Millennial Masculinity: Men in Contemporary American Cinema ed. by Timothy Shary (review)
2015; Volume: 45; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1548-9922
Autores Tópico(s)Military history and social perspectives
ResumoMillennial Masculinity: Men in Contemporary American Cinema Timothy Shary, ed. Wayne State University Press, 2013. 367 pages; $29.95.Timothy Shary's edited volume provides a surprisingly thorough extension of recent scholarship addressing masculinity in film studies by examining films released during turn of recent century, from 1990-2012. Shary frames anthology as moving away from traditional takes on form and towards an investigation of sex and power but more broadly consider[ing] body over time in terms of other factors vital to corporeal imagery, such as dress, weight, and (8). Accordingly, chapters center on themes of performance, patriarchy, male sexual practice, and the crucial intersections between race and masculine identity (9). In my eyes, however, what is new, fresh, and vitally important about Shary's intervention is way that Millennial Masculinity grapples with cinematic representations of bodies and masculinity in a post-9/11 America.The text is separated into four movements with specified focuses. The first, Performing features chapters on Adam Sandler, Sean Penn's performance in Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008), and climactic scenes of gender performance in cop action films. The second, Patriarchal Problems, features chapters on Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999), Wes Anderson, Bringing Out Dead (Martin Scorcese, 1999), and family values of characters deemed psychos post-Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver's infamous main character). The third, Exceptional Sexualities, features chapters on Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005), Bromance films (specifically examining Wedding Crashers (David Dobson, 2005),), and queer potential of Philip Seymour Floffmann's bodily performances. Finally, Facing Race, features chapters on films of Spike Lee and John Singleton, Will Smith's performance in / Am Legend (Francis Lawrence, 2007, Neoretro Heist Film (of which Ocean's Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001) is key example), and Rush Flour franchise.While each chapter lays out an interesting argument regarding representations of masculinity in turn-of-the-century cinema, trying to chart out a solid body of text to which Millennial Masculinity as a whole is responding is somewhat difficult. Each of these sections provides important interventions that extend work of prior scholarship, with many of authors focusing their attentions on close readings of specific media works. Maria San Filippo's reading of Wedding Crashers, for example, draws parallels between Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn's performances in film to Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell's performances in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by engaging with foundational queer close reading of Alexander Doty.The body of work that each chapter is grappling with, however, is quite fractured in ways that are simultaneously productive and problematic to anthology as a whole. It is productive in that anthology covers an incredible amount of ground, trying to leave all pressing issues in field on table and addressed. It is problematic, too, though, because issues like Shary's explicit desire to address race, which he articulates clearly in his introduction, are only grappled with in chapters under that heading. While Shary writes that he made a dedicated effort to bring forth such analyses [of masculinity and race]... in book's final (12), and this final section certainly engages issues of race and masculinity in productive ways, he leaves important questions about race unaddressed elsewhere. How, for example, do issues of race get treated in our reading of Sean Penn as Harvey Milk? In Millennial Masculinity, they do not. Instead, text as a whole seems more concerned with questions of class, providing potent and thought provoking discussions regarding intersections of class and masculinity throughout all of its four sections. …
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