| Abstrakt: |
The bodies of African American heavyweight boxers are political objects, regardless of the individual athlete's public persona, personal opinion, or possible activism. The cultural history of American boxing in general, and of the heavyweight championship in particular, is so infused with racial conflict and protest that no individual athlete can exist outside of its grasp. This article investigates the politicization of the Black masculine body in American heavyweight boxing. We are interested in affect-targeting strategies to either stage athletes' bodies as political instruments or to downplay and muzzle the weaponization of their bodily presence for political ends. As the fighter's public image—and, therefore, the image of his body—is necessarily a mediated one, the article analyses the mediation and media representations of Black heavyweight champions in the context of the historical commodification and fungibility of African American bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
