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Introduction
Ann Hollander has argued most successfully that there is a relationship between the cut of clothes and concepts of the ideal body, and that the body ideal changes as fashions change (84-87). Although football uniforms are not daily dress, they have been the costume of heroes idolized by young boys and grown men alike as the embodiment of American manhood in the middle of the twentieth century. It can be argued that the evolution of the high tech protective armor worn under the uniform created an exaggerated image of male musculature, particularly in the years from World War II through the 1980s. This silhouette has exerted a relentless pressure on the ideal form of the unadorned male body. This pressure can also be discerned in recent fashion trends.
To be sure, not all men are sports fans. Martin and Koda make a persuasive case for a set of options from which men can choose to define their personal style (7-9). The preeminent choice they offer is between the look of the "Jock" and the "Nerd." They present the recent rehabilitation of the fashion image of the Nerd as a backlash against the ultra-macho Jock notion of manhood. Even with this alternative, the relentless images of muscular bodies presented by the media must be difficult for any man to ignore completely.
Football has been described as the ultimate expression of manly skill and aggressiveness, a metaphor for male roles and social relationships. In the introduction to a history of the National Football League, football is described as a "symbolic war":
Professional football is basically a physical assault by one team upon another in a desperate fight for land. Most people see themselves as the sum of their possessions-I am what I own. The most basic possession, land, is the issue in football and the most basic weapon, the body, is the means of acquiring it. It is a game of physical dominance; the weak are punished unmercifully and the unskilled are run off the field. So much of a man's personality is at stake that the game becomes a fanatical crusade." (The First Fifty Years)
There are several possible reasons why football rose in importance by the midpoint of this century. Social scientists have made...