Contemporary Masculinities in Fiction, Film and Television

by Baker, Brian

• ISBN13: 9781501320095
• ISBN10: 1501320092
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2016-07-28
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

While masculinity has been an increasingly visible field of study within several disciplines (sociology, literary studies, cultural studies, film and tv) over the last two decades, it is surprising that analysis of contemporary representations of the first part of the century has yet to emerge. Professor Brian Baker, evolving from his previous work Masculinities in Fiction and Film: Representing Men in Popular Genres 1945-2000, intervenes to rectify the scholarship in the field to produce a wide-ranging, readable text that deals with films and other texts produced since the year 2000. Focusing on representations of masculinity in cinema, popular fiction and television from the period 2000-2010, he argues that dominant forms of masculinity in Britain and the United States have become increasingly informed by anxiety, trauma and loss, and this has resulted in both narratives that reflect that trauma and others which attempt to return to a more complete and heroic form of masculinity. While focusing on a range of popular genres, such as Bond films, war movies, science fiction and the Gothic, the work places close analyses of individual films and texts in their cultural and historical contexts, arguing for the importance of these popular fictions in diagnosing how contemporary Britain and the United States understand themselves and their changing role in the world through the representation of men, fully recognising the issues of race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, and age. Baker draws upon current work in mobility studies and in the study of masculinities to produce the first book-length comparative study of masculinity in popular culture of the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Author Biography

Brian Baker is a Lecturer in English at Lancaster University, UK. He has published Iain Sinclair (2007) and has written numerous articles and book chapters on the study and teaching of masculinities in literature and popular film.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I: narratives of power
1. Gallivanting round the world
2. Masters and Commanders
3. American hearts of darkness
4. The Special Relationship

Part II: science fiction
5. The enclave and the border
6. Dystopia and the post-apocalyptic scene
7. Alien Nations
8. Everybody Runs
9. Annihilations

Part III: gothic/ horror/ the fantastic
10. Tape Spectra
11. Orpheus Descending
12. Lecter
13. The Angels and the Damned

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index