Abstract
Professional wrestling exists in a unique liminal, space. Despite the fact that performances produced and scripted, the performers themselves are required to use super-heroic feats of athleticism to protect one another and tell complex, often epic stories. And while there’s a long list of highly skilled professional wrestling performers, few were able to connect with audiences like the legendary Dusty Rhodes. When Dusty Rhodes died in 2015, Dave Zirin, the author of A People’s History of Sports in the United States, wrote that Dusty was a point of “unity in [the] post-Jim Crow south [of the] 70s-80s,” arguing that despite the fact that professional wrestling was a misunderstood and maligned performance style, Dusty was able to communicate across boundaries of race and class. This paper examines how Dusty Rhodes, aka The American Dream, transcended the conventions of his disposable, populist genre to capitalize on a consistent media presence and develop an identity that obliterated barriers between race and class, ultimately serving as a critical tool to examine the inequities of American identity.
Presenters
James DavisAssociate Professor, Theatre & Performance Studies, Kennesaw State University, Georgia, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Sporting Cultures and Identities
KEYWORDS
Professional Wrestling, Identity, Performance
