Description
Book SynopsisThrough the heart of Hollywood cinema runs an unexpected current of progressive politics. Sports movies, a genre that has flourished since the mid-seventies, evoke the American dream and therefore represent the nation to itself in idealized form. Once considered mere credos for Reaganism''s fantasies of an atomized society, movies from Rocky (1976) to Ali (2001) dream of democratic participation and recognition more than individual success, for in every case, off-field relationships take precedence over on-field competition. Arranged chronologically, Hollywood Sports Films and the American Dream is a critical study of six major sports films that re-tells the story of multiculturalism''s gradual adoption in the latter third of the 20th century and rewrites contemporary understandings of the sports film. For author Grant Wiedenfeld, the mainstream''s first minority heroes are paradoxically white ethnic, rural, working-class men, exemplified by Rocky, Slap Shot (1977) and The Natural (1
Trade ReviewWiedenfeld has produced a sustained, provocative reestimation of the Hollywood sports movie. From his rediscovery of the progressivism of Rocky's underdog status to his tour-de-force readings of League of their Own and Ali, he strives to think alongside—not against—these films and their politics, rallying with them and their heroes. For Wiedenfeld the sports movie is not merely a genre but a mode of civic participation, and this book amounts to the opening salvo of an Arendtian film criticism. * J.D. Connor, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, USC School of Cinematic Arts *
Hollywood Sports Movies and the American Dream would create considerable discussion in a graduate school classroom, could be parsed for use as chapter examples in an undergraduate course, and may reach a broader readership due to the important topics of film for the public sphere. * Andrew James Kettler, Journal of Popular Culture *
The monograph is quite engrossing and offers great fodder for the classic of all academic roles, debate. * Andrew James Kettler, University of South Carolina *
It is remarkable that Wiedenfeld vividly elaborates how the sports-film genre fascinatingly nests what the American people have come to embody...this book's ultimate significance lies in that it reconsiders this ideology through the lens of sports movies and in doing so, reveals their progressive potential. * Film Quarterly *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction: America's Civic Screen 2. Rocky (1976): Tenderhearted Community and Racial Moderation in Bicentennial America 3. Slap Shot (1977): Deindustrialization, Goon Masculinity, and Yankee-Doodle-Disco Patriotism 4. The Natural (1984): Farm Crisis and Minority Culture in a New Deal Legend 5. White Men Can't Jump (1992): "Winning and Losing is One Big Organic Globule" 6. A League of their Own (1992): Egalitarian Women and Sideline Men 7. Ali (2001): Actions of the People's Champion 8. Conclusion Bibliography Index
