Extra-Ordinary Men

White Heterosexual Masculinity and Contemporary Popular Cinema

By (author) Nicola Rehling

Not available to order

Publication date:

21 June 2010

Length of book:

292 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781461633426

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.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Part 2 The Politics of the "White Male as Victim"
Chapter 3 Losing Ground: Representations of White Male Disenfranchisement in Anglo-American Popular Cinema
Chapter 4 Literalizing the Wound: Paternal Melodramas, Masochism, and the White Heterosexual Masculinity in Popular U.S. Cinema
Part 5 Coming Apart at the Seams? White Heterosexual Masculinity and the Body in Popular Cinema
Chapter 6 Fleshing Out White Heterosexual Masculinity: The Objectified and Commodified White Male Body
Chapter 7 Terminal Bodies and Cartesian Trips: White Heterosexual Masculinity in Virtual Reality Fantasy Cinema
Chapter 8 Queering White Heterosexual Masculinity: Cross-Dressing and Transgender Cinema
Chapter 9 White Skin, Black Masks? Male Wiggers in Contemporary Popular Cinema
Part 10 Marking White Male Violence: The Gangster and the Serial Killer
Chapter 11 White Male Violence in Quentin Tarantino's Gangster Films
Chapter 12 Everyman and No Man: White Masculinity in Contemporary Serial Killer Movies
Chapter 13 Afterword

This volume's major strength is the author's remarkable knowledge of the theory and debates of those working in cultural studies. Her discussion of Quentin Tarantino takes the overhyped director to task, and her take on his gangster films and their incorporation of black masculinity stands as some of the finest work on the filmmaker. Recommended.