Spectacular Bodies : Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema.

By: Tasker, YvonneMaterial type: TextTextSeries: Comedia SerPublisher: London : Routledge, 1993Copyright date: ©1993Edition: 1st edDescription: 1 online resource (215 pages)Content type: text Media type: computer Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9780203221846Subject(s): Action and adventure films -- United States | Machismo in motion pictures | Sex role in motion pictures | Strong men in motion picturesGenre/Form: Electronic books.Additional physical formats: Print version:: Spectacular Bodies : Gender, Genre and the Action CinemaDDC classification: 791.43653 LOC classification: PN1995.9.S697 -- T37 1993ebOnline resources: Click to View
Contents:
Front Cover -- Spectacular Bodies -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of plates -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Gender and the action cinema -- 1. Women Warriors: Gender, Sexuality and Hollywood's Fighting heroines -- 2. Black Buddies and White Heroes: Racial discourse in the action cinema -- 3. New Hollywood, Genre and the Action Cinema -- 4. Tough Guys and Wise-Guys: Masculinities and star Images in the action cinema -- 5. Masculinity, Politics and National Identity -- 6. The Body in Crisis or The body Triumphant? -- 7. Action Heroines in the 1980s: The limits of 'musculinity' -- 8. The Cinema as Experience: Kathryn Bigelow and the cinema of spectacle -- Notes -- Filmography -- Bibliography -- Index.
Summary: While films such as Rambo, Thelma and Louise and Basic Instinct have operated as major points of cultural reference in recent years, popular action cinema remains neglected within contemporary film criticism. Spectacular Bodies unravels the complexities and pleasures of a genre often dismissed as `obvious' in both its pleasure and its politics, arguing that these controversial films should be analysed and understood within a cinematic as well as a political context. Yvonne Tasker argues that today's action cinema not only responds to the shifts in gendered, sexual and racial identities which took place during the 1980s, but reflects the influences of other media such as the new video culture. Her detailed discussion of the homoeroticism surrounding the muscleman hero, the symbolic centrality of blackness within the crime narrative, and the changing status of women within the genre, addresses the constitution of these identities through the shifting categories of gender, class, race, sex, sexuality and nation. Spectacular Bodies also examines the ambivalence of supposedly secure categories of popular cinema, questioning the existing terms of film criticism in this area and addressing the complex pleasures of this neglected form.
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Front Cover -- Spectacular Bodies -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of plates -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Gender and the action cinema -- 1. Women Warriors: Gender, Sexuality and Hollywood's Fighting heroines -- 2. Black Buddies and White Heroes: Racial discourse in the action cinema -- 3. New Hollywood, Genre and the Action Cinema -- 4. Tough Guys and Wise-Guys: Masculinities and star Images in the action cinema -- 5. Masculinity, Politics and National Identity -- 6. The Body in Crisis or The body Triumphant? -- 7. Action Heroines in the 1980s: The limits of 'musculinity' -- 8. The Cinema as Experience: Kathryn Bigelow and the cinema of spectacle -- Notes -- Filmography -- Bibliography -- Index.

While films such as Rambo, Thelma and Louise and Basic Instinct have operated as major points of cultural reference in recent years, popular action cinema remains neglected within contemporary film criticism. Spectacular Bodies unravels the complexities and pleasures of a genre often dismissed as `obvious' in both its pleasure and its politics, arguing that these controversial films should be analysed and understood within a cinematic as well as a political context. Yvonne Tasker argues that today's action cinema not only responds to the shifts in gendered, sexual and racial identities which took place during the 1980s, but reflects the influences of other media such as the new video culture. Her detailed discussion of the homoeroticism surrounding the muscleman hero, the symbolic centrality of blackness within the crime narrative, and the changing status of women within the genre, addresses the constitution of these identities through the shifting categories of gender, class, race, sex, sexuality and nation. Spectacular Bodies also examines the ambivalence of supposedly secure categories of popular cinema, questioning the existing terms of film criticism in this area and addressing the complex pleasures of this neglected form.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

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