Masculinity, Cultural Constructions, and Sports

Introduction to Critical Masculinity Theory

"When they treat you bad, you just got to take care of your pride, no matter what."

-- Satchel Paige

"Boxing is for men, and is about men, and is men.

A celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for being lost."

--- Joyce Carol Oates, On Boxing

How is sports a mirror of society?

How can sports be a mechanism to improve society?

Accessing Prior Knowledge: Films with Sports Themes around Masculinity

A Replication Study---

Representations of Gender in Media Sports Texts:

Your group will survey of television and other screen sports media texts. Together, you will devise a study that is comparable to the data sample that Messner, et al conducted (2 hours of Sports Center on ESPN, 90 minutes of Extreme sports on Fox and ESPN, 2 hours of professional boxing [or other sport that falls outside the top four of baseball, basketball, football, and hockey], 2 playoff games of basketball, 2 broadcasts of football, 1 broadcast of baseball). Messner’s researchers totaled 23 hours of sports programming, “nearly one quarter of which was time taken up by commercials” (76).

Each student in your group will choose one television sport text to view. After viewing your text, compare your findings against the “Televised Manhood Formula” that the Messner research group found. Because your presentation must be multimodal (at least three of the following four modalities: visual, audio, digital, print), you must create some type of electronic presentation [suggestions = compose directly on your Google website; Windows Movie; Pinterest; Prezi, etc.] that you will project and narrate from the Web. You will receive an individual grade.