This article narrates the observations and analyses of a research team that conducted an ethnographic study of a city arena. The article describes observations, analyses, and reinterpretations of the most interesting event the team witnessed at the arena: a World Wrestling Federation (WWF) contest. Drawing on Bakhtin’s (1968) characterization of carnival, the team discusses multiple interpretations of WWF wrestling as a violent and grotesque spectacle that is coperformed by wrestlers and audience members. Inspired by Van Maanen’s Tales of the Field, the team tells this story incorporating elements of realist, confessional, impressionist, and critical tales.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1968). Rabelais and his world. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2.
Ball, M. R. (1990). Professional wrestling as ritual drama in American popular culture. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen.
3.
Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. NY: Hill and Wang.
4.
Bruffee, K. A. (1993). Collaborative learning: Higher education, interdependence, and the authority of knowledge. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
5.
Connell, R. W. (1990). An iron man: The body, and some contradictions of hegemonic masculinity. In M. A. Messner & D. F. Sabo (Eds.), Sport, men and the gender order: Critical feminist perspectives (pp. 83-95). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
6.
Fiske, J. (1987). Television culture. London: Methuen.
7.
Foucault, M. (1976). Discipline and punish (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Vintage.
8.
Gresson, A. D., III. (1998). Professional wrestling and youth culture: Teasing, taunting, and the containment of civility. In S. R. Steinberg & J. L. Kincheloe, (Eds.), Kinderculture: The corporate construction of childhood (pp. 165-179). Boulder, CO: Westview.
9.
Griffin, M. (1937). Fall guys: The Barnums of bounce. Chicago: Reilly and Lee.
10.
Hamm, M., & Adams, D. (1992). The collaborative dimensions of learning. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
11.
Haring-Smith, T. (1993). Learning together: An introduction to collaborative learning. New York: HarperCollins.
12.
Lunsford, A., & Ede, L. (1990). Singular texts/plural authors: Perspectives on collaborative writing. Urbana: Southern Illinois University Press.
13.
MacAloon, J. J. (1984). Olympic games and the theory of spectacle in modern societies. In J. J. MacAloon (Ed.), Rite, drama, festival, spectacle (pp. 241-280). Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.
14.
Messner, M. A. (1990). When bodies are weapons: Masculinity and violence in sport. International Review of Sport Sociology, 25, 203-219.
15.
Obenaus, D. A. (1994). The presentation of masculinity in WWF wrestling. Unpublished master’s thesis, California State University, Sacramento.
16.
Sabo, D. F., & Panepinto, J. (1990). Football ritual and the social reproduction of masculinity. In M. A. Messner & D. F. Sabo (Eds.), Sport, men, and the gender order: Critical feminist perspectives (pp. 115-126). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
17.
Stone, G. P., & Oldenburg, R. A. (1967). Wrestling. In R. Slovenko & J. A. Knight (Eds.), Motivations in play, games, and sports (pp. 503-532). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
18.
Trimbur, J. (1989). Consensus and difference in collaborative learning. College English, 5, 602-616.
19.
Trujillo, N. (1999). Teaching ethnography in the twenty-first century using collaborative learning. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 28, 705-719.
20.
Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
