Full Description
With essays ranging in topic from the films of Neil LaBute to the sexual politics of Major League Baseball, this diverse collection of essays examines the multi-faceted media images of contemporary masculinity from a variety of perspectives and academic disciplines. The book's first half focuses on the issue of racialized masculinity and its various manifestations, with essays covering, among other topics, the re-imagining of Asian American masculinity in Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow and the ever-present image of black male buffoonery in the neo-minstrel performances of VH1's Flavor of Love. The book's second half explores the issue of contemporary mediated performance and the cultural politics of masculinity, with essays focusing on popular media representations of men in a variety of gendered roles, from homemakers and househusbands to valorous war heroes and athletic demigods.
Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
PART I: RACIALIZED MEDIATED PERFORMANCE AND CONTEMPORARY MASCULINITY
1. The Dilemma of the Italian American Male
Marc DiPaolo
2. Patrick Bateman as "Average White Male" in American Psycho
Daniel Mudie Cunningham
3. Ambivalence, Desire and the Re-Imagining of Asian American Masculinity in Better Luck Tomorrow
Ruthann Lee
4. The Black Interior, Reparations and African American Masculinity in The Wiz
Jesse Scott
5. Flavor of Love and the Rise of Neo-Minstrelsy on Reality Television
Valerie Palmer-Mehta and Alina Haliliuc
6. Jungle Fever: Bold, Beautiful and Unnecessarily Maligned
Daryl A. Carter
7. Celebrity Culture and Racial Masculinities: The Case of Will Smith
David Magill
PART II: CONTEMPORARY MEDIATED PERFORMANCE AND THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF MASCULINITY
8. Constructions of Mathematical Masculinities in Popular Culture
Marie-Pierre Moreau, Heather Mendick and Debbie Epstein
9. Killing Off White Hegemonic Masculinity in Indian Killer
Jane E. Rose
10. Narrative's Role in Constructing Masculinities in We Were Soldiers
Bradley Smith
11. Masculinity and Domesticity in A Home at the End of the World and Househusband
Helena Wahlstrom
12. Anxious Male Domesticity and Gender Troubled Corrections
Kristin Jacobson
13. Neil LaBute's Bodies in Question
Marc Shaw
14. O.J. Simpson: Tabloidized, Sexualized, Racialized and Largely Despised
Elwood Watson
15. Major League Baseball and the Cultural Politics of Sexuality
Rachelle Sussman
About the Contributors
Index
