Contemporary Hollywood Masculinities Gender, Genre, and Politics

Contemporary Hollywood Masculinities traces changing concepts of masculinity in popular Hollywood blockbusters from 1992 to 2008 - the Clinton and Bush eras - against a backdrop of contemporary political events, social developments, and popular American myths. Kord and Krimmer investigate the most common male types - cops, killers, fathers, cowboys, superheroes, spies, soldiers, rogues, lovers, and losers. Their in-depth analyses of over sixty films, from The Matrix and Iron Man to Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lord of the Rings, from Wedding Crashers and Mr. & Mrs. Smith to War of the Worlds and The 40-Year Old Virgin, show that movies, far from being mere entertainment, respond directly to today's social and political realities, from consumerism to "family values" to the War on Terror.

Susanne Kord is Professor and Head of the Department of German at University College, London, UK. She is the author of six books and numerous articles on gender issues in literature and film and the co-author of Hollywood Divas, Indie Queens, and TV Heroines (2004).
Elisabeth Krimmer is Professor of German and Department Chair of German and Russian at University of California, Davis, USA. She has published numerous articles and books on gender and the representation of war and is co-author of Hollywood Divas, Indie Queens, and TV Heroines (2004).

1. Introduction
PART I: MEN IN TROUBLE
2. Lawlessness and Disorder: Cops and Other Serial Killers
3. Fathers, Crises, and Nations
4. Cowboys, Myths, and Audiences
PART II: REAL MEN?
5. Superheroes, Leadership, and the War on Terror
6. Spies, Paranoia, and Torture
7. Soldiers from World War II to Iraq
PART III: NEW MEN?
8. Rogues, Race, and Hegemony
9. Lovers: Men, Women, and Gender Equality
10. Losers, Meritocracy, and Identification
11. Conclusion