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The Dark Carnival: the Construction and Performance of Race in American Professional Wrestling

Porter, Nicholas James
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1308331340

Abstract Details

2011, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, Popular Culture.
The aim of this thesis was to analyze the presence of race in American professional wrestling. Wrestling is a performance form, and draws much of its inspiration from the culture of the American nation. It reflects cultural trends through its wrestlers, who portray characters designed to appeal to a mass audience. However, its predetermined or “scripted” nature implies a huge degree of control on the part of its producers. Everything in wrestling is a pre-meditated and as such representations of cultural issues such as race can be interrogated for the cultural mentality that lies behind them. My interest falls in investigating how race was and is displayed within wrestling, and how the performance today addresses this complex matter in an increasingly multicultural American audience. An underlying theme is that the construction and depiction of racial wrestlers is the result, or avoidance of, of crucial changes in the wider American culture. The actual formation of wrestling characters—and the negotiations non-white wrestlers have to make between their racial identities and the nature of the characters they portray—is a recurring theme that I believe vital to a deeper analysis of the subject. The focus of my thesis is a chronological one. I begin with wrestling’s emergence and development between 1870 and 1920; its establishment as a white-dominated sport; and the presence of a few select individuals who challenged the prevalent racial hierarchy of the period. I next progress to the arrival of wrestling on regional television between 1948, and analyze the development of racial wrestling characters on television through to 1983. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the period 1983 to the present, when wrestling has become established as a national entertainment presence and non-white wrestlers perform before a vast national audience. iii My conclusions are that American wrestling, as a field that draws heavily on its cultural surrounds, must reflect the evolutions in American race relations. The necessity of presenting valid multidimensional non-white characters is essential for wrestling to continue to evolve as a cultural form relevant to its changing cultural surrounds.
Montana Miller, PhD (Committee Chair)
Dalton Jones, PhD (Committee Member)
Kristen Rudisill, PhD (Committee Member)
125 p.
American Studies; Ethnic Studies; Performing Arts; Personality
race; professional wrestling; performance; stereotyping; masculinity

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Porter, N. J. (2011). The Dark Carnival: the Construction and Performance of Race in American Professional Wrestling [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1308331340

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Porter, Nicholas. The Dark Carnival: the Construction and Performance of Race in American Professional Wrestling. 2011. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1308331340.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Porter, Nicholas. "The Dark Carnival: the Construction and Performance of Race in American Professional Wrestling." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1308331340

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1308331340
3,162
© 2011, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.