wife asks him why he wants to be a master diver so badly, he simply replies "because they said I couldn't have it." Despite the struggle within the Naval society, he becomes a master diver, thus privileging his perspective that anything is achievable, despite ethnicity. The representations depict the struggles in the life of Lance Armstrong and Carl Brashear and effectively support the dominant readings of the texts. The audience can exploit these struggles further through filling the gaps and silences to better understand the biased construction of each text.
Furthermore, the perspectives presented in the book, INAB and in the film, Men of Honour, are privileged through the use of gaps and silences, which encourage the audience to emphasise with the protagonist of each text by filling in gaps relating to how hard their respective life journey must have been. Armstrong has provided a gap for the audience to fill in his emotional journey through cancer by not providing detailed accounts of his cancer treatments. The audience is invited to apply their cultural assumptions of cancer to fill the gap and most readers would envision that cancer treatment is tremendously hard to deal with, thus inviting the readers to have a greater appreciation for Armstrong's struggle and to have greater respect for him, as he has achieved so many goals, despite being struck with such a debilitating illness. The director, George Tillman has silenced the family life of Carl Brashear and has focused primarily on Brashear's life as a diver. The audience is positioned to understand that Carl's family life is suffering in pursuit of his goal, "you are not doing this for him (his son) or me. This is about you. It's always been about you." The director silences Brashear's family life to foreground the dominant reading that achieving your life goals is difficult and often at the expense of those that you love most, thus goal attainment is a struggle with many obstacles to overcome and many competing issues that need to be balanced.
Both texts demonstrate the central character's unshakeable belief in their future and their determination to overcome many tough obstacles in the pursuit of their goals. The dominant reading, that anything is possible, is portrayed through the use of discourse, which gives the audience greater insight into the cultural background that shaped the construction of both texts. Through various representations, the author and director foreground the dominant theme of pursuing your goals at all costs, as both characters attacked life head on and had a burning desire to succeed. Lastly, gaps and silences are employed to encourage the audience to fill in gaps in the text to understand and better appreciate the struggles of each protagonist. Overall, both texts provide an inspirational account of two life stories, outlining the struggle of each character and foregrounding the main theme that anyone can overcome obstacles if they have a strong enough will to succeed.
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