In this she explores the tensions between surface gratifications (my word) and deeper psychological motivations. This prompts one of the few mentions of boxing popular culture when the words of one man prompt her to mention the film Fat City (p106) and apart from a mention of a Rocky (p110) poster that’s it for cultural references. I’ve not seen either yet I (2017) said this:
Boxing is a sport that has a long history of being illegal or involving illegality and continues to attract calls for its renewed criminalisation. Boxing’s home may now be in the USA but its original origins are in the UK. Even where it is legal, illegal versions still occur. Popular culture has continued to engage with both. Thus the Rocky (Avildsen, 1977) and multiple ongoing sequels lionises the brutality of the legal version and Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) the illegal - and illegality surrounds even the legitimate. Though a case might be made that sport is only the vehicle but the subject is actually masculinity - damaged and damaging.
Obviously I’d be hard pushed not to mention Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer somewhere or sneak in a lyric.
Back to the homosocial, even homoerotic, we find Deborah noting:
Interestingly, some men spoke of the boxing gym as they would a lover and discussed (without being aware) the sensual and erotic pull of pugilism: disclosing how the smell of sweat and the feel of skin contributes to the seduction of sport. (p106/7)
and offering these quotes from Baz and Sal (p107)
forget drugs, a good fight if the best buzz, up against the ropes toe to toe
it’s just you and him, puts you in a trance, like a form of dancing
She relates this to Lyng’s (1998) ‘edgework’. He uses the term ‘risky’ but she says ‘risqué’ and speaks of ‘preening and manly display’ and even the ‘carnivalesque’ (p107) which is all sounding very camp/very queer.
Goffman (1967:185) is cited on boxing being ‘where the action is’ and elsewhere extensively so feel I should mention Prof Liz Pike a sport sociologist with a keen interest in his work.
She touches on her gender as potential obstacle to becoming an insider noting her presence ‘perturbed’ some and others ignored her (p114). I really want a whole chapter on this wrestling with ethnography across gender.
On page 115 she does use the term ‘homosocial’ (no index entry) and she very much picks up on sexist and homophobic epithets, like ‘pussies’ and ‘bitches’, being used as means of dealing with the anxiety this induces in the men. And specifically mentions the men’s fear of becoming someone’s bitch and being ‘fucked’. She helpfully adds - in the sense of being beaten as opposed to penetrated. I disagree I think both a queer and psychoanalytic analysis would suggest this is exactly what they are psychically fearing.
In round 6 I mentioned ‘religion’ and on page 117 she does same in similar vein plus ‘salvation from crime’ (p123).
She quotes Woodward (2004:7) that ‘boxing invokes hegemonic masculinity’ and I must disagree with his monolithic non-nuanced take on hegemony, a crude reduction. The ‘gangster’ contends with ‘the boxer’ for dominance in this milieu and as Deborah’s work shows this may even play out in the lives of the men in the narratives they use to construct their lives show.
Baz (p127) started boxing in jail and Ricky and he agree it kept them out. Prison gets mentioned periodically but I’d like to know her opinion on boxing in prison. She’s for boxing but not blind to its problems how about in prison?
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