Steel chair to the head : the pleasure and pain of professional wrestling / edited by Nicholas Sammond.
Material type:
TextPublication details: Durham, [NC] : Duke University Press, 2005.Description: 365 p. : ill. ; 23 cmISBN: - 0822334038 (cloth : alk. paper)
- 0822334380 (pbk. : alk. paper)
- Pleasure and pain of professional wrestling
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | NonFiction | 796.812 S813 | Available | 33111004371882 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
The antagonists--oiled, shaved, pierced, and tattooed; the glaring lights; the pounding music; the shouting crowd: professional wrestling is at once spectacle, sport, and business. Steel Chair to the Head provides a multifaceted look at the popular phenomenon of pro wrestling. The contributors combine critical rigor with a deep appreciation of wrestling as a unique cultural form, the latest in a long line of popular performance genres. They examine wrestling as it happens in the ring, is experienced in the stands, is portrayed on television, and is discussed in online chat rooms. In the process, they reveal wrestling as an expression of the contradictions and struggles that shape American culture.
The essayists include scholars in anthropology, psychology, film studies, communication studies, and sociology, one of whom used to wrestle professionally. Classic studies of wrestling by Roland Barthes, Carlos Monsiváis, Sharon Mazer, and Henry Jenkins appear alongside original essays. Whether exploring how pro wrestling inflects race, masculinity, and ideas of reality and authenticity; how female fans express their enthusiasm for male wrestlers; or how lucha libre provides insights into Mexican social and political life, Steel Chair to the Head gives due respect to pro wrestling by treating it with the same thorough attention usually reserved for more conventional forms of cultural expression.
Contributors. Roland Barthes, Douglas L. Battema, Susan Clerc, Laurence de Garis, Henry Jenkins III, Henry Jenkins IV, Heather Levi, Sharon Mazer, Carlos Monsiváis, Lucia Rahilly, Catherine Salmon, Nicholas Sammond, Phillip Serrat, Philip Sewell
Includes index.
Introduction: a brief and unnecessary defense of professional wrestling / Nicholas Sammond -- The world of wrestling / Roland Barthes -- "Never trust a snake": WWF wrestling as masculine melodrama / Henry Jenkins III -- "Real wrestling"/"real" life / Sharon Mazer -- The hour of the mask as protagonist: El Santo versus the skeptics on the subject of myth / Carlos Monsiváis -- The mask of the Luchador: wrestling, politics, and identity in Mexico / Heather Levi -- Squaring the family circle: WWF smackdown assaults the social body / Nicholas Sammond -- "Ladies love wrestling too": female wrestling fans online / Catherine Salmon and Susan Clerc -- The "logic" of professional wrestling / Laurence De Garis -- Is raw war?: professional wrestling as popular s/m narrative -- Lucia Rahilly -- Not quite heroes: race, masculinity, and Latino professional wrestlers / Phillip Serrato -- Trading in masculinity: muscles, money, and market discourse in the WWF / Douglas Battema and Philip Sewell -- Afterword, part I: wrestling with theory, grappling with politics / Henry Jenkins III -- Afterword, Part II: growing up and growing more risqué / Henry Jenkins IV.