Heroism and Gender in War Films

Filmic constructions of war heroism have a profound impact on public perceptions of conflicts. In this book, contributors examine the ways motifs of gender and heroism in war films are used to justify specific ideological positions, shape the understanding of the past and current military conflicts, support political agendas and institutions, and influence collective memory. Using a variety of methods and models, they explore how the films create heroes/heroines and propagate them in diverse cinematic forms by establishing male heroism in combat and portraying the heroism of women in non-combat situations but in a context of war.

Karen A. Ritzenhoff is Professor of Communication and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Central Connecticut State University, USA.
 
Jakub Kazecki is Assistant Professor in the Department of German and Russian Studies at Bates College, USA.

Preface; Anna Froula
Introduction; Karen A. Ritzenhoff and Jakub Kazecki
PART I: HISTORICAL LEADERS AND CELEBRITIES: THEIR ROLE IN MYTHMAKING IN THE CINEMA
1. Mary Pickford's WWI Patriotism: A Feminine Approach to Wartime Mythical Americanness; Clémentine Tholas-Disset
2. The Reluctant Hero: Negotiating War Memory with Modern-Day Myths in Passchendaele (2008); Janis L. Goldie
3. A Hero or a Villain, a Terrorist or a Liberator? The Filmic Representations of Gavrilo Princip since the Late 1960s; Tara Karajica
PART II: HOLLYWOOD'S WAR MYTHS IN THE 1940S AND 1950S
4. No Women! Only Brothers: Propaganda, Studio Politics, and The Fighting 69th (1940); Rochelle Sara Miller
5. The Postwar Anxiety of the American Pin-up: William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); Lesley C. Pleasant PART III: IDEOLOGIES, NATIONALITY, AND WAR MEMORY
6. Germany's Heroic Victims: The Cinematic Redemption of the Wehrmacht Soldier on the Eastern Fronter; Brian E. Crim
7. Balls and Bullets: A People's Humor as an Aesthetic Stratagem in Golpe de Estadio (1998); Claudia Aburto Guzmán
8. From Saviors to Rapists: G.I.s, Women, and Children in Korean War Films; Hye Seung Chung
PART IV: MEN, WOMEN, AND TRAUMA: HEROES AND ANTI-HEROES
9. "I Don't Know How She Lives with this Kitchen the Way It Is:" Military Heroism, Gender, and Race in Brothers (2004 and 2009); Debra White-Stanley
10. The Gendered Geometry of War in Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (2008); Janet S. Robinson 11. Rebel Tributes and Tyrannical Regimes: Myth and Spectacle in The Hunger Games (2010); Jessica Wells
12. Mulan (1998) and Hua Mulan (2009): National Myth and Trans-Cultural Intertextuality; Jinhua Li PART V: HISTORICAL REALITY, AUTHENTICITY OF EXPERIENCE, AND CINEMATIC REPRESENTATION
13. 'What Shall the History Books Read?' Quentin Tarantino's Basterdized Histories and Corporeal Inscriptions; Tiel Lundy
14. There's Something About Maya: On Being/Becoming a Heroine and the 'War on Terror'; Charles-Antoine Courcoux