Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Necessary Signifier: The Adaptation Of Robinson's Body-Image In "The Jackie Robinson Story", Alessandra Raengo

Communication Faculty Publications

The essay singles out The Jackie Robinson Story, as an iconophiliac adaptation driven by the authorizing and authenticating presence of Robinson's body on screen, which functions as both the ‘source material’ and its ‘adaptation’. It argues that the film needs to be appreciated within a larger nexus of texts indicated as ‘The Jackie Robinson Story,’ revealing a larger process of embodiment of the integration drama grafted onto Robinson’s body-image in the years preceding and following the release of the film. Read in the context of Robinson’s presence in post World War II visual culture as emblem of the successful …