Title: Muscle Beach and the History of Bodybuilding in America
Speaker：Florian Freitag（Professor at University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany）
Time：November 12, 2021, 15:00 to 16:30
ZOOM：2573998249（code：D##U55）
Organizer: School of Foreign Studies, Jilin University
Introduction to Speaker:
Florian Freitag received his PhD from U Konstanz in 2011 and has been a professor of American Studies at U Duisburg-Essen since 2019. Freitag is the author of The Farm Novel in North America (Camden House 2013) and Popular New Orleans (Routledge 2021); his other work has appeared in Canadian Literature, American Literary Naturalism, and The Journal of Popular Culture.
Introduction to Lecture:
Today, Muscle Beach is mostly known as an outdoor gym in Venice, California, from where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s international bodybuilding career took off in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By that time, however, the original Muscle Beach a few miles up the coast in Santa Monica had already been closed for almost a decade. Established in the 1930s by a group of gymnastics enthusiasts seeking to get ready for the 1932 LA Summer Olympics, Muscle Beach quickly became a meeting point for all sorts of people – men and women, young and old, able-bodied and ailing, white and non-white, professionals and amateurs, locals and visitors – who were interested in all sorts of athletics, all sorts of ways to shape the human body, and all sorts of aspects of healthy living. Due to its proximity to Hollywood, Muscle Beach developed into a springboard for professional stuntmen, fitness models, movie stars, and television hosts; while the place itself became synonymous with the California dream and its promise of sunshine, fun, health, and the good life.
This talk will trace the history of the original Muscle Beach, sketch the profiles of some “Muscle Beachers” who would go on to become (inter)nationally known stars, and glimpse at the representation of Muscle Beach and its tenants in popular culture, from cartoons and movies to songs and photography.
