{"product_id":"the-world-of-lucha-libre-secrets-revelations-and-mexican-national-identity-9780822342328","title":"The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets  Revelations  and Mexican National Identity","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe World of Lucha Libre is an insiders account of lucha libre  the popular Mexican form of professional wrestling. Heather Levi spent more than a year immersed in the world of wrestling in Mexico City. Not only did she observe live events and interview wrestlers  referees  officials  promoters  and reporters; she also apprenticed with a retired luchador (wrestler). Drawing on her insiders perspective  she explores lucha libre as a cultural performance  an occupational subculture  and a set of symbols that circulate through Mexican culture and politics. Levi argues that the broad appeal of lucha libre lies in its capacity to stage contradictions at the heart of Mexican national identity: between the rural and the urban  tradition and modernity  ritual and parody  machismo and feminism  politics and spectacle. Levi considers lucha libre in light of scholarship about sport  modernization  and the formation of the Mexican nation-state  and in connection to professional wrestling in the United States. She examines the role of secrecy in wrestling  the relationship between wrestlers and the characters they embody  and the meanings of the masks worn by luchadors. She discusses male wrestlers who perform masculine roles  those who cross-dress and perform feminine roles  and female wrestlers who wrestle each other. Investigating the relationship between lucha libre and the mass media  she highlights the history of the sports engagement with television: it was televised briefly in the early 1950s  but not again until 1991. Finally  Levi traces the circulation of lucha libre symbols in avant-garde artistic movements and its appropriation in left-wing political discourse. The World of Lucha Libre shows how a sport imported from the United States in the 1930s came to be an iconic symbol of Mexican cultural authenticity.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45666346795061,"sku":"ByrdShop_0822342324","price":34.59,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780822342328.jpg?v=1782429078","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-world-of-lucha-libre-secrets-revelations-and-mexican-national-identity-9780822342328","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}