Book
Football and manliness: an unauthorized feminist account of the NFL
University of Illinois Press
2017
DOI: 10.5406/illinois/9780252040948.001.0001
Abstract
This book traces a quiet transformation in public life, in which a populist sense of white male aggrievement, and an admiration for deal-making sensibilities and an interest in remaking the self have combined to form a potent political formation. To understand it, the book identifies a central cultural site where aspects of this formation has been developed, refined, and occasionally contested: media texts about the National Football League (NFL). Deploying the tools of feminist media analysis, it seeks answers to a number of questions: How have the corporate-produced meanings of the league shifted to make football meaningful and compelling to its millions of fans in a purportedly “post-feminist” and “post-racial” era? What kinds of gender and racialized subjects do these texts imagine? What ethics do they express? These questions are addressed in chapters that focus on a theme and a particular media form: Dramas for cinema and television about the dynamics of pro football teams; sports journalism about the NFL draft, in which new talent is assessed; popular books by football coaches that offer guides to managing organizations and the self; and promotions for fantasy football that present budget-minded strategies as entertainment. The concluding chapter argues that journalism and other depictions of football that challenge the logics of hegemonic racialized masculinity offer possibilities for resistance and transformation.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Football and manliness: an unauthorized feminist account of the NFL
- Creators
- Thomas Patrick Oates - University of Iowa, American Studies
- Resource Type
- Book
- DOI
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040948.001.0001
- ISBN
- 9780252040948
- Publisher
- University of Illinois Press
- Number of pages
- x, 213 pages
- Date published
- 2017
- Academic Unit
- American Studies; School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Record Identifier
- 9984273953902771
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