Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
White Masculinity in Crisis in Hollywood's Fin de Millennium Cinema
by Pete Deakin
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
White Masculinity in Crisis in Hollywood’s Fin de Millennium Cinema claims that Hollywood cinema had a significant relationship with the millennial crisis of masculinity. From Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) and American Psycho (Harron, 2000), to Office Space (Judge, 1999), The Matrix (Wachowski’s, 1999) and American Beauty (Mendes, 1999), Pete Deakin attests that alongside the emergent “crisis” came a definitive body of some twenty-five Hollywood “crisis” titles; each film with a representational concern for the apparent “masculine malaise”. Asking whether Hollywood helped create, propel or sooth the very notion of the crisis-of-masculinity at this time, Deakin engages with some important cultural questions: how discursive—or even authentic—was it, and more vitally, whose actual crisis was this? To this end, scholars of film studies, media studies, gender studies, history, and sociology will find this book particularly useful.
About the Author:
Pete Deakin is lecturer of film studies at the University of Salford.
Press Reviews:
Film historians recognize 1999 as an exceptional year in American cinema. Deakin (Univ. of Salford) argues that 1999 was also the year in which contemporary anxiety over American masculinity exploded on the screen. Deakin takes 25 American films made from early 1999 to mid 2000 and discusses how they contributed to the dialogue about masculinity. The main focus is on Fight Club, American Beauty, American Psycho, The Matrix,and Office Space. Deakin explores how this body of film interacted with popular nonfiction of the era, e.g., Susan Faludi’s Stiffed (1999) and Robert Bly’s Iron John (1990).He describes the films as "fin de millennium white masculinity-in-crisis cinema" and argues that they capitalize on contemporary anxiety, "mourning the death of the so-called ‘traditional’ masculine figure" while still trying to sell a product—the masculine figure of the film and its ancillary materials (p.119). The men in these films are aesthetes and anti-capitalists, yet they need money and material possessions to reclaim their supposed natural manhood. Deakin delivers a fascinating. . . analysis. Perhaps the best critique is that of American Psycho, which problematizes the relationship between American manhood and consumer culture at its extreme. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
― Choice Reviews
Near century’s end, society was abuzz with the crisis of masculinity. For film critics, the curtain was falling on the tough guys of the silver screen—no more Dirty Harrys, Raging Bulls, or Officers and Gentlemen. Pete Deakin deftly shows how Hollywood navigated the 1999 box office by selling nostalgia, stoicism, and conservativism. Read this book to understand more about politics, media, culture, and the relationship between "real men" and "reel men." -- Matthew W. Hughey, University of Connecticut; author of White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race
A readable and timely book well grounded in screen studies and masculinity theory. -- Julian Wood, The University of Sydney
See the publisher website: Lexington Books
> On a related topic:
Gender and Genre in 1990s Hollywood (2024)
Challenging Definitions of Sex, Women, and Femininity
Subject: Sociology
American Masculinities in Contemporary Documentary Film (2024)
Up Close Behind the Mask
by Sara Martín
Subject: Genre > Documentary
Sexualised Masculinity (2025)
Men's Bodies in 21st Century Media Culture
by John Mercer and Clarissa Smith
Subject: Sociology
Clicas (2024)
Gender, Sexuality, and Struggle in Latina/o/x Gang Literature and Film
by Frank García
Subject: Sociology
Back
