Cultural Dissents and Technical Innovations in the 'Whiz' Sports.

The way the French perceived the Californian myth in the sixties led them to develop the fun movement around the key concept of the "whiz", that is, speed, fluidity, entertainment, freedom linked to the imaginary notion of "kick" which stands for new sensations, a sense of harmony, of risk, a taste for the extreme. Whether it be snow or sea surfing, fun board, skate board, paragliding, parascending, bungee jumping etc., whether it be on snow, water, concrete or in the air, fun space is a "sport" - by which is meant a space situated mid-way between myth and reality- where the whiz stars embody contradictory values.The fun movement has been part of those avant garde movements that were so crammed with paradoxes and discrepancies that they eventually gave rise in the seventies a culture of the heterogeneous. We think, as does W.J. Loy that sport is "a medium of collective representation". It is a cultural system which acquires social significance "through its generation of experiences of enjoyable excitement." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]