Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America"When the Prussian-born Eugen Sandow, an international vaudeville star and bodybuilder, toured the United States in the 1890s, Florenz Ziegfeld cannily presented him as the "perfect man," representing both an ancient ideal of manhood and a modern commodity extolling self-development and self-fulfillment. With Harry Houdini, the dream of escape was literally embodied in spectacular performances in which he triumphed over every kind of threat to masculine integrity - bondage, imprisonment, insanity, and death. Then, when Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan swung from tree to tree and into the public eye in 1912, the fantasy of a perfect white Anglo-Saxon male was taken further, escaping the confines of civilization but reasserting its values, beating his chest and bellowing his triumph to the world. Kasson's liberally illustrated and persuasively argued study analyzes the themes linking these figures and places them in their rich historical and cultural context. |
Other editions - View all
Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge ... John F. Kasson No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
Adonis adventures All-Story American Apes appeared audience bodybuilding Boston brother Burroughs's career Carolina at Chapel century challenges Chapel Hill Chicago chimpanzees City civilization claimed clipping cultural death dini display Dixey drama Edgar Rice Burroughs Ehrich Weiss Eltinge escape artist Eugen Sandow father feats figure Garner gender gorillas handcuffs Harry Houdini Harvard human Ibid ideal inches intentionally left blank Ishi Julian Eltinge Knowles later Library of Congress locked magazine magic magician male body manhood manly Margery masculine ment Metamorphosis Michigan Military Academy modern muscles naked Napoleon Sarony National Police Gazette never newspaper nude offered onstage perfect performance physical played police popular Porges prison pulp magazines quoted San Francisco San Francisco Examiner Sandow's body Sargent Silverman spectators spirit spiritualist story straitjacket escapes strength strongman success Sullivan Tarzan theater Theodore Roosevelt tion trick University of North University Press vaudeville wild women wrote York