Boobie Miles: Failure and Friday Night Lights

Abstract

This essay examines the sporting failures and racial iconicity of James “Boobie” Miles, whose athletic performance of defeat on the gridiron is chronicled in H. G. Bissinger’s bestselling nonfiction book Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, A Dream (1990), Peter Berg’s film adaptation Friday Night Lights (2004), and Big K.R.I.T.’s songs and music videos “Hometown Hero” from his album K.R.I.T. Wuz Here (2010) and “Boobie Miles” from his album 4eva N a Day (2012). Examining how the film displaces defeat, locating its effects and affects in the injured running back, I unpack the ways (Black) popular culture reclaims Boobie’s embodied failures on screen as a site of rhetorical agency and oppositional theorizing.