Uploaded October 2010 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
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Not Just A Game: Power, Politics & American Sports
A Film by the Media Education Foundation
Featuring Dave Zirin
We've been brought up to believe that sports and politics don't mix -- that games are games and athletes should just "shut up and play." In the view of iconoclastic sportswriter Dave Zirin, this mentality cheapens both. In Not Just a Game, Zirin shows that far from providing merely escapist entertainment, sports have also reflected, and at times played a role in shaping, the political tensions and social struggles at the heart of American society. The film takes an uncompromising look at how sports culture has glamorized militarism, commercialism, racism, sexism, and homophobia. But it also excavates a largely forgotten tradition of rebel athletes and sports writers to show how American sports culture, at its best, has modeled forms of courage, resistance, and perseverance that have enriched American life.
Dave Zirin
Named one of the UTNE Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World," Dave Zirin writes about the politics of sports for The Nation and is host of Sirius XM Radio's popular weekly show Edge of Sports Radio. Press Action's 2005 and 2006 Sportswriter of the Year, he is a columnist for SLAM, The Progressive, and a regular op-ed writer for the Los Angeles Times. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, New York Newsday, the Baltimore Sun, the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Pittsburgh Courier, The Source, and numerous other publications.
Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports and What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States. His newest book release, A People's History of Sports in the United States, is part of Howard Zinn's People's History series for the New Press.
Zirin has appeared on ESPN's Outside the Lines, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, ESPN Classic, MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNN's The Campbell Brown Show, MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, Comcast Sports Network's Washington Post Live, Al-Jazeera's The Riz Khan Show, C-SPAN's BookTV, and Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. He has also been on numerous national radio programs including National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered; Air America's 'On the Real' with Chuck D; The Laura Flanders Show; ESPN Radio; Stars and Stripes Radio; The Joe Madison Show; Pacifica's Hard Knock Radio, and others.
mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=151
Not Just A Game: Power, Politics & American Sports
A Film by the Media Education Foundation
Featuring Dave Zirin
We've been brought up to believe that sports and politics don't mix -- that games are games and athletes should just "shut up and play." In the view of iconoclastic sportswriter Dave Zirin, this mentality cheapens both. In Not Just a Game, Zirin shows that far from providing merely escapist entertainment, sports have also reflected, and at times played a role in shaping, the political tensions and social struggles at the heart of American society. The film takes an uncompromising look at how sports culture has glamorized militarism, commercialism, racism, sexism, and homophobia. But it also excavates a largely forgotten tradition of rebel athletes and sports writers to show how American sports culture, at its best, has modeled forms of courage, resistance, and perseverance that have enriched American life.
Dave Zirin
Named one of the UTNE Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World," Dave Zirin writes about the politics of sports for The Nation and is host of Sirius XM Radio's popular weekly show Edge of Sports Radio. Press Action's 2005 and 2006 Sportswriter of the Year, he is a columnist for SLAM, The Progressive, and a regular op-ed writer for the Los Angeles Times. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, New York Newsday, the Baltimore Sun, the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Pittsburgh Courier, The Source, and numerous other publications.
Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports and What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States. His newest book release, A People's History of Sports in the United States, is part of Howard Zinn's People's History series for the New Press.
Zirin has appeared on ESPN's Outside the Lines, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, ESPN Classic, MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNN's The Campbell Brown Show, MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, Comcast Sports Network's Washington Post Live, Al-Jazeera's The Riz Khan Show, C-SPAN's BookTV, and Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. He has also been on numerous national radio programs including National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered; Air America's 'On the Real' with Chuck D; The Laura Flanders Show; ESPN Radio; Stars and Stripes Radio; The Joe Madison Show; Pacifica's Hard Knock Radio, and others.
![Sexual Assault: A Lecture by Anne Munch [Clip]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JXycGbjq3YM/mqdefault.jpg "Sexual Assault: A Lecture by Anne Munch [Clip]
Now Available on DVD
http://www.mediaed.org
Sexual Assault
Naming the Unnamed Conspirator
In this provocative presentation, career prosecutor Anne Munch examines how societal attitudes influence legal cases involving sexual assault. Drawing on her experience prosecuting sex crimes, Munch demonstrates how rape cases frequently turn on the involvement of what she calls an unnamed conspirator the complex of myths and stories we tell ourselves as a culture about sex, gender, power, and responsibility. Using examples from real cases, and harrowing evidence from actual 911 calls, Munch shows how the assumptions that juries bring into the courtroom often stack the odds against victims, and challenges us to question how our own assumptions might reinforce victim-blaming. The result is at once a stunning look inside our criminal justice system and a cutting analysis of American cultures warped views of womens sexuality.
About Anne Munch
Anne Munch is an attorney with twenty-two years of experience as a career prosecutor and advocate for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. As a subject matter expert for the United States Air Force, the United States Army, and the United States Navy, Ms. Munch has worked extensively on the development of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response programs in the military.
Ms. Munch attended the University of Denver for her undergraduate and graduate studies and received a BA in psychology and sociology, and then her law degree.
Following law school Ms. Munch spent seven years as a prosecutor for the Denver District Attorneys office including a rotation in the felony domestic violence and sexual assault unit. She also spent two years as the Chief Deputy District Attorney for the 7th Judicial District in Telluride, Colorado, and two years as the supervisor of the fast track domestic violence unit in the Jefferson County DAs office in Golden, Colorado.
In addition to her work as a prosecutor, Ms. Munch was the director of the San Miguel Resource Center, a domestic violence and sexual assault program the Telluride, Colorado. She also directed the Ending Violence Against Women Project, a statewide multi-disciplinary training and technical assistance project in Colorado for nine years.
Currently, Ms. Munch is the owner of Anne Munch Consulting, Inc. and works full time providing speaking, training and consulting in the area of sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking. She provides her services to local, national, and military organizations all across the United States, Europe, and also in Asia. She is on the teaching faculty for the National Judicial Education Program and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.")
