| As a social activity, sports is mainly expressed in the form of physical narrative. Influenced by the mass culture, modern sports embodies quite distinct visual characteristics. On the other hand, public's attention on the modern sports is often concentrated on desire satisfaction via physical activities, with the pursuit of the spirit in the backseat. Visualization survival is considered as the most important aesthetic principle of the modern sports in the mass culture era.Mass culture, consumerism and mass media are the three necessary conditions for the modern sports to take the road of the visual aesthetic. It is the trend of the modern sports to develop toward aestheticization, and the resulting aesthetic vulgarization phenomenon is inevitable along with the development of the sports in modern business world and the development of modern society.The primary function of modern sports has gradually shifted from educational fitness to entertainment, which substitutes the political function of sports as well. Therefore, elitist value is replaced by carnival-style aesthetic taste and hedonism becomes the universal principle of modern sports.In today's society, consumerism dominates the value orientation in the process of sports development. Aestheticization subject to the marketing logic will dispel the inherent value of sports, and mass media has provided a technical platform for aestheticization, which aggravates the value orientation toward quick success and ruins the humanism ecological environment to a certain extent. As a result, public concentration on sports has exceeded the sports category itself and the development of sports is impacted by external factors more than ever before. Negative features appears in the postmodernism era in sports.Modern sports should focus on both perceptual experience and rational pursuit, both body liberation and spirit enhancement. Physical culture without aesthetic and humanistic ideals is terrible and dangerous when it becomes market-first and pragmatic. The power of aesthetics can certainly enhance the spiritual condition of the publics, and thus avoid alienation of the sports. |
