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"Mixed martial arts stars like Amanda Nunes, Zhang Weili, and Ronda Rousey have made female athletes top draws in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Jennifer McClearen charts how the promotion incorporates women into its far-flung media ventures and investigates the complexities surrounding female inclusion. On the one hand, the undeniable popularity of cards headlined by women add much-needed diversity to the sporting landscape. On the other, the UFC leverages an illusion of promoting difference-whether gender, racial, ethnic, or sexual-to grow its empire with an inexpensive and expendable pool of female fighters. McClearen illuminates how the UFC's half-hearted efforts at representation generate profit and cultural cachet while covering up the fact it exploits women of color, lesbians, gender non-conforming women, and others. Thought provoking and timely, Fighting Visibility tells the story of how a sports entertainment phenomenon made difference a part of its brand-and the ways women paid the price for success"--
List of contents
Cover
TItle
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Visibility and Differences in the UFO
1. Developing a Millennial Sports Media Brand
2. Affect and the Rousey Effect
3. Gendering the American Dream
4. The Labor of Visibility on Social Media
5. The Fight for Labor Equity
Coda: On Love and Violence
Appendix A. Publicly Available UFC Payouts, 2015-2018
Appendix B. Publicly Available UFC Payouts by Gender and Race, 2015-2018
Notes
References
Index
Back cover
About the author
Jennifer McClearen is an assistant professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin.
