Screening Images of American Masculinity in the Age of Postfeminism

Screening Images of American Masculinity in the Age of Postfeminism PDF Author: Elizabeth Abele
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498525830
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This collection of essays presents a sampling of film and television texts, interrogating images of U.S. masculinity. Rather than using “postfeminist” as a definition of contemporary feminism, this collection uses the term to designate the period from the late 1980s on—as a point when feminist thought gradually became more mainstream. The movies and TV series examined here have achieved a level of sustained attention, from critical acclaim, to mass appeal, to cult status. Instead of beginning with a set hypothesis on the effect of the feminist movement on images of masculinity on film and television, these chapters represent a range of responses, that demonstrate how the conversations within these texts about American masculinity are often open-ended, allowing both male characters and male viewers a wider range of options. Defining the relationship between U.S. masculinity and American feminist movements of the twentieth century is a complex undertaking. The essays collected for this volume engage prominent film and television texts that directly interrogate images of U.S. masculinity that have appeared since second-wave feminism. The contributors have chosen textual examples whose protagonists actively struggle with the conflicting messages about masculinity. These protagonists are more often works-in-progress, acknowledging the limits of their negotiations and self-actualization. These chapters also cover a wide range of genres and decades: from action and fantasy to dramas and romantic comedy, from the late 1970s to today. Taken together, the chapters of Screening Images of American Masculinity in the AgeofPostfeminism interrogate “the possible” screened in popular movies and television series, confronting the multiple and competing visions of masculinity not after or beyond feminism but, rather, in its very wake.

Screening Images of American Masculinity in the Age of Postfeminism

Screening Images of American Masculinity in the Age of Postfeminism PDF Author: Elizabeth Abele
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781498525848
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
The relationship between U.S. masculinity and American feminist movements of the twentieth century is complex. This collection engages with prominent film and television texts that directly interrogate images of U.S. masculinity that have appeared since second-wave feminism, acknowledging the limits of their negotiations and self-actualization.

Postfeminism and Contemporary Vampire Romance

Postfeminism and Contemporary Vampire Romance PDF Author: Lea Gerhards
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135021566X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
In this book, Lea Gerhards traces connections between three recent vampire romance series; the Twilight film series (2008-2012), The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017) and True Blood (2008-2014), exploring their tremendous discursive and ideological power in order to understand the cultural politics of these extremely popular texts. She uses contemporary vampire romance to examine postfeminist ideologies and discuss gender, sexuality, subjectivity, agency and the body. Discussing a range of conflicting meanings contained in the narratives, Gerhards critically looks genre's engagement with everyday sexism and violence against women, power relations in heterosexual relationships, sexual autonomy and pleasure, (self-) empowerment, and (self-) surveillance. She asks: Why are these genre texts so popular right now, what specific desires, issues and fears are addressed and negotiated by them, and what kinds of pleasures do they offer?

White Masculinity in Crisis in Hollywood’s Fin de Millennium Cinema

White Masculinity in Crisis in Hollywood’s Fin de Millennium Cinema PDF Author: Pete Deakin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498585205
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
This book claims that Hollywood cinema had a significant relationship with the millennial crisis of masculinity, as the films of the fin de millennium movement reflected the cultural discourse of concern over the crisis of masculinity through a dichotomous structure of either feminine or hyper-masculine representations of male identity.

Border Crossings and Mobilities on Screen

Border Crossings and Mobilities on Screen PDF Author: Ruxandra Trandafoiu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100060098X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Border Crossings and Mobilities on Screen explores the movement, fluidity and change characterizing contemporary life, as represented on screen media, from mobile devices, to television, film, computers, video art and advertising displays. People have never moved around more, and increasingly migration and mobility has come to shape both our understandings of ourselves, and the ways in which we interpret and mediate the world we live in. As people move, media plays a key role in shaping and reshaping identity and belonging, opening the doors to transnational and transcultural participation. Drawing on screen media case studies from around the world, this book demonstrates how screen mobilities reconfigure notions of space, place, network and border regimes. The increasing ease of consumption and production of media has allowed for an unprecedented fluidity and mobility of class, gender, sexuality, nation and transnation, individual freedoms and aspirations. Putting people at the core of the book, this book shows the many ways in which people are using screen media to create identity, participation and meaning. The rich picture built up over the many chapters of this interdisciplinary volume raise important questions about the nature of contemporary media experiences. At a time of great change in the ways in which people move and connect with each other, this book provides an important global snapshot for researchers across the fields of media, communication and screen studies; sociology of communication; global studies and transnationalism; cultural studies; culture and identity; digital cultures; travel, tourism and place.

