<i>Jim Thorpe – All American</i>: A Thin Hollywood Line of Truth?

Bauer, Thomas; Delsahut, Fabrice

doi:10.1080/09523367.2020.1828359

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…When discussing US sports film, it is difficult not to consider the contemporary literature in the field. Current research in this area focuses mainly on race-related themes (Descamps, Vivier, 2020;Pearson et al, 2019), including on Native American population (Bauer, Delsahut, 2020;Bauer et al, 2021;Durbin, 2020;Green, 2017), however, it concerns older productions. Such continuous search for personal, community and nation-level identity is characteristic in the case of research of sports-related American film culture.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral and Existential Dilemmas in American Sports Feature Films of 2019–2020

Drzewiecki¹

2021

Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Contemporary sports films discuss various moral and existential themes. They present how athletes struggle with their own weaknesses and also motivate the audience to excel not only in the physical dimension but also spiritually. This is particularly clear in contemporary US sports cinematography. Eight American sports feature films from 2019-2020 were selected for this analysis. Most of them are dramas, three are based on biographical plots -Safety (directed by Reginald Hudlin), Brian Banks (by Tom Shadyac) and The Brawler (by Ken Kushner), and one explicitly refers to religious faith -Overcomer by Alex Kendrick. This study uses the method of film analysis where films are regarded according to Grzegorz Łęcicki's concept of media message, with particular focus on ethical issues. The analysis posed three questions: 1) how do the events depicted in film narration relate to historical facts? 2) how are the existential struggles of the athletes captured in the symbolic message, 3) what moral dilemmas do the athletes experience? Above all, the researchers searched for Christian references relevant to American film culture, both directly and naturalized in semiotic and narrative references. As a result, the study succeeded in establishing the main categories of contemporary sports moral and existential dilemmas from a religious perspective. The thesis on Christian inspirations of contemporary American sports cinema has been confirmed.

show abstract