Extra-Ordinary Men White Heterosexual Masculinity and Contemporary Popular Cinema

by Rehling, Nicola

• ISBN13: 9780739124826
• ISBN10: 073912482X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-02-16
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

Extra-Ordinary Men analyzes popular cinematic representations of white heterosexual masculinity as the "ordinary" form of male identity, one that enjoys considerable economic, social, political, and representational strength. Nicola Rehling argues that while this normative position affords white heterosexual masculinity ideological and political dominance, such "ordinariness" also engenders the anxiety that it is a depthless, vacuous, and unstable identity. At a time when the neutrality of white heterosexual masculinity has been challenged by identity politics, this insightful volume offers lucid accounts of contemporary theoretical debates on masculinity in popular cinema, and explores the strategies deployed in popular films to reassert white heterosexual male hegemony through detailed readings of films as diverse as Fight Club, Boys Don't Cry, and The Matrix. Accessible to undergraduates, but also of interest to film scholars, the book makes a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the ways in which popular film helps construct and maintain many unexamined assumptions about masculinity, gender, race, and sexuality. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Nicola Rehling currently teaches film and literature courses at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
The Politics of the "White Male as Victim"
Losing Ground: Representations of White Male Disenfranchisement in Anglo-American Popular Cinema	p. 23
Literalizing the Wound: Paternal Melodramas, Masochism, and White Heterosexual Masculinity in Popular U.S. Cinema	p. 55
Coming Apart at the Seams? White Heterosexual Masculinity and the Body in Popular Cinema
Fleshing Out White Heterosexual Masculinity: The Objectified and Commodified White Male Body	p. 85
Terminal Bodies and Cartesian Trips: White Heterosexual Masculinity in Cyberfantasies	p. 115
Queering White Heterosexual Masculinity: Cross-Dressing and Transgender-Cinema	p. 137
White Skin, Black Masks? Male "Wiggers" in Contemporary Popular Cinema	p. 167
Marking White Male Violence: The Gangster and the Serial Killer
White Male Violence in Quentin Tarantino's Gangster Films	p. 203
Everyman and No Man: White Masculinity in Contemporary Serial Killer Movies	p. 227
Afterword	p. 249
Bibliography	p. 255
Select Filmography	p. 271
Index	p. 273
About the Author	p. 281
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