Academic Resources: Research Tools
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Databases: Films Database
Fit: Episodes in the History of the Body
- Topics: history of American attitudes toward the body, through the first half of the 20th century
- Brief Summary: This essay explores, exposes and explodes the extensive cultural roots of America's fitness fanaticism. Narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Linda Hunt, FIT combines startling archival images and detailed research to chart the development of American attitudes toward, and definitions of, physical fitness. As the film examines the history of physical fitness in the U.S., it uncovers larger truths about American society, using exercise as a lens to reveal how our culture's hopes, fears and anxieties are inseparable from our experience of our bodies.
- Date of Release: 1991
- Methods: historical, film footage and commentary
- Length: 74 min
- Where was it produced/filmed & in what language: U.S., English
- Where to get it: Straight Ahead Pictures
