by OrinStarn (Author)
Perhaps the best golfer ever, Tiger Woods rocketed to the top of a once whites-only sport. Endorsements made him a global brand and the world's richest athlete. The child of a multiracial marriage, Woods and his blond, blue-eyed wife, Elin Nordegren, seemed to represent a new postracial America. Then, in late 2009, Woods became embroiled in a sex scandal that made headlines worldwide. In this concise yet far-reaching analysis, Orin Starn brings an anthropologist's perspective to bear on Tigergate. He explores our modern media obsession with celebrity scandals and their tawdry ritualized drama, yet he offers much more than the usual banal moralizing about the rich and famous. Starn explains how Tiger's travails and the culture of golf reflect broader American anxieties-about race and sex, scapegoating and betrayal, and the role of the sports hero. The Passion of Tiger Woods is required reading for all those interested in the high-stakes world of professional golf, the politics of sports and celebrity, and the myths and realities surrounding the flawed yet riveting figure who remains among the most famous athletes of our time.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 25 Feb 2012
ISBN 10: 0822352109
ISBN 13: 9780822352105
Book Overview: This short and lively book examines the career and meaning of Tiger Woods, from child star to global sports celebrity, and up through his subsequent downfall. Starn begins by looking at the place of golf in American life for its ordinary players and as a site for complex histories of gender, race, and class. He discusses the changes Tiger made in the game and the difference his outsized global success seemed to have made in the culture at large. Starn shows that while the celebrity scandal following the revelation of Tiger's infidelities was like many similar media-generated scandals of recent years, by examining the way Woods was seen afterwards, we can learn a lot about race and sex in contemporary America.
Orin Starn is Professor and Chair of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. He is the author of Nightwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes and a co-editor of The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics, both also published by Duke University Press. His most recent book is the award-winning Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last Wild Indian. An avid golfer with a five handicap, Starn has written about golf for the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers and provided commentary on ESPN and NPR. He blogs about golf at golfpolitics.blogspot.com and regularly teaches a course about sports and society.