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Date Permissions Signed
8-2019
Date of Award
Summer 2019
Document Type
Masters Thesis
Department or Program Affiliation
History
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
First Advisor
Seltz, Jennifer
Second Advisor
Takagi, Midori, 1962-
Third Advisor
Cerretti, Josh
Abstract
This thesis examines pre-classical and transitional cinema’s boxing films from 1893-1915 alongside the arc of World Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson’s career, a career that was oftentimes captured on film. My aim is to demonstrate ways in which cinema was used by white filmmakers to perpetuate and reproduce a sense of visual knowing on behalf of audiences regarding a racial hierarchy on cinema screens and perpetuate the myth of white masculine superiority over African Americans through the visuals of male bodies in the boxing ring. With this thesis, I hope to expand critical understandings of white mythmaking in cinema that preceded the release of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation in 1915.
Type
Text
Keywords
World Heavyweight Champion, boxing, prizefighting, prizefights, white hope, color line, cinema, Thomas Edison, D.W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation
Publisher
Western Washington University
OCLC Number
1121642995
Subjects – Names (LCNAF)
Johnson, Jack, 1878-1946; Jeffries, James J., 1875-1953
Subject – LCSH
Boxing films--United States--History and criticism; Racism--United States--History and criticism; African American boxers--History and criticism; African Americans in motion pictures
Geographic Coverage
United States
Format
application/pdf
Genre/Form
masters theses
Language
English
Rights
Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this thesis for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author's written permission.
Recommended Citation
Carter, Siobhan Marie Chaney, "Projecting a white savior, the body, and policy: pre-classical and transitional cinema's boxing films in the United States 1893-1915" (2019). WWU Graduate School Collection. 911.
https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet/911