Today (h. 14.30/18) I gave the talk Black Athletes Matter. Sport, devianza e rappresentazioni mediali degli atleti afroamericani [Black Athletes Matter. Sport, deviance and media representations of African American athletes], at the third and last meeting of the seminar Filmologia, Comunicazione e Sociologia dello Sport [Filmology, Communication and Sociology of Sport], whose theme was Devianza e integrazione [Deviance and Integration]. I talked with Matteo Cardinali (University of Perugia), Isabella Corvino (University of Perugia), Vincenzo Del Gaudio (University of Salerno), Eduardo Lubrano (journalist), Giuseppe Albeggiani (manager).
The seminar was organized by the University of Perugia (Department of Medicine, Degree Course in Science and Techniques of Motor Activity).
It was an excellent opportunity to describe how, until the 1980s and 1990s, American White society, in many cases, followed strategies of medial construction of deviance for black professional athletes. In addition, I analyzed the film He Got Game (1998) as an attempt to revise dominant cultural discourses regarding the deviance of black athletes: rather than focusing on reinforcing racial stereotypes associated with individual bias, director Spike Lee highlights the social and economic roots of deviant behavior.
MARIO TIRINO 