Is It Fitness Culture Or Propaganda?
What visual fitness culture wants us to believe about America
The world has been on fire for a long time, literally and figuratively. There are concurrent global genocides, climate-engendered wildfires, and currently, ICE is terrorizing immigrants in L.A. We must support organizations like the Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights (CHIRLA), which provide essential legal services and advocacy for immigrants.
If you’re more of a frontline girlie and are planning to protest, be safe and extra careful. Check out the ACLU’s Protesters’ Rights before you head out to exercise your right to assemble.
In today’s post:
QTNA Beauty & Pop Culture Questions
The Full Beat Is It Fitness Culture Or Propaganda? What visual fitness culture wants us to believe about America
Why is this Floridian following Zohran Mamdani’s race for mayoral candidacy in New York? Despite the growing horrors of the world, Mamdani’s success feels like the exact kind of political shift our country needs. Mamdani’s stances on free childcare and transit, a desire to see Gaza free, and a plan to tax the rich have led his opponents to label him “revolutionary.” I can’t imagine anything we need more than a revolutionary response to the white supremacist and Christian nationalist tyranny suffocating us. Go Mamdani, go.
Didn’t I say there was going to be a rise in tradwife content that wants to be “cool”? Yes, because I’m always right. I’m annoyed that this article doesn’t explicitly mention race and income in its discussion of rising interest in far-right ideology. Identifying who can afford to make the choice to be indoctrinated by Charlie Kirk and his brigade matters. Unsurprisingly, the vibe of the conference and this overly sympathetic article is “young women should opt out of higher education and focus on getting married, becoming a homemaker, and raising as many children as possible.” 🍅🍅🍅
What are your Juneteenth plans? Mine are to do nothing. These past few weeks have been insane: wisdom teeth removal, the flu, food poisoning, co-hosting an 85-person family reunion out of town, and launching a social club have worn me out. I’m using the day off to rest, and I hope you have the opportunity to do the same.
Is It Fitness Culture Or Propaganda? What visual fitness culture wants us to believe about America
During a St. Denis Medical binge, a commercial for American Ninja Warrior flashed across my screen, and it reeked of propaganda. There's something uniquely insidious about how the U.S. markets fitness as a stand-in for “American.” Teary-eyed and muscular white men are shorthand for America's false vision of itself as a strong and able nation.1
But we are more like Steve Rogers than Captain America. Before he became Captain America, Rogers is poor, frail, sickly, and a service reject. Once he is given the Super Soldier Serum, as part of a top-secret military experiment, he becomes the character we revere. And, in this moment of dwindling democracy, shows like this project a false image of America and the citizens that make up its body.
The commercial tells viewers that it is a show about the best of America, mostly white, mostly men, all incredibly fit, proving through their bodies that anything is possible with grit and self-determination. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson argues that the body plays a “crucial role in this paradoxical ideology of self-determination” in the U.S. What's more American than physical strength?
U.S. fitness culture online a microcosm of our collective lack of control over the state of our nation. Fitness looks like force, obsession, and an insistence that “health” must be hard-earned despite accessible options. Videos of mostly white men shelling out thousands of dollars to be yelled at until they become physically strong “alphas” are a manifestation of the manosphere plaguing our digital experiences. For these men, fitness and health are requirements in their pursuit of true masculinity, and it is only vaguely shrouded in flowery language about health and wellness.
There’s been an uptick in videos of women doing “two-a-days” on my FYP, going from pickleball to pilates, sipping green juice as they hide out from the evils of the world in pastel pink studios. For these women, fitness and health are requirements in the ever-evolving pursuit of beauty, a currency that still cashes even when the world is on fire. The safety of workout classes in rooms full of other women is also a reflection of the increasingly lonely and scary world outside cycle studio walls.
By uploading our workouts and hot girl walks are we participating in the very American belief that our bodies are a reflection of the health of the nation? Has our indoctrination been so successful that we aren’t aware of our participation in the construction of an image of a fit and able nation? Or, are we just exerting control over our bodies as the world descends into chaos?
A general view of workout media discounts shrinking privileges like free time, gym access, and accessibility as factors in its possibility. Increasingly, I am confident that the truth of our national instability has opened our eyes collectively. Such an awareness makes it easier to identify where our personal choice ends and where our participation in the construction of a Strong America begins.
American Ninja, Alpha Fitness Camps, and obsessive digital fitness culture speak to American Exceptionalism, that what we see on screens is the best of us. But this is a mirage. We are unwell, unhealthy, and unfit.
It’s not lost on me that the early iterations of this show were from Japan, but were popularized by an American cult following. That also tracks.