Abstract
This essay interrogates journalistic accounts of Texas Western College’s 1966 college basketball championship, a game in which an all-Black team defeated an all-White team. The analysis traces the evolving portrayals of the game over 45 years. In 1966 American journalists did not emphasize the racial aspects of the game and it was largely forgotten. Twenty-five years later, however, journalists reconstructed the game as a racialized legend, and this account evolved into an epic American narrative. The author argues that the epic portrayals, although aesthetically appealing, reflect problems with accuracy, appropriation, and commercial exploitation. The latter factor led to the legend’s motion picture adaptation as part of a troublesome “White Savior” cinema genre.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 154-167 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Critical Studies in Media Communication |
Volume | 33 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 14 2016 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2016 National Communication Association.
Keywords
- Journalistic legends
- media spectacles
- social memory
- sports and race
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication