NFL Films and the re-production of Pro Football

Abstract

The choreographed work of NFL Films in their first documentary, They Call It Pro Football (1966), offers a fitting case study in which to examine the construction and promotion of pro football in the 1960s. Using techniques of textual analysis and social/cultural historiography, I investigate the representational dynamics of pro football in this film. In order to explicate the ideological, sociological, historical, and cultural significance of the film before, during, and after its release, I describe the emergence in the twentieth century of pro football and television, proffer the view that televisual texts perform cultural and political work and are open to multitudinous readings, apply the theory that gender is socially constructed and performed, and draw upon the concept of “emotional branding.”