In the journal article The American Dream Goes to College: The Cinematic Student Athletes of College Football. The overall target audience is the college football and classic film enthusiasts. The author’s explains how college football really became popular in the 1920s and 1930s. They also describe how Hollywood’s influence on the sport, college, and the film industry changed peoples outlook on the sport. It is mentioned that all sports became popular in American culture because of World War 1, and the militaries noticing for the need for more physically fit men. They decided to implement high school athletics to prepare the young people’s bodies for the rigors of war in case of another draft. Militarism was debated against having athletics but it was ultimately decided to take the athletic route, because “Prussian” militarism was the exact thing they were fighting against. Between the 1920’s and 1930’s over 115 Hollywood movies would be released about athletics, more than any other time in history, of those 115, football was responsible for 89 of those films. The 1920s was deemed the Golden Age in sports, with most sports rising in popularity. Stars were made such as Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Ben Crenshaw, and Bill Tilden. American was in an era when athletics were rising in popularity more and more. And with the integrating of the highway systems and new stadiums it was becoming ever easier to access these sporting events. Football related material was increasing, in fiction and non-fiction stories, newspapers talked football and every Saturday the radios were tuned into the football games.
Hollywood noticed this paradigm shift and jumped on board, as mentioned earlier more football movies than ever were being released. And with only 16% of Americans actually attending college at that time, Hollywood ran with the idea in film. Where else could you find beautiful young athletic people, and to add to the setting love stories began to come forth in the films to draw in a greater audience. This also helped add to the popularity to college itself, any people have never been to college and didn’t understand what the college life was like. But now with the immergence of college based football films, Hollywood production companies could show case the greatness of the college life and all of its clichés. The Hollywood companies wrapped romance and athletics in an attractive marketing technique to draw in the casual viewer. This brought about unity between the college athlete and the coed. This idea real or fantasized by the general public and future college student helped shape the view of college itself.
The larger than life success of the major athletes brought about a new American Dream, now it could be considered the new Athletic American Dream, in which athletes were compensated greatly for the skills and achievement on the professional level. These “bottom to the top” stories inspired countless athletes to strive for the goal of becoming a professional athlete. It was a new way of living and a new way of climbing the social ladder. But because of Americans view of the social status, conflicts arose not only because of income but also because differences in social status’ that conflicted each other. The overall integrity of the college sport is questioned and made sure that money is not the motivating factor and that college was not associated with professionalism.
It was near World War 2 that the football movies began to weaken and the thought of the picture perfect lifestyle began to fade as the war claimed lives of young men. The rise in television after the war and televised professional sports helped Hollywood to lose its grip on the football movies. The movies that focused on class issues and amateur vs. professional lifestyle were never again.
The style of the writing was to me hard to follow they jumped between quotes and the author’s words so much it was hard to tell whose was whose writing. It seemed the majority of the paper was quotes. The main ideas are bounced around making it hard to keep track, the author goes from talking about amateur college football to baseball stars and other professional athletes almost immediately. The text was somewhat difficult to read because most of the writing was quotes and the quotes were from the early 1900s. The key idea I took from this article was how great college football became in the 1920’s and 1930’s, how this was the turning point for amateur athletics, the movie industry, and college itself.
References
The American Dream Goes to College: The Cinematic Student Athletes of College Football.Detail Only Available MILLER, ANDREW C., Journal of Popular Culture Dec2010, Vol. 43 Issue 6, p1222 (English Abstract Available
