Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film

by Aaron Baker

Since the earliest days of the silent era, American filmmakers have been drawn to the visual spectacles 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. Baker shows that even as sports films tackle socially constructed identities such as class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, they ultimately underscore transcendence of these identities through self-reliance. In addition to discussing the genre's recurring dramatic tropes, 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.

176 pages, Paperback

First published February 26, 2003