Mediating Sexual Citizenship

Mediating Sexual Citizenship PDF Author: Anita Brady
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317961447
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Mediating Sexual Citizenship considers how the neoliberal imperatives of adaptation, improvement and transformation that inform the shifting artistic and industrial landscape of television are increasingly indexed to performed disruptions in the norms of sexuality and gender. Drawing on examples from a range of television genres (quality drama, reality television, talk shows, sitcoms) and outlets (network, cable, subscription video on demand), the analysis in this book demonstrates how, as one of the most dominant cultural technologies, television plays a critical role in the production, maintenance and potential reconfiguring of the social organisation of embodiment, be it within gender identities, kinship structures or the categorisation of sexual desire. It suggests that, in order to understand television’s role in producing gendered and sexual citizenship, we must pay critical attention to the significant shifts in how television is produced, broadcast and consumed.

The Modern Superhero in Film and Television

The Modern Superhero in Film and Television PDF Author: Jeffrey A. Brown
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317484517
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Hollywood’s live-action superhero films currently dominate the worldwide box-office, with the characters enjoying more notoriety through their feature film and television depictions than they have ever before. This book argues that this immense popularity reveals deep cultural concerns about politics, gender, ethnicity, patriotism and consumerism after the events of 9/11. Superheroes have long been agents of hegemony, fighting for abstract ideals of justice while overall perpetuating the American status quo. Yet at the same time, the book explores how the genre has also been utilized to question and critique these dominant cultural assumptions.

Fathers on Film

Fathers on Film PDF Author: Katie Barnett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350120863
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The father is an enduring and iconic figure in Hollywood cinema and in the 1990s, narratives of redemptive fatherhood featured prominently in some of the decade's most popular films like Kindergarten Cop (1990), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), Jurassic Park (1993) and The Lion King (1994). Interpreting such films through the lens of feminist and queer theory, along with masculinity studies and psychoanalysis, Katie Barnett offers an insightful and interdisciplinary discussion of cinematic fathers. Barnett reveals that the father figure is often portrayed as one that invests in and is part of a discourse of reproductive futurism. This plays out across a range of genres including rom-coms, fantasy, sci-fi, drama, and disaster. By exploring both blockbuster and more low-budget films of the 1990s, Barnett explores the figure of the father against the crisis of masculinity in the United States, and indeed more globally, at this time.

Gamergate and Anti-Feminism in the Digital Age

Gamergate and Anti-Feminism in the Digital Age PDF Author: Jessica O'Donnell
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031140575
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book provides an in-depth, feminist and sociological analysis of Gamergate, a major social movement and anti-feminist harassment campaign. Gamergate provides a clear example of both how a modern anti-feminist ‘backlash’ is enacted, and how feminists in the digital age respond. Chapters connect Gamergate to the broader Men’s Rights Activism (MRA) political movement, examining men’s anxieties surrounding what they see as an erosion of male privilege, their conflation of privilege with rights, as well as their use of social media to harass and attack women as a response to their perceived oppression. Likewise, the author analyses the online strategies used by feminists to respond to this backlash, how social media is harnessed to build a feminist movement, the effectiveness of these online strategies, and the parallels that these actions have with those from previous waves of feminism. Finally, the author reflects on what has changed with regards to MRA, online harassment, and digital feminism after the height of Gamergate. This book will be of interest to scholars in Gender Studies, Sociology, and Media Studies.

Gramsci and Media Literacy

Gramsci and Media Literacy PDF Author: Erika Engstrom
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793619867
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
This book offers a series of analyses of contemporary media texts that illustrate how Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony can inform approaches to media literacy.