Contesting Identities: SPORTS IN AMERICAN FILM (Contemporary Film Directors) - Softcover

Baker, Aaron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252073541 ISBN 13: 9780252073540

Verlag: Combined Academic Publ., 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Analysis of race, class and gender in American sports films

Since the earliest days of the silent era, American filmmakers have been drawn to the visual spectacle of sports and their compelling narratives of conflict, triumph, and individual achievement. In Contesting Identities Aaron Baker examines how these cinematic representations of sports and athletes have evolved over time--from The Pinch Hitter and Buster Keaton's College to White Men Can't Jump, Jerry Maguire, and Girlfight. He focuses on how identities have been constructed and transcended in American society since the early twentieth century.

Whether depicting team or individual sports, these films return to that most American of themes, the master narrative of self-reliance. Baker shows that even as sports films tackle socially constructed identities like class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, they ultimately underscore transcendence of these identities through self-reliance.

Looking at films from almost every sporting genre--with a particular focus on movies about boxing, baseball, basketball, and football--Contesting Identities maps the complex cultural landscape depicted in American sports films and the ways in which stories about "subaltern" groups winning acceptance by the mainstream majority can serve to reinforce the values of that majority.

In addition to discussing the genre's recurring dramatic tropes, from the populist prizefighter to the hot-headed rebel to the "manly" female athlete, Baker also looks at the social and cinematic impacts of real-life sports figures from Jackie Robinson and Babe Didrikson Zaharias to Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Aaron Baker is director of graduate studies for the Humanities Program at Arizona State University. He is the editor of Out of Bounds: Sports, Media, and the Politics of Identity.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Combined Academic Publ.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0252073541
• ISBN 13: 9780252073540
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 176
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande