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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.

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