Handling pressures: analysing touch in American films about youth sport

Abstract

This paper examines how films produced in the USA in the past 10 years and featuring the coaching of youth sport, represent the issue of touch during instruction and training. Touch in such films is figured in diverse ways ranging from pats of reassurance and hugs of congratulation to cuffs of disapprobation. Touch is also occasionally depicted differently, dependent upon the ethnicity and gender of the central characters in specific films. These distinctions are evaluated for what they reveal about the nuances of understandings of touch in film portrayals of sport education in American high schools. The difficulty of interpreting physical contact between coaches and athletes in these films, and what this reveals about the problem of policing touch in general in educational settings, is explored. Finally, the paper examines how the films expose the intricacy of tactile encounters in ways that challenge the judiciousness of risk-averse ‘no-touch’ policies and practices in sports coaching.

Keywords:

• Gender and touch
• Gesture
• Fear of touch
• Moral panic
• Physical education
• Sports coaching
• Sports films

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Heather Piper and the two anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this article for their valuable comments and insights.