Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling

The antagonists–oiled, shaved, pierced, and tattooed; the glaring lights; the pounding music; the shouting crowd: professional wrestling is at once spectacle, sport, and business. Steel Chair to the Head provides a multifaceted look at the popular phenomenon of pro wrestling. The contributors combine critical rigor with a deep appreciation of wrestling as a unique cultural form, the latest in a long line of over the top performance genres. They examine wrestling as it happens in the ring, and is experienced in the stands, portrayed on television, and discussed in online chat rooms. In the process, they reveal wrestling as an expression of the contradictions and struggles inherent in American culture. The essayists include scholars from anthropology, psychology, film studies, communication studies, and sociology; one used to wrestle professionally as Professor Oral Payne. Classic examinations of wrestling by Roland Barthes, Carlos Monsivais, Sharon Mazer, and Henry Jenkins appear alongside original essays. Whether exploring how pro wrestling manipulates racial representations, tropes of masculinity, and concepts of reality and authenticity; how female fans express their enthusiasm for male wrestlers online; or how Mexico’s lucha libre style of wrestling provides a kind of social commentary, Steel Chair to the Head gives due respect to pro wrestling by treating it with the same thorough attention usually reserved for more conventional forms of cultural expression. Contributors Douglas L. Battema Sue Clerc Laurence DeGaris Henry Jenkins Henry Jenkins IV Heather Levi Sharon Mazer Lucia Rahilly Catherine Salmon Nicholas Sammond Phillip Serrato