Academic Resources: film database
Name of film: 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