Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Friday Night Heroes: Small-Town Wrestling in Tennessee

Friday Night Heroes: Small-Town Wrestling in Tennessee SC 11.3-Shay 7/19/05 10:54 AM Page 62 SC 11.3-Shay 7/19/05 10:54 AM Page 63     ...................... Friday Night Heroes Small-Town Wrestling in Tennessee by Joseph Shay In local auditoriums, national guard armories, gyms, and bars, people gather to watch epic battles between heroes and villains. These are regular working people, waitresses and factory workers, farmers and mechanics, retail clerks, young and old, all seeking a release from the mundane routines of life, present to witness a spectacle at times shocking and repulsive, at other moments truly comedic and falsely tragic in its performance. I remember my first trip to a wrestling match as an adult, sitting in my chair and wondering if and when and what to photograph. The crowd was at a fever pitch, seemingly waiting for an excuse to tear something apart. Would it be me? Would my camera provoke the crowd’s hostility? The wrestlers themselves seemed to be parodies of the human body, in some cases more and in some cases less than human. Some marched around with more muscles than one would think necessary for any human, while others walked with equal confidence in bodies of more untoned mass than is healthy http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Southern Cultures University of North Carolina Press

Friday Night Heroes: Small-Town Wrestling in Tennessee

Southern Cultures , Volume 11 (3) – Aug 29, 2005

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/friday-night-heroes-small-town-wrestling-in-tennessee-9xIKcest85

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Center for the Study of the American South.
ISSN
1534-1488

Abstract

SC 11.3-Shay 7/19/05 10:54 AM Page 62 SC 11.3-Shay 7/19/05 10:54 AM Page 63     ...................... Friday Night Heroes Small-Town Wrestling in Tennessee by Joseph Shay In local auditoriums, national guard armories, gyms, and bars, people gather to watch epic battles between heroes and villains. These are regular working people, waitresses and factory workers, farmers and mechanics, retail clerks, young and old, all seeking a release from the mundane routines of life, present to witness a spectacle at times shocking and repulsive, at other moments truly comedic and falsely tragic in its performance. I remember my first trip to a wrestling match as an adult, sitting in my chair and wondering if and when and what to photograph. The crowd was at a fever pitch, seemingly waiting for an excuse to tear something apart. Would it be me? Would my camera provoke the crowd’s hostility? The wrestlers themselves seemed to be parodies of the human body, in some cases more and in some cases less than human. Some marched around with more muscles than one would think necessary for any human, while others walked with equal confidence in bodies of more untoned mass than is healthy

Journal

Southern CulturesUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Aug 29, 2005

There are no references for this article.