Hollywood Genres and Post-war America Masculinity, Family and Nation in Popular Movies and Film Noir

by Chopra-Gant, Mike

• ISBN13: 9781850438151
• ISBN10: 1850438153
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-08
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

American culture after the end of World War II has been characterized by an abiding pessimism most clearly manifested in the film noirs of the period. Mike Chopra-Gant challenges this "noir and Zeitgeist" reading and proposes that the view of American cinema and society it develops relies on a retrospective re-imagining of the era, based on the erroneous promotion of selected movies. His vigorous revisionist account of the films and culture of the period also challenges traditional approaches to genre, to masculinity and the family, by focusing on key themes in the most popular films in terms of box office revenues, including Best Years of Our Lives , Night and Day , Scarlet Street and Gilda .

Author Biography

Mike Chopra-Grant is Lecturer in Cultural Studies at London Metropolitan University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of tables
List of figures
Introduction: Movies, Genre and Zeitgeist	1	(25)
Film noir and the Zeitgeist	2	(5)
Intellectualism and middlebrow culture	7	(4)
Re-thinking Zeitgeist	11	(1)
Defining the popular	11	(5)
What about the rest of the forties?	16	(5)
What's genre got to do with it	21	(5)
Re-invigorating the nation: popular films and American national identity	26	(39)
Cinderellas of the services	28	(5)
The myth of classlessness	33	(13)
Land of opportunity	46	(9)
Modernizing the American hero	55	(2)
American-ness and immigrant identities	57	(8)
The troubled postwar family: ``moms'' and absent fathers	65	(30)
The absent father	66	(12)
The pleasures of fatherhood	78	(4)
Momism	82	(13)
Performing postwar masculinities	95	(26)
Soldier to civilian: masculinity and performativity	98	(9)
Staging masculinities: performativity and genre	107	(4)
Stars and performance	111	(10)
Military service and male companionship	121	(54)
The all-male group	122	(8)
Military service and self ``improvement''	130	(3)
Buddies	133	(6)
Male friendship, mature masculinity and patriarchal continuity	139	(7)
Popular films and ``tough'' movies	146	(3)
Noir and Nation	149	(11)
Social status and the veteran experience	149	(3)
Class and democracy	152	(4)
The noir hero	156	(2)
Noir and the melting pot	158	(2)
Noir and the family	160	(4)
The absent father of film noir	161	(2)
``Mom'' and the femme fatale	163	(1)
Noir masculinities and performance	164	(3)
Noir and male companionship	167	(8)
The noir male group	168	(2)
Noir buddies	170	(2)
Noir and patriarchal continuity	172	(3)
Genre and History	175	(14)
Problems with ``the popular''	183	(6)
Notes	189	(5)
Bibliography	194	(21)
Index	215