Steel chair to the head : the pleasure and pain of professional wrestling /

Including both new and reprinted material, this collection includes the work of writers of both sexes (who frequently quote each other) and provides readers with a deeper understanding of professional wrestling than heretofore available in the academic literature. The perspective is largely one of cultural studies, which accounts for the occasionally obtuse writing style; e.g., "Professional wrestling presents a totalizing worldview in which any representation of the real is reflexively suspect." This aside, the essays are insightful and look at the history and transitions of pro wrestling, female fans, masculinity, and race. Several excellent essays deal specifically with Latino wrestlers. Placed within the sociopolitical lineage of burlesque, vaudeville, and rock and roll, pro wrestling becomes a drama that constantly pushes the boundaries of what is permitted. Though readers will come away with few answers, they will have better insights into the culture of the sport. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. D. M. Furst San Jose State University

Why do millions of pro wrestling fans spend their Saturday nights watching well-oiled, muscled and costumed men performing in a well-rehearsed stage play in which the winner is decided days earlier? What attracts devotees to this sport? Editor Sammond and a host of academics answer these and many other questions, explaining what they think really goes on inside and outside that ring (for Sammond, professional wrestling resembles burlesque more than sport). The writers, including a professor who wrestled under the name Professor Oral Payne, examine diverse topics: wrestling as masculine melodrama, female wrestling and its fans, the finances of the World Wrestling Federation and more. In a now famous essay, the late cultural critic Roland Barthes contends that the wrestlers are like good and evil gods battling to achieve a form of justice fans can understand. Of course, the writers take the sport much too seriously, exalting it as a cultural phenomenon whose mysteries can be uncovered by using the right academic jargon ("flesh-far from being the seed of meaning from which springs the signifying force of the wrestler, or the match, or wrestling itself-is but a node in a circuit of signification"). Regrettably, such language will limit this collection's audience. 31 b&w photos. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved