Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre FilmsIn Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films, Barry Keith Grant questions the idea that Hollywood movies reflect moments of crisis in the dominant image of masculinity. Arguing instead that part of the mythic function of genre movies is to offer audiences an ongoing dialogue on issues of gender, Grant explores a wide range of genre films, including comedies, musicals, horror, science fiction, westerns, teen movies, and action films. In ten chapters arranged chronologically according to the films discussed, Grant provides a series of close analyses of such disparate films such as Broken Blossoms, The Fatal Glass of Beer, Red River, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Night of the Living Dead, and The Hurt Locker to demonstrate that representations of masculinity in the movies involve a continuous process of ideological testing and negotiation. While some of the films considered offer important challenges to dominant representations of masculinity, others reveal an acceptance or capitulation to them. Always attentive to the details of individual film texts, Grant also places the genre films he discusses within their historical contexts and the broader contexts and traditions of popular culture that inform them, including literature, theater, and music. Scholars of film and television studies as well as readers interested in gender studies will appreciate Shadows of Doubt. |
Contents
W C Fields Groucho Marx and the Emasculation of the American Comic Tradition | |
Howard Hawkss Red River Professionalism and the Western | |
The Classic Hollywood Musical Male Desire and the Problem of Rock n Roll | |
Shtick Meets Teenpic in The Delicate Delinquent | |
Black Masculinity in The Cool World | |
Science Fiction Gender and 2001 A Space Odyssey | |
Other editions - View all
Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films Barry Keith Grant Limited preview - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
action film Anka auteur Barbara becomes Bowman Broken Blossoms Burrows camera chapter characters Charlie Cheng climax comedy comic conventional Cool World critics D. W. Griffith Damon Delicate Delinquent depiction director documentary Duke Duke’s Dunson Durgnat example Fatal Glass female Fields’s Film Genre film’s filmmaker Ford’s Frederick Wiseman frontier gangster gender genre films genre movies genre’s Gish Griffith Groucho Hawks’s Hawksian hero Hollywood cinema horror films Howard Hawks ideology Jerry Lewis John Kathryn Bigelow Kubrick Lewis’s Living Dead Lucy male man’s masculine identity Matt metaphor narrative Night novel patriarchal phallic physical popular culture professional Red River representation Robin Wood rock music Romero Sarris says scene Screenplay sexual shot social space star story Strange Days style suggests Sydney Sydney’s teen idol traditional University Press vampire viewer violence visual W. C. Fields wagon train Wayne western Wiseman woman women York youth yuppie yuppie horror films zombie