Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional WrestlingNicholas Sammond 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. |
Contents
Introduction A Brief and Unnecessary Defense of Professional Wrestling | 1 |
The World of Wrestling | 23 |
Never Trust a Snake WWF Wrestling as Masculine Melodrama | 33 |
Real Wrestling Real Life | 67 |
The Hour of the Mask as Protagonist El Santo versus the Skeptics on the Subject of Myth | 88 |
The Mask of the Luchador Wrestling Politics and Identity in Mexico | 96 |
Squaring the Family Circle WWF Smackdown Assaults the Social Body | 132 |
Ladies Love Wrestling Too Female Wrestling Fans Online | 167 |
Is RAW War? Professional Wrestling as Popular SM Narrative | 213 |
Not Quite Heroes Race Masculinity and Latino Professional Wrestlers | 232 |
Trading in Masculinity Muscles Money and Market Discourse in the WWF | 260 |
Afterword Part I Wrestling with Theory Grappling with Politics | 295 |
Afterword Part II Growing Up and Growing More Risqué | 317 |
Glossary | 343 |
Contributors | 345 |
347 | |
Other editions - View all
Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling Nicholas Sammond Limited preview - 2005 |
Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling Nicholas Sammond Limited preview - 2005 |