Are You Not Entertained?
Author | : Lindsay Steenberg |
Publisher | : Bloomsbury Publishing |
Total Pages | : 320 |
Release | : 2020-10-29 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781350120068 |
ISBN-13 | : 1350120065 |
Rating | : 4/5 (68 Downloads) |
Download or read book Are You Not Entertained? written by Lindsay Steenberg and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anglo-American culture is marked by a gladiatorial impulse: a deep cultural fascination in watching men fight each other. The gladiator is an archetypal character embodying this impulse and his brand of violent and eroticised masculinity has become a cultural shorthand that signals a transhistorical version of heroic masculinity. Frequently the gladiator or celebrity fighter - from the amphitheatres of Rome to the octagon of the Ultimate Fighting Championships - is used as a way of insisting that a desire to fight, and to watch men fighting, is simply a part of our human nature. This book traces a cultural interest in stories about gladiators through twentieth and twenty-first-century film, television and videogames.